Dear Lilliana, 

Everytning depends of what does a particular person need. If he / she wants to keep the welfare of the intellectual / emotional  functionning for many future years may try actively participate in scientific networks such as RG, Mendeley, Academia.edu, etc. and there take an active part in discussions, learn various things from read papers in an informal way.

If someone needs further stimulation and occurrence of actual FTF contacts - can choose the popular movement in the world of Universities of the Third Age or any formal courses for seniors offered by colleges. I would recommend this concepts of LLL as well as selfstudy and sharing experiences and knowledge, which is also rewarding. 

Can you give examples where people stop learning for the rest of their lives?

Dear Lilliana, 

Everytning depends of what does a particular person need. If he / she wants to keep the welfare of the intellectual / emotional  functionning for many future years may try actively participate in scientific networks such as RG, Mendeley, Academia.edu, etc. and there take an active part in discussions, learn various things from read papers in an informal way.

If someone needs further stimulation and occurrence of actual FTF contacts - can choose the popular movement in the world of Universities of the Third Age or any formal courses for seniors offered by colleges. I would recommend this concepts of LLL as well as selfstudy and sharing experiences and knowledge, which is also rewarding. 

Like always, very intelligent questioning Marcel.

Dear Marcel, you are a humorist! Actually I mean something more systematic than the haphazard daily life. Thank you for asking me for more precision. By informal I mean non-institutional... but maybe likewise rigorous... I edited my question, Marcel.

Warm regards, Lilliana

In a curiosity-driven system, people might rapidly and systematically switch from one topic to the next, right? E.g. You read a book on extraterrestrial life on day/week 1, and then you read a book on Darwinian adaptation on day 2/week 2, .....

Dear Marcel, 

Dead bodies do not learn themselves anymore despite they learn. Besides Moliere said something about being dead however still alive. 

Well, Marcel, that is the story of my life. This is a sort of autobiographical question. But I usually read much more than one book on a topic, and then change the subject.  Most of my friends are like that. After PhDs, we have keep up with our discipline and then set in any number of directions. It is fun, but the fact is that, after one reaches a PhD, discipline is part of one's personality. What about those who like to learn but stopped at their BAs or just high school and do not know how to go about serious learning by themselves? There are so many brilliant people without a university education!

Warm regards, Lilliana

Lilliana,

I am jealous. You always seem to come up with a good question. Bravo!

To me, the motivation to learn (e.g. seek knowledge) usually is instilled in a person from an early age. However, I have seen ordinary people suddenly acquire a passion for a subject and seek to learn as much as they can about it. Someone once said that knowledge is a drug, the more you learn, the more you want to learn.

One secret to learning is to never get in a rut, which can be said about many things in life. Subscribe to professional journals. Subscribe to a journal that is just outside your area of expertise and then make yourself "catch up" with what they are talking about. Think about how you can improve professionally, then take steps to do so. Join a discussion group, think tank, research group.

When I was co-supervisor for a large archaeological field crew in Florida years ago, I was amazed at the number of degreed archaeologists working under me on a long-term project who had no knowledge of the cultural periods in the region, much less what kind of artifacts they were likely to find. Not only that, but they did not care to learn. They already had their degree, so why should they put forth any more effort learning about cultures for a job that would only last two year before they moved on to another job, another region, another part of the world.

This is the same attitude I see in today's graduates from many different professions. The "I've done my time learning" syndrome. To be fair, though, I think every generation has graduates that stop to "play brain dead" for a while: more intent on building their careers than continuing their education. Unfortunately, many of these get in a rut and stay there.

Years ago in French class I met a 78 year old man who was auditing the class. There were whispers...rumors...talk. The next semester he was in my Cultural Resources Management class. His story - he was a retired engineer with a PhD from a backwoods community. His wife had died many years before and to pass the time he had started auditing courses at the university - from ceramic classes, to French and Spanish, to biology, anthropology, and physics. It was said that, if he had not been auditing the courses, he would have something like 340 credit hours. That is a passion for learning.

Dear Liliana !

Yours is a question of utmost importance in every field of knowledge, and also quite modern, in regards of the recent "revolution / convulsion" of knowledge information, as provided by the internet and new informational technologies.

Thank you.

We need to adapt. As a Medical professional, I have always learnt the absolute importance of keeping my knowledge updated, at the risk of slowly loosing my ability to perform correctly in a non-stop evolving field of knowledge. But nowadays, I realise that the same also applies to most fields of scientific knowledge.

Dear Marcel, one cannot resist smiling at your initial question... But it very well resumes the main interest of Liliana's question:

Can you give examples where people stop learning for the rest of their lives?

Yes, quite unfortunately, I can, dear Marcel. For more than 50 years, in my Country, we had the greatest illiteracy rates in Europe. The Government promoted the legal obligation to attend school for the first 4 years of basic education. In order to apply for jobs, or even the military service, you had to exhibit your 4th grade diploma of instruction. 

Many from that generation of mandatorily "educated" people, could not afford to proceed their studies, nor to buy books, and stopped attending school as soon as they got that diploma. 

As I worked in the countryside, in the beginning of my career, I met a few old people from that generation who, although having learnt how to read and write, for the obtention of their diploma, soon forgot how to, because they could never afford to buy a single book, and never read a single line, after their diploma. 

This corresponds to a whole generation of new-illiterates resulting from the obtention of a mandatory legal diploma, followed by practical drop-out of education. 

I bring this example because it illustrates quite well the utmost necessity of life-long education that is needed in the modern world, as Liliana put so well.

As much as meeting some of these practical cases of illiteracy, shocked me and taught me the importance of permanent update of knowledge in every field and in any degree of Education

Life long learning is the professional requirements, as skills requirement are changing.

Don't be jealous, dear James. We are doing this together. :-)

Warm regards, Lilliana

Well, Marcel, I have university colleagues that have turned their knowledge into a heavy and unmovable rock, and even though they keep learning, they refuse to ackowledge it. It is a matter of pride. They feel that the honest thing to do is stand by their views and never swerve from their "beliefs". That is called being "conservative". It happens to a lot of people. Terrible, really.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Maria, James, I had the idea that this question would strike a personal chord in all of you. As educators, we are aware of when people decide to stop. It has always bewildered me how and why a person stops learning by sheer will. It takes a lot of effort to shut down your brain. Conservativisim is a plague.

Best regards, dear friends, Lilliana

Yes dear @Subhash. Skills!

Why 2016 Should Be the Year of Lifelong Learning?

"I have set specific goals that I want to achieve by the end of 2016. Many of these goals — like learning how to create and deliver webinars so I can share my knowledge directly with people around the world, or making video an integral part of my content marketing mix— will require learning new skills.

And learning these skills will require that I invest my spare time outside of work to study materials — books, podcasts, videos, online courses...

We’re incredibly fortunate to have more resources for learning new skills than ever before. On top of an abundance of free learning resources which you can find with a quick Google search, the quantity and quality of paid resources available today is astounding..."

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-2016-should-year-lifelong-learning-glenn-leibowitz?trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A577811291455909191393%2CVSRPtargetId%3A6087801148742385664%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name

Dear George, you are right about strong personalities. Mine is probably too strong. I keep pushing my students. I send them e-mails constantly with invitations to activities of all kinds. They are going to become architects in two or three years: they must be told they really have to become familiar with so many things that will have to do with designing a building. So I push and push and push hard. I take them everywhere I can. About a month ago, I decided not to go to the opening of an art exhibition I had described to them because I saw it while it was being assembled. I was too tired. The next day of class they were really angry because most of them went to the show and I was not there. I said, "But I was exhausted!" And one of them said, "But we thought you were going to share it with us like always!", And I said, "But its time you learn to like it by yourselves!", and one of the girls became impatient and said, "Ok! But we want to learn to talk about art, seeing art is not enough! We were there silent, being there was not enough... You had to be there, Lilliana!!!" [it's architecture school, and all of us call each other by our first names]. I was getting somewhat upset and told them, "But I have a lot of work to do, you guys! You push me too hard. I have other clases, I cannot be everywhere..." Silence... and finally the same girl said. "Lilliana, you push us real hard. I think it is fair that we push you back." I shut up and invited them for the week after to another show. The girl said, "Well, Lilliana, we are all students here. You too. You better get moving."

The stronger I am, the stronger they get. End of story.

Warm regards, Lilliana

It was a good day with the architects-to-be, George,

I remember feeling torn training many students at one time in lithic analysis. Every time I tried to write or look at a tool, a student would be hovering over my shoulder, lithic artifact in hand, waiting to ask a question. Eventually I had to tell them to form a consensus and if they could not agree then, and only then, could they ask me what it was. They needed the confidence that comes with experience and were seeking it through confirmation.

Eventually, we have to push the fledglings from the nest. We can only hope we have adequately prepared them for the world ahead.

Dear Pierlorenzo, in Puerto Rico we also impose by law the duty of professionals to stay abreast of the latest changes in their profession. It is called Continued Education, as in Italy. Architects, Engineers, Medical Doctors, Psychologists, Lawyers, etc. I believe this is essential. Thank you for telling me about professional education in Italy.

Dear @Pierlorenzo, dear @Liliana, dear all, we should never stop our self-improvement in terms of continuing education in order to acquire new technologies and new skills. It is a must. Skills, new technologies do no come from textbooks, but from real business.

First and most importantly for this delightful subset of the RG community!

You are still teaching, George.

Second: While not a teacher myself, I have been a consultant in the world of computing, where my motto was always, "Being Right is the Booby-Prize".

The emphasis is on how well you sell your ideas. That gets real hard if your ideas never change.

I hope one day to have been regarded as "useful". I offer the following in evidence, my official CV and the unofficial one I gen'd for the University of New Mexico’s 1964 reunion. I post them here not just for reasons of exposure but in showing a non-linear and hoped for "usefullness".

In the end, I have found words alone almost useless. People understand them only when I “practice what I Preach” (I have a series of Sufi-like stories on this).

Lilliana Ramos-Collado,

I would not venture a fit for all recipy for life long learning.  I will only present my own.  I focus on what is most important that I think I can contribute and at the same time is centrally important for my life.  I do it in the time that is available.  It is central part of my life project.  So my advice would be first to determine what is central for you that you would like to have done after your life ended.  The answer to this question will be a lifelong learning project.

I completely agree with you, dear Louis. Thank you for your comment.

Best regards, Lilliana

Oh, Pierlorenzo! I forgot! I will prepare the essay and post it here among my publications, so it will be easier for you to read. I'm sorry!

Warm regards, Lilliana

Dear Prof. Lilliana

One more recommendation to (in)formally educated people to keep on learning for the rest of their lives may be to form participatory peer group around some common point/s of interest/s for continuing education and practice in their life. We do it. For example, a person who plan to build a house befriends others who also may have build a house recently, meet them regularly, try to learn from them, take help, etc. Some body who would purchase the first car would immediately have a peer group of people who has got cars to get a share of their experience. Moving ahead from these examples, we may see self-learning groups based on mutual interest/s of learning by doing together.  

This may be a semi-formal process to keep on learning for the rest of life - through forming regular participatory groups of peers... The emphasis could be on learning and doing (not the regular professional job, by doing something altruistic together with peers - I mean.) 

Regards-  

Formal education / "lifelong education". What can we recommend to (in)formally educated people to keep on learning for the rest of their lives?

Think lifelong learning is vary for different people. Also not sure lifelong learning will be pursued by different people in different levels of Maslow's Hierachy of Needs e.g. will lifelong learning more prevalent to people already in self-actualization needs or across all the levels including physiological needs etc.

For those interested in lifelong learning, perhaps they can:

Personally, I crave knowledge and I guess it is often hard for me to comprehend someone who does not want to learn new things - to improve oneself.

While a person will continue to learn or resume learning for Esteem or Self-Actualization, what about Belonging, Maslow's third phase after Physical and Safety are acquired? Is learning so that you feel like you belong categorized as Esteem or Belonging? Is the feeling that you do not belong low self-esteem? Inferiority? Or simply the need to belong, to associate, to seek out others? The line between Belonging and Esteem blurs in this respect.

Thank you, dear Ivo, for your comment. Any life-long formal education must indeed be embraced as a project. But I am not so sure I agree with you in that emergent learning encompasses the whole of a formal education or that the learners must stay within their own labor and social experience. If we are to go beyond the known, we must migrate beyond ourselves in time and place, discipline and manner of labor. I have the impression that if we stay within what we already do, this will lead us to a super-speclaization that in today's world is never enough. I am sorry if I misunderstood you. 

Warm regards, Lilliana

Dear Charvak, I completely agree with forming peer groups to stay abreast of what peers do. But in this day and age, we should make time for exploring other disciplines, issues, subjects. Your idea of peer groups might be enhanced by adding an interdisciplinary element: inviting other people who know and do other things we are not quite acquainted with. I do not mean leaving one discipline to perform in another, but to learn more to become more useful to society, to become a better citizen, a better friend, a better person. What do you think of this?

Best regards, Lilliana

Inspiring words/writings/optik/live-style , enhanced spaces ,for who care enough about the future willing to learn

Dear Kouser, I am delighted by the way you introduced your comment: "I feel..." Feelings are often negated when pursuits of the mind are discussed, though the most important thing we earn in learning is delight!

When I got tired of academia a few years back I took up gardening and cooking, so I could invite friends and family to brunch or dinner in the garden. Epicurus had one or two things to teach me, and I was an avid learner of the pleasures of learning in the garden in lively conversation. I also prepare class, lectures and papers in the garden. It has been quite an improvement on my view of life.

Thank you for your comment!

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear Lilliana.

Since you ask that our answers are not institutional but rigorous, I think the "word of mouth" is what might be recommended. I mean, depending on what the person wants to learn, he/she can always watch experiences or courses that are doing in their city, and comments that are made about them. Because I think we all want to continue to learn, but not at any price. And for price I do not mean the economic question, but what actually is learnt, how it is teached and if we leave the class grateful for the new information.

Sorry for the delay of my participation in your question but in recent and future weeks I do not have the time that I would like to devote to RG.

Best regards.

I would have loved to have been able to do work sponsored skill building workshops appropriate to the job and interests of the people. When I worked for a factory, I was trained in the skills but it wasn't until a year or so later that I was certified, training and time was paid by the company. I didn't get a raise from it but it made me a better asset to the company. I also know from working there that there are people who do not want to stay in one spot, or they are better fit for another department but because they cannot try anything else or be of service, they end up unemployed, unutilized, or hating their work for the rest of their lives and when the do have the chance for different employment they are already categorized as unskilled, too old, or uneducated based on the amount of years or maybe the level of work is considered insignificant and other businesses have the same concept of someone working that blue color or lower position. Even if it was mandatory, like those terribly boring OSHA trainings, to attend for an hour, or circulate to other workshops at the same "fair" would allow people to see and use the knowledge they already have as well as increasing their employees. Being appreciated after all may keep someone longer than the pay. A majority of the people hated working at this production site I worked at because of the the fact that the employees were seen as grunt work people, machines that need no rest, or stupid unthinking individuals because they did not work in the engineering department or they were not a lead/supervisor. They complained all the time that if it wasn't for the money, they would gladly work somewhere else.

Chloe,

It can take many forms; apathy, low self-esteem, inferiority-complex. A lot of people, once their physical needs and security are met, tend to seek love. They then become complacent (i.e., it's too much trouble, I'm not smart enough, maybe I'll take those courses tomorrow). I know, I got in a rut and had to force my way out: a just-so job, barely getting by, plenty of friends but no ambition. Just out of high school I had a dream of becoming an archaeologist, but I traded that for security. It was only after a girlfriend convinced me that I could do better did I break out of that miasma and continue my education and eventual career.

Do not be mad at those that do not have the willpower or self esteem to break out of their prison. Some people do not want more than physical comfort, security, and love. It is those that show the spark, but doubt themselves, that we should try to support and uplift.

Those bright minds that have acquired tarnish only need a little polishing to shine again.

If I've given this view before, I apologize for the repitition. And I seem compelled to offer my very subaltern way of looking at life and growth, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual:

“As long as one keeps learning, one can stay and play.”

The text is obviously that lifelong learning, particularly of the cause and effect variety, is not only key to what we do with this precious life, it is at the core of life's meaning.

And a caution: at the core of this statement (apply to as many levels as you can consider and it is apparent), this leads quickly to a sort of selfish sophistry if one isn't careful.

Karl

and thank you all for your various "ways of looking at life"!

I did have major resentment for the company after I was laid off because I was a student. But I am not mad at people who stick themselves in a position that makes them unhappy. I did not mean for it to come off that way. What bothered me though was that the company, corporate, talked about change but they wouldn't listen to the workers or sub supervisors of what was going on because they weren't "educated or knowledgeable." Actually the people below corporate often wanted to say something anyways but had major repercussions for "not having the same thinking." When I became a sub supervisor, I tried to change that. I talked about the issues that were occurring and asked for feedback often. I actually got far and things were running smoother. It wasn't until another change in management that things backfired and then the company went under. 

I understand that many workers have other issues that may be going on but I still stick by the fact that workshops, opportunity trainings, for employed people would be beneficial. Even if they choose to never leave their position, it would still be an asset to both the person and the company. I am not saying to give people the ability to do another person's job but knowledge of the system of the company will help things flow better as well as have fresh eyes on problems and solutions. I am also not displacing the fact that an education is good. In fact, they are beneficial and helpful to get into a higher position faster but knowledge of what other departments are like would still create a unity that makes it functional.

True. I have seen it time and time again where the cogs in the machine do not know how they fit into the process. Not a very good way to instill a sense of solidarity and accomplishment in workers, whatever their education level. I have worked for companies that ordered the workers to do things without explanation, when in fact explaining would make the job go smoother and faster.