What are learning experiences?
I use the term “learning experiences” rather than classes, workshops, and so forth because learning is an experience. Much more than just a point in time … a new fact memorized … or an answer on a test. Learning is the active work of making meaning, making connections, finding new combinations and new understandings. The best learning experiences are relevant, engaging, and playful. Every experience can be a learning experience.
What is informal education?
Informal education is any learning that happens outside of school. It’s learning that we choose, so it’s often referred to as “free choice learning.” It’s the learning we pursue for our own reasons and for our own purposes. Informal education happens everywhere in our daily lives, from conversations over coffee to the latest issue of National Geographic. It can be spontaneous, surprising, unpredictable, and at its best a lifelong journey.
Why is learning important?
Human beings are wired to learn. It’s just what we do. We’re constantly taking in information, performing a complex synthesis of data, experience, and feeling, in order to understand our world. We didn’t stop learning when we left school. We never stop learning. We can’t.
Learning — and more specifically, the habits of mind we cultivate as life-long learners — is how we can meet the increasing demands of a world that grows more challenging every day. Robustly. Confidently. Compassionately.
Learning helps us to continually grow towards our best selves, towards living our best lives. Learning empowers us, personally, and helps make for better, more just communities.
And here’s the kicker: learning feels great. Seriously. If you enjoy a good dopamine rush (and who doesn’t?), try learning something new.
Learning: feels good AND is good for you!
What superpowers do I gain when I’m learning?
When we learn, we’re not only increasing our abilities to navigate a complex world — we’re also strengthening critical habits of mind that help us not just survive, but thrive. These are the superpowers of learning, superpowers that we can use in any aspect of our lives.
These are some of my favorite superpowers:
Inquiry. The ability to ask good questions — questions that matter — gives us the power to make change.
Critical thinking. I can’t think of a time when we’ve needed this superpower more, or suffered more from its lack. That relentless barrage of information, coming from all directions — how do we sort through it? How do we separate the good stuff from the nonsense? As lifelong learners we can continually improve our ability to evaluate sources, identify agendas, and avoid the missteps that bad information can lead us to.
Innovation skills. To come up with new ideas, new approaches, new solutions, we have to be able to tolerate risk. We have to be able to tolerate the notion that we may not know something — yet. Not just tolerate it, but embrace it; to see it as a beacon that’s leading us to someplace new. We have to be brave enough to try something new, even knowing that we might not get it right at first. Then we have to be brave enough to say, okay, that didn’t work — how might I do it differently next time? Sometimes, failure is an option. Sometimes failure breaks the door down to reveal something amazing. You gotta just keep trying.
Creativity. Yeah, I’m not an artist, either, not in the classical sense. But I’m an insatiable learner. And when you learn, you’re creating something unique, something that no one else has — will — or could create. That’s powerful.
Wait. I’m creative? Really?
Learning is always a creative act. Put that awkward 8th grade art class experience out of your mind — you are creative. We are all creative. We create new understandings. We create new connections. We create new ideas, new solutions, and new questions. Learning always moves us forward. And that’s what this world needs, now more than ever.