An ode to stunning learning
From 13 to 15 March 2023 all national coordinators of the New European Agenda for Adult Learning (NEAAL2030) visited Leuven for a meeting and a peer learning activity (PLA) about learning communities and innovative learning spaces. Pieter Sprangers (PhD) opened the PLA with an 'Ode to stunning lifelong learning'. He shared some ideas about lifelong learning coming from his research and his educational and learning practice.
Part of Mr. Sprangers' career is in the academic sector as a professor and a scientific researcher. Apart from that he’s working as an educational designer with a special interest in the experience that learners have with learning. In his speech he made a plea to take the learner experience and the preconditions and the machinery in which we organize learning very seriously to achieve real lifelong learning. This also means systemic interventions are needed and investments in the people who make the learning work.
Lighthouses of learning
“How can learning be so fantastic that you never want it to stop?” asked professor Sprangers to his audience and in doing so, he shared his personal mission. In his view we really have to look at education from an interdisciplinary way and not only from the point of view of educational scientists or pedagogical scientists. In his speech he gave several examples about how to go to better learning with more passion. Some of the examples might have been a little bit provocative because “one of the building blocks of the mindset of educational designers is to be provocative to go to better worlds”.
Pieter Sprangers gave a lot of examples about the way we organize learning for adults and sometimes about how we even organize learning blockers. Some of the ideas came from his book titled ‘Brain Optimizer for Learning in the Future’ (NL). In this book the authors paint a future vision on how learning (not education!) could evolve in our society.
A first suggestion is to transform all the schools in our society into lighthouses of learning in local communities. In these lighthouses of learning it's not only about intergenerational learning, but it's also about a mix of formal, non-formal, informal and digital learning. These lighthouses will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They will attract everyone in the local community to engage in learning.
Discuss about learning
Pieter Sprangers invited everyone to discuss about learning. How can we can make sure that every adult can have meaningful talks about learning in every stage of their live e.g. with a learning coach? How can we value all forms of learning? How can we encourage curiosity? How can we make universities lifelong learning proof? “To find the answers to these questions we have to simplify the complexity of our learning landscape and go back to the essence again”, said Pieter Sprangers. ”Learning can be delightful. Everyone is eager to learn. Let us all talk about it and support and challenge each other to achieve lifelong learning full of passion.”
You can find Pieter Sprangers on LinkedIn.
Comments
Thanks for your comment
Hi Jana, thanks for your comment on the article. I think these interview might also interest you: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/blog/every-policy-should-encourage-cultur… and https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/blog/we-have-reached-point-where-lifelong…
Curious to know your opinion about it.
Kind regards
Karine
Opinion
To have a good relationship with learning is very important because we have to learn our whole life and the better we are able to learn the higher is our motivation, satisfaction and quality of life. That's why I think this article and the ideas about lifelong learning of Mr. Spranger are very interesting.
First of all the plea of Mr. Spranger that we have to take the learners experience, the preconditions and the learning organization seriosly is so true, especially when people have difficulties with learning. Also the idea with the lighthouses of learning schools is very interesting but I don´t really know how Spranger really want to change schools. Are they normal lessons in the morning and in the evening the school is opened for other learning spaces or does he want to change the whole schoolsystem?
I think we have to change the schoolsystem to integrate more "learning with passion". One way to do so is to allow the pupils to be more autonomous in their work and to involve them more in the constitution of their learning process. Another thing is that teachers have to set the headstone for a good relationship with learning and I think their have to train more about learning itself. Because learning is very complex, for example if someone has a bad self-perseption and don´t think that he can be successfull in any way, he will have difficulties with learning. Or if someone learns in a bad learning environment where he is punished because of making mistakes, he also isn´t that motivated to learn. I am also a teacher to be and for me it´s very important to create a good learning environment where everyone is accepted and no one has to be afraid of making mistakes. The other thing is that I want to try to make my lessons close to the reality of life of the pupils or to do some compairisons that the pupils stay more motivated.
In relation to lifelong learning I think it is important to follow the own interrests and integrade some learning to everyday life. Sometimes it can be hard to learn in the freetime if we are working the whole day but at the end of the day it really can enrich our lifes. Another thing that can improve the learning is that we take away any distraction to reach into a deeper focus because if we get into this deeper workflow it is also very motivating. If someone has problems to get motivated for learning maybe learning routines are helfpful and also to have a good learning community.