At the Lifelong Learning Conference in Lillehammer (February 2023), Professor Norman Jackson was the first speaker. He argues for a more holistic and ecological interpretation of the concept of lifelong learning. At the conference he drew attention to the often underexposed life-wide and ecological dimensions of living, learning and working.

Norman Jackson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Surrey in England. He is the founder of the open Lifewide Education & Creative Academic Communities. As director of the Surrey Center for Excellence in Professional Training and Education (SCEPTrE), he developed the idea of life-wide learning and education as an essential dimension of lifelong learning. The idea that learning is an ecological phenomenon and that we create ecologies in order to practise and learn, also stems from this work.

“Lifelong learning is one of the most fundamental human qualities,” says Professor Jackson. “Lifelong learning not only allows us to survive and thrive throughout the different stages of our life; it also ensures that we can continue to feel good in our fast-changing, hyper-connected, disruptive world. Maintaining our sense of wellbeing in a fast changing and often disruptive world is one of the hardest things to accomplish and it is something we continually have to learn to do.

Everything a person goes through and experiences in life has an influence on the formation of that person and lays the foundation for acting and developing in later life. That life-wide aspect of learning has always excited me: it brings to life in a very real and concrete way the more abstract idea of lifelong learning since it highlights the way in which every day of our life is important to our lifelong journey. Lately I have also focused on the ecological aspects of our lives, learning, acting and developing in different contexts and environments as we interact with emerging situations in them.”

Everyone now understands the importance of lifelong learning. You also emphasize its life-wide dimension?

Professor Norman Jackson: When it comes to learning, many still think of children and young people. We should not only learn in our younger years. We all need lifelong learning to give our lives the meaning we want to give it, to satisfy the multiple needs we have and to be able to develop fully as individuals. Learning is therefore also about more than just getting a diploma. More and more it is about developing everything that is needed to be able to adapt to and make our way in, our rapidly changing world and the many challenges that this brings, today and tomorrow. By the concept of life-wide learning I mean that learning does not only happen in a classroom or auditorium. We learn from all our experiences and encounters in our daily lives, including in non-formal and informal settings such as when pursuing our hobbies, when travelling, when we do voluntary work, and so on. Formal education needs to pay attention to the wise and inspiring words written by Eduard Lindeman nearly a century ago, “the whole of life is learning therefore education can have no ending”. 

You also point out the importance of a more ecological approach to learning. What do you mean by that?

Learning always happens in interaction between a person and his or her environment. We are all part of larger ecological systems. Our learning, living and everyday actions affect this system. Learning is thus an ecological process that takes place in a complex environment. We must make our learning environments sustainable and ensure that they contribute to a greater understanding and appreciation of our world. More than this, our environments for learning also have to encourage imagination and creativity so that humans can continue to actively participate in the co-creation and  regeneration of the world. We learn in all situations that come our way and everyone follows their own unique path. For me, that path must also be ecological in nature. This is the only way we can lay the foundations of a sustainable, liveable future. John Dewey said it in 1920: “Learning is living, and living is learning.” To me, this idea is as relevant today as it was a century ago. But in the meantime our lives have changed enormously.

We evolved from an industrial to a service and knowledge economy where new communication technologies were also introduced. As a result, learning and education in the mid-1990s mainly served the economy and associated employment. Today we are going through turbulent times and we are already using up our planet 1.8 times faster than its capacity to regenerate. Our unbridled economic growth exceeds the limits of our earth's carrying capacity. If we want another future, we have to drastically change our way of life. Learning that only serves the economy and employment is therefore no longer sufficient.

In their concept paper 'The learning society', Bruno Tindemans and Vicky Dekocker wrote: “It is impossible to predict what changes will come our way. That is why it is all the more important that everyone can deal with that uncertainty in a good way.” The difficult transitions we are currently in the middle of are a huge challenge for lifelong learning and education. SDG4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aims that learning should stimulate behaviors that support sustainable development. Under the influence of these SDGs, schools and other (educational) institutions are slowly starting to support these necessary sustainable transitions. But just learning is not enough. From a very young age, we must develop the habit of being curious in every situation and wanting to keep learning. We must also develop the will to use our imaginations and creativity. Only in this way can we later also show the necessary flexibility to be able to respond imaginatively and effectively to changes in very diverse situations. To develop these skills and dispositions, we should encourage people to immerse themselves in very different contexts so that they can learn from diverse experiences.

You made a map of your own life and career. What do you want to demonstrate with this?

Søren Kierkegaard once said, quite rightly, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”. Steve Jobs actually repeated this idea, but in a different way. He said: “At the beginning of your life you cannot possibly connect all the dots on your life path. That is only possible if you look back on it. So you just have to trust that these dots, one way or another, will be meaningfully connected in the future.” When I look back on my life, I see many dots and events that had a small or big impact on my life and personal development.

Looking back, I now understand why my life turned out the way it did and why I did some things the way I did them. As a 10-year-old boy, my life took place in a number of very ordinary environments: my family, the school, the church choir, the scouts, the sports club, the neighbours and my friends… Without being aware of it, these environments helped determine how and what I learned and how I developed myself. They are still the foundation on which I built the rest of my life. At the age of 17 I felt a great passion for geology. I really wanted to be a geologist, but of course I had to follow a formal education to achieve that. It gave me a goal and direction at that time and also in my later life and determined how I would give it further shape and meaning. When I realized that, I decided to draw a map of my entire life.

As I drew that map, I saw certain patterns emerge in my commitments and involvements throughout my life. After my formal education, I navigated from one job to another, from one role to another, from one organization to another, from a professional career to self-employment, from one country and culture to another. I saw that the major events in my life determined a lot and that nodes in my life career meandered between them: meeting my life partner, becoming a father, raising my children, losing my wife and a long period of mourning… Remarriage four years later and raising a family again and then being a grandparent. All these experiences and events, in so many changing circumstances, gave me a life that was meaningful to me. My life path is unique to me. No one else has ever experienced it or ever will experience it, and that is the same for everyone who has lived.

It also became very clear to me that only looking at the 'lifelong' aspect of our life (and learning) is too limited. Because then we underestimate its 'life-wide' dimension, which also gives us meaning and purpose. That is why I also made a map of all the environments, domains and contexts in which I experience every day. An overview of this life-wide dimension makes it immediately clear how many different environments contribute to our lives, our learning, our work and shape us into who we are.

The term lifewide learning is meant to emphasize the importance of learning in our everyday environments. After all, life offers us a range of possibilities. We learn, live and develop at school, at work, through self-study, in our family and with our relatives, when we go shopping, walking, meeting friends, traveling, playing sports, watching TV, reading a book…. And of course not to forget the role that smartphones, computers or other devices now play in this as we watch or listen to content or interact with other people. Over time, some environments become less important, while others become more prominent as circumstances change. In the transition from one space to another, we find ourselves briefly in an in-between space, on our way from the unknown to the known. To be able to move smoothly in each of these contexts, we need the competences i.e. knowledge, skills, beliefs, values, and so on. Within this framework of possibilities that the world offers us, we combine all kinds of learning to achieve a fulfilling and meaningful life. We always look for those activities and experiences that meet all our human needs.

The prevailing view on the purpose of lifelong learning and development is always much narrower. The focus is still on the economy, employment and personal development in the context of citizenship and a more inclusive society (Aspin et al 2012 and more recently Evans 2022). If we take a closer look at our map of our life career, we notice that we see lifelong learning more as something that can meet all our needs as human beings throughout our lives. After all, how we live and learn today, in all its forms and ways, lays the foundation and determines how we can or will shape our later learning, work and life. That is why we should also consider the life-wide dimension of learning because it gives us the insight, the possibilities and the means to learn anything, anytime, anywhere and for any purpose.

In addition to this life-wide aspect, do you also focus on an ecological appreciation of living and learning?

John Dewey already said that we 'gain experience (= learn) by actively interacting with our environment'. However, our current education rarely gives the opportunity to discover how everything in our world is so deeply connected. The UNESCO vision for a sustainable future states that we “learn for ourselves, for others and for the planet”. This rightly emphasizes the essential role of lifelong learning in our pursuit of a sustainable and regenerative future. Ronald Barnett (2022) says that “if learning has a purpose, it is to learn to live on this small planet”. I would like to add “and much better than we are doing now”.

Individually, and together, we must learn how to contribute to our world in ways that minimize damage and ensure the chance of a sustainable, regenerative future (Reed 2007, p. 674). But to achieve this cultural shift, leading figures in our education systems, policymakers and practitioners must embrace the ecological worldview in which learning also has an ecological dimension. As Tom Chalkley’s brilliant cartoon depicts our ancient ancestors new this and we must relearn our own place in the ecology of all living things.

Again, this requires a "more holistic understanding of the concept of lifelong learning – which places the innate ability to learn at the center and recognizes every learning activity throughout life as important" (Embracing a Culture of Lifelong Learning - UNESCO 2020 p. 19) .

The explicit acknowledgment and elaboration of the life-wide dimension and the ecological character of living, experiencing and learning fits into this vision. Both concepts have the potential to contribute to a more holistic understanding of lifelong learning. We have reached a point in history where lifelong and lifewide learning must (also) serve the health and vitality of our planet and all life on it.

References and links

normanjackson.co.uk

lifewideeducation.uk

creativeacademic.uk

learningecologies.uk