For anyone who is involved in
Lifelong Learning and wants to get a deep understanding of why and how
it fits the present and near future evolution of our knowledge society,
Anikó KÁLMÁN’s book “ Learning – in the New Lifelong and Lifewide
Perspectives ”
[1]; is an absolute must.
I have been involved in Continuing Engineering Education for some
twenty years and I have known Anikó for about half that time, so,
though I knew that her book would be interesting, I was curious to read
it. I have to admit, not only that it brought to me lots of ‘things’ I
did not know of, but also that it opened new perspectives for further
thoughts.
Jointed in three main chapters, this book can be considered as a system
composed of two adjacent rooms (the first and the third chapters)
linked by a sort of one-way door (the second chapter):
- The first – and longest – chapter describes the “state of
learning” in the first room – which most of us are still living in –
and why a change of paradigm is necessary, driven by the impact of
globalization and new technologies upon the fabric of society. In this
long chapter, the author, in line with the title of her book, presents
a perspective of learning as an activity, both along a time axis (
historically speaking ) and a space axis ( with its different systems
and sub-systems ).
- The second chapter explains the mechanism thanks to which the
door linking the two rooms could be opened: a more social innovation
process, for which the Knowledge Triangle acts as a conceptual key. In
the same way that a door is thinner than a room, this short chapter is
just a suggestion of how to push on the handle and open the door.
- And the third chapter describes the “state of learning” that we
could expect to achieve in the second room, mainly the relationship
between different types of teachers and different types of learners.
Although this second room is gigantic, this third chapter is also very
short, because we are blind as regards the future, we can only discover
it gradually as we build it ; and there is no single way to build our
future.
From the beginning of the first chapter, as the author introduces the
three main values of modern society and opposes eco-philosophy to the
present philosophy, the reader will understand that he or she is bound
for a fundamental approach of lifelong learning, considered here as a
basic element of our knowledge society.
To that respect, considering – as the author does – that lifelong
learning has also to be a lifewide learning, in other words that it is
not only the continuation of a learning activity along a temporal
linear direction, but that it also comprises – as any educational
process – a widening of the ‘socle’ upon which higher and higher levels
of knowledge and understanding can become integrated in a harmonized
way, is in my opinion an important – the most important indeed –
contribution of this book.
The author shows that, as a result of this reinforcement process, the
individual can pass from conformist learning to successively
conscientious and autonomous learning ( the temporal axis ) and
integrate nonformal and informal education besides formal education (
the space direction ). After that, in what forms the main part of her
book, the authors analyses the various implications of this premise for
all the aspects of learning – and therefore, also, of teaching – from a
systemic point of view: learning and teaching become some sort of
merged activity, the objective of which is not the individual, but the
society in which this one is living. Therefore, the two main challenges
are, on the one hand the transmission of knowledge and know-how from
one generation to the next one, and on the other hand – as a
consequence of the first challenge – see to it that the individual
possesses a high enough level of skills to efficiently transfer his or
her individual knowledge and know-how to society.
In the second and third chapters, the author considers more practical –
and sometimes psychological – implications of the previous theoretical
approaches, one being the necessity to link education and research to
the needs of society ( the motivation counterpart of those activities
), and the other one being the requirements that have to be met for
developing self-directed learning.
As a physicist, I know that all things in our universe are governed by
the same laws, that we stand somewhere between the infinitely great and
the infinitesimal, and that we cannot understand one if we don’t
understand the other one.
As an engineer, I know that, if I have to build some ‘system’, the
environment in which this system is going to work is at least as
important as the composition and the working of the system itself.
As a physicist and engineer having developed some expertise in
Continuing Engineering Education, I deem education to be a living and
extraordinary complex system that can efficiently serve society if –
and only if – it takes into account both the needs of society and the
requirements and limitations of its constitutive parts.
This is why I consider the concepts and viewpoints that are tackled in
this book as being of utter importance to anyone involved in education,
particularly in Higher Education and in Lifelong Learning, but also to
all professionals who have to regularly update or widen their
competencies. This is particularly true for engineers, as they work in
a fast evolving sector and must resort to Continuing Engineering
Education.
I can do nothing but prompt them to read Anikó KÁLMÁN’s book.
