There are many reasons to focus on this goal. In January 2017, a special report in The Economist called lifelong learning an economic imperative, and in February 2017, John Coleman highlighted the health and personal benefits in Harvard Business Review. Although there is no disputing the value, perhaps it is time for a slight but significant paradigm shift. Especially in independent schools—with their ample resources, close-knit communities, and varied opportunities—lifelong learning is and should be more than just an end goal.
What might happen if we were to think about, talk about, and enact lifelong learning as an ongoing and recursive process in which all members of our school communities are engaged? Over the past 12 years, as an educator at a girls’ school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, I have identified three key steps in fostering a broader understanding of lifelong learning: setting the tone, facilitating the process, and reflecting on the experience. These steps are ongoing, and they look different when we interact with students, alumni, parents, and colleagues.
Students
We have many opportunities to set the tone with our students for conversations about what it really means to be engaged in an ongoing process of learning. In my senior school English classes, I spend a lot of time talking about the connection between reading, thinking, writing, and speaking; I implore students to make reading part of their regular routine, because I know this will have positive, lasting effects. I bring in books I’m reading, read excerpts from them, share my marginal annotations, and wonder aloud about related ideas. I point out the vocabulary, organizational patterns, rhetorical strategies, and stylistic elements that I admire and have tried. These regular, informal book talks set a tone of excitement. Students feel more comfortable sharing their own reading experiences, set goals to improve their habits, and come to understand that reading is an ongoing learning process.We can also show students what lifelong learning looks like. We can tell them more about our own professional development and connect those experiences to the work in the classroom. I once used an activity to start a study of The Merchant of Venice; as part of my introduction to the activity, I told my students about a conference I had attended about teaching The Merchant of Venice, how the teachers there had engaged in the same activity, and why I thought it might work in our class. The students were intrigued knowing that I had done what they were about to do, and they were also reminded that teachers are continually learning new ideas, developing their skills, and gathering resources.
In all of my classes, I set aside time for students to keep a written record of their learning journeys. These logs include learning goals and action steps, contemplation of skills and strategies, and reflections on learning experiences. In Grade 11 English, students also document changes in their thinking as their year-long reading project unfolds. My hope is that by facilitating the process and allowing time for reflection, I am expanding my students’ understanding and establishing habits that will last a lifetime.
Alumni
In the many conversations I have had with alumnae over the years, I have found it important to be candid about the “messiness” of learning. A few years ago, I had a conversation with an alumna, in which she told me she’d just started her postsecondary studies but already had a feeling that the program and university were not right for her. At first, she was concerned she might be viewed as a “failure.” I shared with her my own experience of changing course from one degree program to another, and we talked about how much can be gained from veering off “path.” This alumna began to reframe her experience as a valuable part of a learning process, rather than a failure.If alumni know that we see learning as ongoing, it becomes natural to facilitate further learning experiences with them. Last year, I invited an alumna to speak to my AP Capstone Seminar class about her experiences as a nurse and student in a nurse practitioner program. During her visit, my students learned about a career in the health sciences linked to the topics of equity and social justice we had been studying class, and also saw another example of a professional engaged in an ongoing learning process. As the students shared with the alumna their own interests, she had the opportunity to learn about them. I came to see both my former student and my current students in new ways. As we shift our thinking about lifelong learning, let’s embrace the many different ways there are to set the tone for conversations with alumni about lifelong learning and to facilitate learning experiences with them.
Parents
We can also achieve a broader understanding by including parents in the process. Two years ago, my school changed the format of our annual Curriculum Night. Parents now follow their daughters’ schedules and attend a “mini class” with each teacher. At last year’s Curriculum Night, the parents who attended my class sessions learned about my doctoral studies, how I got to that point, and why I had chosen to learn more about educational leadership. I was pleased to see that this set the tone for parents to continue the conversation, often sharing their own experiences of graduate study. The mother of one of my Grade 11 students even joined my AP Capstone Seminar to speak about her work with a local organization fighting for greater food security.Colleagues
As educators, we are often lifelong learners by our very nature. Here, the key is to make known what may be unknown about our learning journeys. Sharing a professional development experience with colleagues or attending professional development events in groups makes apparent our attempts to learn more and improve our skills. Supporting one another with the pursuit of additional qualifications, certifications, and graduate studies is another way to make it clear that lifelong learning is a vital process.A few years ago, I team-taught a Grade 12 Canadian History course with a colleague in Social Sciences. My teaching partner and I collaborated on everything from unit design and resource selection to assessment of student work, and even parent-teacher conferencing. Most importantly, we chose to be together in the classroom every day and not rotate. Sometimes one of us took the lead while the other observed and provided feedback. This kind of teaching offered us the rare opportunity to learn from one another.
The shift is subtle, but the results are significant. When we understand lifelong learning in independent schools not as an end product, but as an enduring process, the vibrant nature of our learning communities shines through for all to see.