Enhancing learning should be a lifelong process

Enhancing learning should be a lifelong process

By Iwan Pranoto

BANDUNG (JP): The word learning is almost always used in
reference to activities in formal education, from kindergarten to
university level. Rarely is it related with something people
outside school or universities do. Even in classrooms, until 30
years to 40 years after World War II, teachers were only equipped
with the theory of teaching, instead of theory of learning.

But this is changing now. Some members of the middle class
have now developed hobbies relating to learning, and it has
become a valued activity of leisure for young and old. For
example, some study seriously about flowers, aerodynamics of
model aircraft and even learn aspects very remote from their day-
to-day professions. Learning has become a part of recreation, and
people are willing to spend money on its pursuit.

In this modern society, mature people are viewed as human
beings who need to learn continuously to be able to develop
themselves. For instance, a manager of the quality assurance
department of a high-tech industry wants to learn new statistics'
techniques. He or she may feel that what they have learned in
their final education is not enough to propel their career
higher. It is one of the reasons some education experts argue
that tertiary education should graduate lifetime learners, not
ready-to-use graduates.

Every person has already had three main aspects of learning:
ability, opportunity and motivation to learn. The only difference
is the level one has but, through education, we improve these
aspects. The first two can be improved by just doing the
exercises presented to us. While improving the first two aspects
is quite simplistic, it is not clear how to enhance motivation.

We know this aspect is critical in the learning improvement of
mature people. Without it, we are unlikely to improve learning
capability.

We can experiment with this learning aspect in mature people
around us, e.g. our spouses or friends. For example, first,
provide them with a novel each. It is better if the novel is not
interesting to the person we evaluate. For instance, for someone
who does not enjoy reading science fiction novels, give him or
her a Michael Crichton work.

Then, instruct all of them simply to study their books. Do not
say anything else. Observe how they use their time. After five
minutes, ask them to close the books. And then ask each one of
them to tell you the first word in the novel he or she studied.

Or you can ask where the corresponding stories in the novel
took place. It is very likely they will not be able to answer the
questions correctly.

Why? Can't the mature people answer the questions? After all,
they do have both the ability and opportunity to learn. If we
again ask them to study the novels, and then ask them the same
questions as above, every one of them will almost certainly be
able to answer them easily. Why? Why could those mature people
complete the tasks on the second chance?

The answer is simply in the moment of learning. Those people
did not reach the right moment of learning on the first chance.
In contrast, on the second chance, the people did reach their
moment of learning.

I observe that there are at least three components that may
contribute to the reachability of their moment of learning. And,
in reaching the moment, mature people and adolescents have
totally different aspects.

First, adolescents only need to know that they must learn what
their teachers say if they want to pass. In contrast, mature
people need to know the goals why they need to learn before
studying the subjects. In the experiment above, we observed that
the mature people learned on the second instance because they
knew the goals already.

Second, adolescents have dominant external motivators, e.g.
values, teachers, parental pressure and others. They learn new
subjects, because their teachers motivate them to do so. However,
mature people are more driven by internal motivators, that is
self-esteem, quality of life and improvement of job satisfaction.
They learn something because they want to improve their career
and they realize that they can do it if only they learn.

Third, adolescents are assumed to depend on their teachers.
Primarily, they rely on their opportunity and ability to learn
from their teachers. In contrast, mature people have a self-
concept of being responsible for their own decisions. They are
responsible for their own opportunity and ability to learn. They
have to improve on their own.

Thus, we can see that mature people have totally different
components affecting their moments of learning. One big problem
of our tertiary education in the meantime is that we neglect
these differences and see university students as adolescents, not
mature people. We even very often view them as kids. We do not
have confidence to let them learn by themselves. We are so afraid
to see them fail.

We want everything to be so perfect that we could not provide
them with permission to fail. If this situation goes on, our
students cannot optimally improve their learning capability and
our society will only consist of submissive listeners. The idea
to have a generation of active and lifetime learners would be an
illusion. If we are smart and able to learn from the mistakes of
our previous era, we should begin to view our students as mature
people.

The writer is a math lecturer at the Bandung Institute of
Technology.