Under the current conditions in which we as a societal whole, force children to learn in an institutional setting, that environment takes on the look and feel of a negative experience for children. If you are to take a look at the surroundings of a school, you will find that it is set up very much like a prison. Not only the surroundings, but the overall atmosphere of a school is conducive to that of a prison–like feel. Our children (that of my husband Aaron and me) own children came up with this analogy of their own volition. They could see how the fences that are erected in an attempt to keep children safe really make them feel like they are prisoners. Also too, our children surmised, that being that children do not have the freedom to leave at any given time and that the learning becomes stagnant or not geared to what their interests are, this too lends itself to a prison-like atmosphere.

Conversely, if a child is given the opportunity to choose their form of learning and is then there within the schooling environment by choice, then school therefore is not all of those afore mentioned things. In other words, school can only be a positive learning environment if children are allowed to learn freely what they want when they want to, without learning being forced. Therefore, if a child chooses to go to school and they are not forced to go by societal, parental, or family influences, and the child can be free to leave when the learning is not of their interest and come back when it is, then the schooling environment can be a positive experience.

Unfortunately, for most children today, however, school is not of choice, it is of by demand. It is by the force of societal pressures to conform, that we attempt to make our children comply with what is told that they have to learn. If most children were given the choice to be apart of or not be apart of the institutional setting, most would choose not to be. Most would choose to learn in a modality that is of their own choosing. Therefore, if we allow our children to choose school as their form of learning and they choose not to, then why should we force them to attend school? If we are truly to give children back their own personal power, then why force learning? Simply because children are smaller and we feel somehow that they would appear to be more helpless than us as adults? Does this make their choices any less valid than ours?

I believe that size, nor age, should not be a factor in the path of life we choose, which includes that of learning. In fact, we all have since birth instinctively made choices in our lives without ever giving much consideration to the fact that this was indeed what we were doing. As infants even, we chose to crawl, here or there. We choose to eat when we are hungry. As an infant, our way of choosing would be to cry to let our mother know we were hungry. As toddlers, we chose to walk here or there. And so the process continues throughout life, thereby showing that as humans, we are indeed capable of making choices. There may be times in one’s life where we may need direction and focus in order to make our choices in life, but whether it is deemed by the rest of the world as good or bad, right or wrong, we all have the capacity to make our own choices in life.

The lack of choice within compulsory education then brings to mind, what does life look like for these children, now adults, after being subjected to the inability to choose for themselves for twelve plus years within the institutional setting? What has happened is we have all of these adults who go out into what is termed by society as the “real world”, as if we have not been in the real world all these years. In fact, we have not been in the “real world” all of these years. Using the previously mentioned analogy, we can see how we have been “locked away” as it were within the “schooling environment” being told how, what, when, and where to learn, obtain friendships, live, and the like.

Thus, upon entering the “real world”, we are hit with a major culture shock when embarking into the world as an adult outside of the “schooled” environment. Much like that of a prisoner, whom has just been released back into mainstream society after a prolonged stay in prison, many are hit with a dose of big time culture shock, due to the fact they soon discover that life is not divided into subjects, as they had been “taught” for all of those years. They soon start to feel even more helpless because they do not feel that they can learn anything on their own, without being “taught” how.

As adults then, we wander helplessly through society, trying to “make it” in the world, without any real life skills to conjure a worthwhile life for ourselves and our future generation. We are left with that age old question they ask you from the time you are little….”What do you want to be when you grow up?” For most of us, we just settle for what we can make out of life ~ we get a “job”, we fall in love, get married, and have families of our own. For most of us, we just live out our lives never realizing the full potential of our possibilities for life.

Now, for some, we are happy with that. We are content with just living our lives until we die with what we have and how we have come to exist in this world and do not question what more there is. But there are some of us, myself included, who have always seen a vision ~ who have always known that there is something out there that is better than just living our lives this way. For us, we know that there is an endless stream of possibilities of what life is and can be. We long to bring this infinite source of possibilities into our lives, the lives of our children and of their children’s children. This, is where Life Long Learning begins!

What Life Long Learning Looks Like
With Life Long Learning, there is no end. It is a continuous circle of learning and connections to learning, as there is no "timetable" to learning. For those of us for whom compulsory education was a way of life and we knew no better, did we at the end of our “schooling”, then all of the sudden because we completed high school or college, stop learning? No! We did not say to ourselves, "Ok, I have "graduated" now; I think I will stop learning!” The truth is that we learn our whole lives, not just when we were “in school”, because life in of itself is a learning process. We will continue to learn until we take our very last breath. Even death is a learning process.

A friend of mine, who was considering Life Long Learning, stated to me that she was afraid to start Life Long Learning at that point in her daughter’s life. She made the statement that she thought it too late to be “messing around with her learning”. My response to her was the following…:

“Why is it too late to be messing around with her learning? Too late for what? Your daughter's life has only just begun! So, she is a teenager, and? If you figure that the average life expectancy of a human being is approximately 80 years of age, I think, that leaves her ALOT of learning and growing ahead of her! She has her whole life ahead of her to view and experience the world around her!”

None of us, child or adult alike, learn exactly the same way. There is no such thing as only one or just a few types of “learning styles” for everyone, as compulsory education has lead us to believe. Much debate and “categorizing” of learning into styles and subjects has surfaced over the years. However, the fact remains that multiple learning styles within one person is inherently possible and is what makes each person an individual, is what makes each person unique. Therefore ~ how, when, and in what time frame our learning is to occur ~ should be as individual and unique as we are and should be left only up to us.

Remember, as I spoke of before, that in school, we are taught that individuals need to learn in “subjects” ~ Reading, Writing, Math, Science, and History etc. ~ that these “subjects” need to be taught in a certain order and within a certain time frame. Also, compulsory education has taught us that you must learn one set of concepts first before going onto the next set of concepts. The truth is though; life is not divided into subjects. Nor do we necessarily need to learn adding of 2 or 3 digits before being able to learn multiplication. As an example, it is just as logical to see that a child can go from learning basic addition facts, to learning multiplication in the natural progression of life. When you learn that 2 + 2 = 4, it is then quite easy to make the leap to seeing that 2 x 2 =4 because there are two sets of two. Therefore, one does not have to learn one first before the other, despite what we are told we have to in school.

What Do I Need to “Do”?
One of the main objectives of Life Long Learning is that of choice. As noted earlier, freedom of a child to choose what, when, how and where he/she wishes to learn is one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring gifts that a parent can ever give to a child, or to themselves for that matter. It really does not require you to “do” anything, as you do not “do” Life Long Learning. Life Long Learning is just what it says it is…. learning your whole life long – living, learning, and growing together.

One of the many advantages of this is that you, the parent, are not required to become someone else, i.e. a professional teacher pouring knowledge at and into child-vessels on a planned basis. You do not need to provide “curriculum” or make your child sit down and do worksheets and tests. Should your child want to or choose to do these things, than they may, but it is not compulsory.

Instead, you live and learn with your child, together, pursuing questions and interests as they arise. “Leading by example”, as the old adage goes, is an extremely powerful way to provide a rich Life Long Learning environment. This adage is often used to imply that parents must show a good or proper example of behavior in order for children to follow, however, this same adage can also apply to learning throughout life. If you as a parent develop an active interest in learning in the world, in viewing things from a new perspective, in a new light, modeling this then will bring about what I call “contagious learning”.

It is then the utilizing of a “world of unlimitless possibilities for learning” ~ along with, yours and their own passions/interests, which is what gives birth to Life Long Learning. It is the shifting of perspectives, from textbooks to the real world that we learn best. Choosing to build a Lego village will invite the opportunity to learn much about math, geometry, culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. Therefore, the variety of “subjects” that compulsory education wishes to instill upon children can be easily learned in a non-subject like manner, but rather in an open learning manner in the way the child chooses.

Children grow to hate the very “subjects” that are taught in school simply because they are not given the opportunity to “experience” them. History, for example, is often dislike so strongly mainly because a child is told “Sit, read these chapters, answer these questions, and when you are finished, there will be a test next week to see if you “learned” it or not” ~ rather than being given the opportunity to experience what I call “Living History”, History in a hands-on manner.

A wonderful example of “Living History” is when a friend of mine took her four children on a trip along the Oregon Trail from start to finish. Her children actually experienced first hand, what life was like during the 1840’s to 1850’s and can easily share with anyone all that they learned from their journey. My own children have experienced the westward movement of the pioneers, while visiting Pioneer Arizona.

You do not need to “know everything'” in order to provide a Life Long Learning environment for your children or your family. Sometimes, all your children will want and/or need is conversation with you. My children and I will sit and talk for hours about anything that interests them, and often times one conversation about one thing, will lead into another conversation completely about something else. Sometimes, I will know the information they are seeking, and they will listen intently to my vast knowledge and wisdom. Other times, I do not have any idea what the answer is. My job, as their parent, then is to provide them with the resources and a way to find those resources. Children, given the freedom to do so and by their very own innate nature, when not knowing the answer to a certain question or a particular interest they have that they do not have the knowledge on, become quite capable of seeking out a person to assist them in finding the answers they seek. That person the majority of the time will be you, their parent, but, this is not always the case.

The information and knowledge that our children seek, need not be expensive to obtain either. We live in an 'information-rich' society, and there is a vast amount of information to buy, to seek, to view, or to obtain for free ~ libraries, television, museums and historic buildings are available to all ~ all you need is to investigate what is around you and seize every opportunity to collect 'information' on whatever interests your child. In every local community there will be enthusiasts in many hobbies or professions who are usually more than willing to share their expertise; sometimes friends or neighbors may happily offer special knowledge and resources as well.

In these next chapters, I will bring to life examples to show to you Life Long Learning in action. Life Long Learning in action is to do simply just, what the words say and mean – Live you Life and Learn all day, everyday. Life Long Learning provides the concepts and practical use on a daily basis of ever-important skills such as ~ how to learn, how to think, how to find information, and where to look. Your whole family then is likely to become more resourceful, use more initiative; often you will learn alongside each other, enjoying each other's curiosity and the thrill of discovery.

© Copyright 2004, Patti Diamond