Critical Thinking on Lifelong Learning Is a Good Thing - Essay Example

? Critical Thinking on ‘Lifelong Learning is a Good Thing’ Introduction Lifelong learning is a new perspective wherein the modern society is being strongly influenced. In response to the continuous improvements on science and information and communication technology, a lot of educational institutions around the world started promoting the importance of lifelong learning (Demirel, 2009). Despite the fact that many of us had gone through many years of receiving good quality education in schools, it is unfortunate that not all students who graduate from a course curriculum have a vast understanding on what lifelong learning is really all about. The Jones’s article entitled “The Educated Person” is all about a guy who became inspired of developing a career in college teaching when the commencement speaker’s speech said that “For those of us planning to continue on in academic life as college faculty, the speaker emphasized that the educated person question should be at the centre of our profession lives” (Jones, 2009, pp. 11 – 12). For some time, the question about becoming an educated person made the author think about the importance of pursuing higher education right after graduating from college. Eventually, Jones (2009) realized that the educated people are actually pertaining to those individuals who managed to develop a habit of going through the process of continuous learning. In the field of education, the real meaning of lifelong learning can be trivial in the sense that the students who managed to graduate from colleges and universities are expected to join the workforce. For the purpose of continuous or lifelong learning, it is not possible for each person to stay in school all the time. In general, the cognitive aspect of learning is more focused on each person’s knowledge, skills, special abilities, and critical thinking. However, Knapper and Cropley (2000, p. 46) explained that lifelong learning is not only about the cognitive aspect of learning but more on “motivation, attitude, values, self-image, and other similar non-cognitive factors”. To avoid facing trivial issues behind lifelong learning, it is possible to define lifelong learning as a person’s readiness and willingness to learn on their own. With regards to the significance of continuous learning in our daily lives, this study aims to prove that pursuing a lifelong learning is a good thing. To give the readers a better understanding about this topic, it is necessary to avoid coming up with a bias conclusion about the significance of lifelong learning in each person’s lives. To be able to provide a balanced argument with regards to the growing importance of lifelong learning, reasons why lifelong learning may or may not be a good thing will first be tackled followed by justifying the reasons why lifelong learning is indeed a good thing. As part of going through the main discussion, real-life examples on how lifelong learning can be applied in the professional growth of each person will be provided in details. Proposition: ‘Lifelong Learning” is a Good Thing According to Aspin and Chapman (2001, pp. 39 – 40), three of the most common arguments why lifelong learning should be considered as a good thing includes the need to continuously improve one’s own knowledge and skills for “economic progress and development”, for “personal development and fulfilment”, and for “social inclusiveness and democratic understanding and activity”. The argument made by Aspin and Chapman (2001) sounds reasonable since most of us have already experienced the truth behind the idea that the employment opportunity of each individual is highly dependent on their existing knowledge and skills of each person. It means that the expertise we gain from our current and previous job(s) increases our opportunity to find a better employer. However, it is necessary for each individual to continuously improve their knowledge and skills to avoid being stagnant in their current job (Jarvis, 2000). Over the past few decades, the rapid development on information and communication technology (ICT) has significantly changed the way businesses today are being managed. In order to keep a company competitive within the global markets, HR managers are often searching for new ways on how to cut down the company’s fixed operational expenses. Since a large portion of fixed operational expenses is coming from employing its human resources, one of the qualification that most of the HR managers are looking for in a qualified employee is their ability to do multi-tasking. In response to the continuously changing demands within the global markets, Jarvis (2000, quoted in Grace, 2004, p. 398) explained that each individual should take the opportunity to learn new things in order to be employable and productive. Since being employed means financial security for most people, the OECD (1997, p. 13) stated on a report that “lifelong learning from early childhood education to active learning in retirement” is necessary when improving the future development and overall employment and economic performance in each country. By simply allowing each person to reflect upon their own individual potential, lifelong learning will empower each individual to become a better person. In line with this, Faure et al. (1972) clearly explained that the process of increasing ones’ own knowledge and skills is already a huge step towards building ones’ own future. It means that through continuous education, each person can improve their own individual personality on top of having more strength in fulfilling their roles and commitments to their family and the society as a whole. By continuously updating and upgrading the existing knowledge and skills of each individual, each employee can avoid becoming stagnant in a less rewarding jobs. Through job promotion and better work opportunities, each individual can have the opportunity for better financial gains. In line with this, Aspin and Chapman (2001, pp. 39 – 40) revealed that job promotion and better compensation packages can lead not only to a better “personal development and fulfilment” but also “economic progress and development”. Within this context, it is clear that the process of continuously promoting lifelong learning can increase the “economic security, wellbeing, and the quality of life of the people” (Kawachi, 2008). For example, through lifelong learning, the healthcare professionals can further improve their knowledge and skills when treating and caring for the patients. Doing so will help improve the overall health and social well-being of each person within a given society. The same is true in the case of the rest of the human resources. Through lifelong learning, other professionals such as the engineers, finance managers, accountants, purchasing managers, architects, lawyers, teachers, and business people can further improve their existing knowledge and skills. All these are essential in terms of keeping each one of them competitive in their chosen profession. Eventually, continuous updates and improvements in the knowledge and skills of human resources can make a country competitive within the global market (Biesta, 2006). Several authors explained that lifelong learning is necessary because the education each child would receive before he/she reaches the adulthood stage is subject to ‘re-invention’ and ‘renewal’ (Biesta, 2006; Faure et al., 1972). The problem with the quality of education each person receives in school is that whatever the students could learn from the course curriculum is only good in terms of preparing the young individuals to gain access to a wide-range of necessary knowledge and skills before they actually join the work force. In most cases, the students’ educational background or educational achievements does not promise nor does it guarantee that this group of young individuals will receive the necessary soft skills and other work-related qualities needed to perform a job. To ensure that each student will be able to cope with the continuously changing demands in the labour market, Biesta (2006) strongly supports the idea of incorporating lifelong learning in the students’ course curriculum. By doing so, each child will be able to have the opportunity to train themselves on how to they can effectively become a self-directed learner. Aside from making sure that each member of the work force has an up-dated knowledge and skills necessary to deliver high quality and competitive job performance, the process of going through a lifelong learning process will enable each individual expand or broaden the scope of their knowledge with regards to a more diverse societal, political, health, cultural, and economic global issues. In general, the past and future global economic, social, political, and cultural issues are too broad a subject and are constantly changing all the time. Since history repeats itself, each individual is responsible in becoming familiar with what has happened in the past. Eventually, learning some historical information the global economic, social, political, and cultural issues can make a person able to accurately foretell what can possibly happen in the future. Aside from economic progress and personal development issues, lifelong learning is necessary in terms of promoting social justice and democracy (Martin, 2003; Aspin and Chapman, 2001, pp. 39 – 40; OECD, 1997). Merriam-Webster Encyclopaedia defined democracy as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation… through free elections” (Merriam-Webster, 2012). It means that the votes coming from the majority is the legal basis when choosing who should represent the country’s government bodies. On the other hand, social justice is all about giving or receiving punishments or rewards based on each individual’s behaviour (Capeheart and Milovanovic, 2007, p. 23). Based on the arguments made by Aspin and Chapman (2001, pp. 39 – 40), the local residents are given the opportunity to vote for the best government officials to rule a democratic country. Therefore, this group of individuals is obliged to learn more about the personal background and qualifications of each person who will run for an election campaign. In order to promote social justice and ensure that the local residents are able to select the best candidate for government positions (i.e. senator, president, vice president, etc.); lifelong learning is necessary (Biesta, 2006; Aspin and Chapman, 2001, pp. 39 – 40). For example, by knowing about the history of each candidate (i.e. educational background, number of years in public service, achievements in public service, and criminal records or public liabilities if there is any), the local residents of each democratic country can make a wise judgment when voting for the best candidate (OECD, 1997). Since lifelong learning is essential for the economic progress and development of each country, personal development and fulfilment purposes, and social justice and/or democratic understanding and activity, several studies strongly suggest that lifelong learning should be considered as part of each individual’s responsibility and duty (Fejes, 2004; Grace, 2004). Opposition: “Lifelong Learning” is not a Good Thing Despite the proposition behind the idea that lifelong learning is a good thing, there are also several authors that opposed this idea. In line with this, Crowther (2004, p. 125) argued that it is not good to practice a lifelong learning because the process of going through a lifelong learning, we are actually “dimishing the public shere, undermining educational activities, introducing new mechanisms of self-surveillance and reinforcing the view that failure to succeed is a personal responsibility”. Similar to the agruments made by Crowther (2004), Martin (2003, p. 566) argued that lifelong learning strongly promotes the “deconstruction of welfare” as the main objective of new policies. By deconstructing welfare, a lot of people are actively supporting to reconstruct a new meaning of learning. According to Thompson (2000, p. 134), lifelong learning actually “represents a late capitalist solution” which aims to “invest in people”. It means that people are given the perception that in order for them to have a good employment opportunity, each individual should seek to improve their existing knowledge and skills continuously. In the process of continuously promoting lifelong learning, Aitchison (2003) revealed that people are indirectly promoting global capitalism. Within the world of capitalism, Bourdieu (1998) mentioned that significant changes (i.e. multi-tasking requirements, downsizing, etc.) that has been taking place in the modern employment practices are merely simple acts of exploiting the available human resources. As part of promoting lifelong learning, most employers today are expected to give credit only to those individuals who are able to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills in accordance to the changing needs of domestic and international labour markets (Collins, 2009). This particular employer-employee agreement can be a little unfair to those employees who failed to acquire new knowledge and skills but has stayed loyal and committed to their assigned tasks. Another obvious problem with instilling this kind of mentality on people is that the process of continuously improving each individual’s knowledge and skills does not necessarily mean a higher pay on the part of the workers but more on empowering the employers to exploit the knowledge and skills of each employee. This is the main reason why Coffield (2002, p. 185) metioned that continuous promotion of lifelong learning is basically a simple strategy that will help minimize the costs of “job insecurities”. Based on the arguments made by Crowther (2004), it means that the process of keeping in mind that the success of each person is highly dependent on the capability and the ability of each person to make themselves more competitive could diminish the essence of humanity. Instead of taking some time to do charity works in order to help individuals who are in need of basic food and shelter, our future generation could end up becoming more focused on keeping themselves busy trying to improve their acquired knowledge and skills. In the long-run, lifelong learning can promote selfishness more than the practice of human kindness. Furthermore, continuously promoting the concept of lifelong learning in education can lead to a lot of economic, political, and societal changes. In line with this, Crowther (2004) clearly explained that the concept of lifelong learning is changing not only the expectations of people with regards to our individual role within the society but also on what qualifications each individual should have in order to be competitive and employable. Even though Aitchison (2003) did not mention whether or not lifelong learning is good or bad, the author clearly explained that the practice of lifelong learning strongly promotes the practice of global capitalism. Basically, several studies strongly suggest that the problem with continuous promotion of global capitalism is that it widens the gap between the rich and the poor (Hart and Milstein, 2003; United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 1999). The presence of imbalances in the distribution of wealth can trigger a lot of social and security problems. Due to financial difficulties, not all people can afford to have the opportunity of a good education. For this reason, not all people can become competitive in terms of having adequate knowledge and skills that are required in most of the available white collar jobs (i.e. professional, managerial, and/or administrative job). By continuously promoting the importance of lifelong learning, people are indirectly tightening the competition within the domestic and international labour markets. As a result, people who lives below the poverty line or people who are at the less advantage side are the ones who ends up not getting a decent job. Because of the presence of tight market and labour competition, the less competitive individuals could end up losing their chances for future employment opportunities. Within this context, it is clear that the presence of knowledge and skills inequality can lead to a lot of negative social attitudes and social cohesion (Green, 2011). Since lifelong learning indirectly violates the concept of equal employment opportunity, the act of continuously promoting lifelong learning will never be a good thing. Discussion Even though lifelong learning within the global capitalism strongly promotes individualism more than humanity, my opinion is that lifelong learning will always be a good thing not only for the personal and professional growth of each person but also for the betterment of the political and economic activities within a given society. Over the past few decades, we have witnessed how rapid the developments are when it comes to Science and information and communications technology. This only means that the only thing that is constant in this world is change. To be able to cope with the new challenges that each of the new technology has created, each person should develop a positive outlook about these changes in order to be more effective in meeting the new demands in the labour markets. Within this context, the word “change” is very much applicable in the way human beings perceive things that was or has already been proven by scientific research studies. Furthermore, the word “change” is also applicable in the legislative laws or political intervention that is currently shaping the society and the world around us. Considering that everything around us is subject to change, the inability or unwillingness of a person to embrace the idea of a lifelong learning can make a person stagnant. It means that by simply avoiding oneself to go through the process of a continuous learning, a person can end up losing their capabilities to compete within the domestic and international business world and/or the labour markets. In other words, the absence of lifelong learning is enough to limit each person’s opportunity to become more successful in life. For example: In order to find new drugs that can cure different diseases, each of the large-scale pharmaceutical companies are continuously investing large sum of money on research and development (R&D). For this reason, some of the slow-moving or less effective medications are becoming obsolete in exchange of the new drugs. In order to keep up with the on-going changes in the availability of pharmaceutical drugs, each of the licensed pharmacists should be more than willing to engage themselves in a lifelong learning process. By doing so, the licensed pharmacist in each country will be able to keep themselves updated with the ever changing demands in the world of pharmacy. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why there are a lot of educational institutions that dedicated in encouraging each of the licensed pharmacists to undergo a continuing professional development (CPD) programme (Dreisen et al., 2007). Even though the promotion of lifelong learning can trigger imbalances in the distribution of wealth, I do not agree that people should go out of their way trying to blame the government or other people for not being able to find better employment opportunities. In life, each one of us is given the opportunity to make choices. Therefore, the decision on whether to apply continuous learning in one’s life or not is highly dependent on each individual. If a person is really decided to continuously develop their existing knowledge and skills, it is unlikely that the person will not be able to find new and alternative ways to learn new things. For instance, with the use of the Internet, everybody can readily access a lot of useful and reliable information which could help us develop our own knowledge and skills. Therefore, lifelong learning is simply a matter of wanting to learn or not. Raphael and Winter-Ebmer (2001) mentioned that each time the unemployment rate is high, there is a strong tendency wherein the crime rate would also increase. I strongly believe in the saying that “the end does not justify the means” (Bagaric and Clarke, 2007, p. 85). For this reason, people who are suffering from the socio-economic consequences of becoming unemployed should be punished for committing a crime. I strongly believe that each individual have their own individual gifts and special talents. Even though most of the reason why these criminals are committing crime is to ease their hunger, this does not justify the decision to commit a crime. Instead of doing something that can harm other people, it is the duty and responsibility of the less advantaged people to find new ways on how they can overcome their financial challenges. This argument applies to all people regardless of their socio-economic status in life. A good example of a person who has gone from rugs to riches is the case of Manny Pacquiao – a globally known Filipino professional boxer. Pacquiao was not born with a golden spoon. Despite living in poverty, he remained committed in undergoing many years of tedious physical training. When he was given the opportunity to show-off his talent, he managed to be the WBO Welterweight Champion with 38 knock outs (KOs) (Bilton, 2012; The Ring, 2012). Despite his continuous success in his boxing career, he did not stop from himself from embracing new challenges in life. In 2010, Pacquiao was elected as the representative of Sarangani province (Gay, 2012). Conclusion and Recommendations There is an ongoing argument with regards to whether or not lifelong learning is good or bad. Some people argue that lifelong learning is good because it promotes personal development and self-fulfilment, economic growth and development, and better understanding of democratic activities (Biesta, 2006; Aspin and Chapman, 2001, pp. 39 – 40; Jarvis, 2000, quoted in Grace, 2004, p. 398; Faure et al., 1972). On the other hand, some people argue that lifelong learning is a bad thing because through lifelong learning, people are not only changing the trends in the political, social, and economic welfare of each society but also indirectly promoting global capitalism (Crowther, 2004, p. 125; Aitchison, 2003). Instead of protecting the socio-economic welfare of the less advantaged people, Thompson (2000, p. 134) revealed that the process of continuously promoting lifelong learning could only result to more benefits on the part of the business people. Despite the positive and negative remarks with regards to lifelong learning, my opinion is that lifelong learning is good thing not only for the purpose of personal and professional growth but also for the betterment of the political and economic activities within a given society. In reality, each person is responsible not only to his/her own socio-economic status in life but also indirectly to the overall economic progress and developments of political activities of a democratic country. Considering the fact that lifelong learning is essential for the economic progress and development of each country, personal development and fulfilment purposes, and social justice and/or democratic understanding and activity, lifelong learning should be always be considered as part of each individual’s responsibility and duty. I think lifelong learning is all about being able to continuously develop one’s own personality, critical thinking, skills, and special talents. The reason why the word ‘lifelong’ is used is to promote the idea that learning should never end. Since everything around us is subject to change, it is wrong to limit the learning of each person within the four corners of a classroom. The positive socio-economic development in our society starts from within. It means that by enhancing our ability to improve ourselves as a person, we are somehow indirectly contributing a huge factor behind the political and economic success of our country. Therefore, as each individual joins the work force, it is necessary for each professional to continuously improve their existing knowledge and skills. With this in mind, poverty or self-doubt should not limit a person’s ability to enhance their individual knowledge, skills, and other special talents. In general, there are many ways in which a person can practice lifelong learning. Keeping in mind that each person should not limit the learning of each person within the four corners of a classroom, Klamma et al. (2007) strongly suggest the use of a social software system when educating ourselves further. Basically, the social software system is designed to provide informal learning to people who wish to continue learning. Using the Web 2.0 technology, people can easily plan on their continuous professional learning in order to increase their learning competency. Within a democratic country, the voice of the people could significantly affect the future economic and political progress of a country. Therefore, a person who reaches the maturity age should exercise his/her opportunity to vote. Through lifelong learning, it is the duty and responsibility of each person to carefully study the past and current performance of each candidate. By becoming a self-directed learner, each person will be able to make a sound judgment whether or not the subject is related to professional issues, business, political, and/or socio-economic events. Total Number of Words: 4,005 References Aitchison, J. (2003). Struggle and compromise: a history of South African adult education. Journal of Education, 29,125-178. Aspin, D., and Chapman, J. (2001). Lifelong Learning: concepts, theories and values. 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