Life-wide education: a new and transformative concept for higher education?

Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, LondonSCEPTrE annual conference, University of Surrey, 13-14 April 2010

Centre for Higher Education Studies

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Introduction

A ‘liquid age’ (Bauman) – so the emergence of ‘liquid learning’ e-learning, yes, but only partly here a story of multiple, simultaneous and overlapping learning spaces - and so contending learning spaces A student may be learning about how to prepare him or herself for a world of competitive

survival in a profit-driven global economy and finding time to provide voluntary work in a local or global charity

‘[I was working] with UNICEF … for a month, and I was volunteering and I was working with internally displaced people, people affected by war. [And I was] educating them about the journey (back to their home countries) and also what they’re gong to find when they go back, like what to expect in terms of how the water is, how the schools were, how the land … if there were any mines, or any other diseases …’

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From inner-directed to outer-directed

Not altogether new – but new in its extensiveness both individually and as a system-wide and society-wide phenomenon.

Compare the enclosed medieval university with those of today – from inner-directed to outer-directed.

Universities have become liquid institutions – porous boundaries Students no longer enfolded in their universities – multiple identities, multiple

networks, multiple learning spaces In the 8 or so years (17-25), students traverse dozens of learning sites –

cultural, economic, social, leisure, sporting not only younger students but the younger students are esp mobile as learners

– learning nomads Their economic dependence strangely brings an economic independence; and

so a social and economic mobility.

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Lifelong learning; lifewide learning

• The 2 concepts rather conflated in the literature but are fundamentally distinct• Lifelong learning – learning thro the lifespan• Lifewide learning – learning across learning sites more or less simultaneously; • across life itself; involving life itself; its various domains; the student’s ‘lifeworld’• So, the university’s prog of studies is now (merely) one set of learning spaces

alongside many others in the student’s life.• Here, time and space intermingle – different timeframes and rhythms of the

different learning spaces; fast and slow; short-term/ long-term; local/ global• So the student has to ‘manage her time’ in a complex sense; for there are

different timeframes of learning to be managed. • NB Oakeshott’s ‘gift of the interval’ – has to be reinterpreted. Can the university

offer a particular kind of ‘interval’ amid the student’s multiple learning spaces?

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Forms and spaces of lifewide learning - 1

i Within a course, on campus (practical/ cognitive/ group/ multidisciplinary)ii Within a course, off-campus and assessed (clinical settings; mini-surveys; teaching practice)iii Within a course, off-campus but not assessed (field trips; perhaps work-

based learning in a ‘sandwich’ course)iv On campus, unaccredited, and not linked to a student’s course (writing

for/editing a student newspaper; working on a student e-journal, running/ participating in a student society; running a student bar; working in a shop or other commercial outlet on campus)v Voluntary and unaccredited but linked to the student’s course (joining with a few other students and composing musical scores for each other’s assessment but outside the students’ courses)

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Forms and spaces of lifewide learning - 2

vi on campus, not linked to the student’s course and accredited by a University (taking a language course recognized in some way by the University and separately from the student’s degree)

vii not linked to the course, off campus and accredited by an agency other than the university (taking a St John’s ambulance course; taking a language course offered by an agency in the private sector)

viii not linked to the course, off campus and unaccredited (singing in a choir; starting up entrepreneurial activities and trying to make some money in the process; engaging in voluntary work, perhaps in a developing country).

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Features of a student’s lifewide learning

• The student’s learning takes place in a number of sites• The student’s formal course of study may constitute a

minority of the student’s learning experiences• Much of the student’s learning is unaccredited, both within

and beyond the course of study• Much of the student’s extra-mural learning is stretching • Much is demanding and may involve high degree of

responsibility and accountability

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The demands of lifewide learning

[a recent graduate]:‘… it was quite an adjustment when I came out of an environment, first of all where I was given feedback and support all the time;

where I had grades that I could measure myself against … it was never a question of skills …’

‘I think I’ve probably grown up a lot as a person … I’ve had a lot more responsibility and I’ve tried to push myself into doing things that I wouldn’t have done before I came. [For example], last year, I created a new society for the University. That involved quite a lot of responsibility and taking control and I’ve never been in that, sort of, leadership position before .’

[a captain of a University sports team] ‘I used to be quite shy … but coming here and having to work in groups of people. I like having something separate from … my academic work. It definitely … boosts my enthusiasm. Getting out there every week and doing something you enjoy.’

[a student with several interests and activities, including a part-time job]: ‘You have to be different in different contexts because obviously it’s not appropriate to be sort of completely yourself all the time.

… You have to sort of keep going … amidst pressure. To me, it’d seem like you’re sort of letting other people down …’‘… when I’m at work, [that] sort of gives you confidence with mostly with working with others … ’

[a student involved in several societies involving different ethnic and religious groups]: ‘so if you look at a person … every star has a right to twinkle ..’

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Being and becoming

• The students’ development in their lifewide lng – not caught simply by talk of acquiring K and S

• ‘enthusiasm’; keeping going ‘amidst pressure’; growing in ‘confidence’; believing that everyone ‘has a right to twinkle’; overcoming one’s ‘shyness’; growing up ‘as a person’; empathising; becoming self-reliant; bearing responsibility

• NB: ‘it never was a question of skills’• What is in question is the student’s being and his/her

becoming.

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Dispositions (engendered thro lifewide lng)a a willingness to learn about oneself

b a preparedness to put oneself into new situations

c a preparedness to be creative in interpersonal situations

d a will to help others

e a willingness to adjust one’s approach according to context

f a will to keep going, even in arduous settings

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Qualities (also engendered in lifewide lng)

• enthusiasm• confidence• empathy • care• energy

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Some questions

• What is or should be special about the student’s course of study (within their total set of learning places)?

• What implications arise for the university, if any, from the students being in receipt of income from some of their learning activities?

• What is the value, if any, of a student’s lifewide learning for their academic studies?

• To what degree should the university take an interest in the student’s informal and extra-mural learning?

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The University and lifewide education

• Distinguish – again – lifelong & lifewide education• Lifewide education: the university would be recognising that the student

is learning more or less simultaneously alongside her/his U prog of studies

• What is this educational role of the university?• A contribution to the student’s total lifeworld?• Pollard: ‘… higher education courses have to become more meaningful

in terms of students’ lives-as-lived and in relation to development through the lifecourse.’

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Forms of lifewide education

The University:• i Encouraging and facilitating students in gaining worthwhile experiences

beyond their programme of studies;• ii Accrediting students’ wider lifewide learning experiences;• iii Offering opportunities for systematic reflection on those learning

experiences such that the learning and personal value of those experiences are enhanced. Here, the university would be attending to and enlivening the ‘biographicity of [the student’s] social experience’ (Alheit and Dausien, 2002: :17).

• iv Shaping the University’s own courses so that they offer the student the best chance of maximising the learning potential of their lifewide experiences (and so bring about a more positive relationship between all of the students’ learning experiences - on and beyond their courses - and enhancing the students’ total lifeworld).

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The academic value of lifewide learning

Q: ‘Do you think [that these different kinds of experience] help each other?’A: ‘… well, especially the society stuff definitely helped my degree – if for no other reason than just feeling more accessible to the lecturers and the tutors … [in] being more confident in talking to them.’

Q: ‘You’re being exposed to quite different kinds of setting. There are some links here, do you think?’A: ‘I suppose that when I was at work I’d have to talk quite professionally to sort of senior people to me and then that would … apply [to my interacting] with staff within the University.’

So, students’ lifewide learning:

• Offered collaborative experiences and so develop more collaborative relationships within their courses

• Helped students to gain more confidence in themselves that carried over into the courses, not least in their relationships with their tutors and lecturers.

• Developed a kind of generalised enthusiasm for learning which enhanced the degree to which they engaged with their formal programme of studies.

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Towards a classification of learning spacesa Authorshipb Accountabilityc Responsibilityd Framinge Sociabilityf Visibilityg Moneyh Timeframei Complexityj Authenticity

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The straight and the smooth

• Deleuze and Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus• Striated spaces – walls, enclosures, roads between them• Smooth space – a field without conduits or channels• Lifewide learners are naturally nomadic, inhabiting smooth spaces (even if their

individual lng spaces are striated)• In smooth space, the learner decides her own map; it is anarchic space• Q: in accrediting lifewide lng, is the U attempting to make smooth space striated;

bringing the anarchic under control; bringing iconoclastic learners into conformity?

• Not nec. Reflection can encourage further roaming, thro bringing added meaning to the student’s lifeworld: the smooth and the striated can enhance each other.

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Conclusions

• The medieval university looked inwards• Gradually, the university has come to look outwards• And not before time, for students are already learners-in-the-world• The student’s univ lng is only part of their learning journey• And not nec the major part• So the U is challenged to find a new role in recognizing the student’s

lifeworld, a role in lifewide education• Accreditation and the offering of systematic reflection are but the first

steps towards such a role• The final step would be a total reconsideration of its own curricula and

pedagogies – that would be the ultimate revolution.