Artichoke is still choked up about the fact that no-one seems upset that lifelong learning is assumed to mean lifelong incarceration in classrooms. And she has this nice quote from Illich to make me ponder, and earnestly wish to read this book.Artichoke:
How should I distinguish the acquisition of education from the fact that people have always known many things, have had many competencies and, therefore have learned something? …… So I then came to define education as learning under the assumption of scarcity, learning under the assumption that the means of acquiring something called knowledge are scarce. P71 Ivan Illich in Conversation. David Cayley
I think the popularity of non-fiction in this country shows that poeple understand the value of life-long learning. However, it does seem like our educational system is focusing more on memorizing test questions than teaching critical thinking skills that make learning interesting.