After more than 15,000 hours of classroom education and homework, aren’t we done?
Nope! We're just getting started.
Why Should Adults Learn?
Because school was never intended to be a 100 percent solution.
If you want a fast-paced, super-simple overview of mathematics, English, social studies and science, school is the place to be. If you want more depth, or you want to learn to think creatively, critically, objectively, or expansively, that’s beyond what most schools can do for most students.
Because the world is complicated!
If we’re going to bomb Syria, we ought to know about the place and its people.
Go ahead, find Syria on a map. Name its two largest cities. Describe three important historical events. Explain what most people eat for breakfast. (We can’t either— that’s why we’re trying to change things.)
Because adults teach children.
We pass on beliefs, understanding, knowledge, priorities, prejudices, and ways of thinking. If we know that schools are a partial solution, and we question the reliability of information on the Internet, adults ought to be more involved in educating children.
Because adults vote, and choose our leaders, who make our laws.
We may follow false prophets, share misinformation, make important decisions without the wisdom required to do so.
Because we’re easily fooled, misled, convinced to do the wrong thing.
With so much money spent on politics, consumer marketing, big business interests, and our growing trail of digital data, we are easy targets.
Because we are smart and experienced.
We’ve been around for decades. We’re neither ignorant nor stupid. Ignorance is not bliss. Neither is oversimplification, obfuscation, or manipulation. The antidote for a constant barrage of insults to intelligence: clear thinking.
Because we can be healthier, wealthier, and happier.
Without proper information and clear thinking, the individual loses every time. Our goal: build a safer, more productive future.
Because it’s the right thing to do.
We are the 21st century adult generation. We can be smarter, better informed, more globally connected, more compassionate than any generation that has come before. We have the tools. Let’s get ourselves organized, learn all we can, and pass it on to the next generations.
How Should Adults Learn?
PERSPECTIVE: The way we understand is based upon where we happen to be standing at the time. Stand somewhere else, in someone else’s shoes, from high above or down below, and the story unfolds differently.
CONTEXT: There is no knowledge without context. Everything that happens is connected to history and geography and economics, our ways of thinking in the moment, our fears, our sense of power or entitlement.
BELIEFS: Everything we know and understand is deeply affected by embedded ideas, personal realities, family traditions and community standards. Often, beliefs are more powerful than knowledge.
REASON: In order to navigate the world of ideas, logic and reason are important, but not everything is reasonable. People, for example, are notoriously illogical and unreasonable. Ditto for new or divergent ideas. (Galileo was most unreasonable; so was Magellan.)
360-DEGREE THINKING: Include critical and creative thinking, plus beliefs, context, perspective, and a commitment to understand various points of view. Add willingness to suspend disbelief and rigor. Perhaps ignore the loudest voices …and listen to the quiet.
FACTS: These can be flimsier than we’ve been led to believe. Facts change over time, they’re easy to contradict, and in the battle against beliefs, facts aren’t very powerful. In the era of the internet, facts change quickly, with more or less accuracy.
CLOSURE: In school, closure is clean and simple: complete the lesson, pass the test. In real life, every question could be stated in another way, every question has more than one correct answer, and every answer generates more questions. Learning never ends.
BIG PICTURE: Access to information has never been more robust, but details make the big picture difficult to see. The internet is superb on details, poor on large-scale thinking.
Children and teenagers spend a third of their lives learning simple facts and principles so they can pass the tests required to move from one grade to the next. Adults learn because they want to do something new, figure out how something works, or because they want to strengthen their understanding. As adults navigate through complexity, we're affected by many factors.
What Should Adults Learn?
Our early work on an adult curriculum resembles the work done in 1967-1968 during the development of "Sesame Street." Our plan is to build a working group of curriculum specialists, review and revise the chart below, then work together to develop more specific learning objects within each category, and lesson plans that will become production scripts for web production.
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Your body
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Your mind
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Your spirit
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Longevity
Personal & Social Wellness
Understanding & Wisdom
Understanding is the opposite of ignorance.
Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance promotes social inequality, economic inequality, poor health, shorter life expectancy, obesity, lousy decisions, limited options, and stupidity.
Understanding requires time and effort.
It’s not easy to make sense of the world. In order to understand, our powers must operate at the highest possible level. This is why we learn—and never stop learning.
Wisdom combines understanding with abundant, robust life experience.
Wisdom imbues understanding with purpose.
Wisdom involves sharing as a sacred responsibility to others.
Understanding exists in the individual mind. Wisdom demands engagement with others. Wisdom opens the mind to inner peace, compassion, and awe.
SELECTIVITY: There is always an abundance of things to learn, to try, to do, to fix, to improve. And there is only such much available time. How do we make the best use of resources to do the right things for ourselves and for others?
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Your inner circle
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Your everyday community
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People like you and me
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People not like you and me
Responsibility to Others
How the World Works
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Self interest & common cause
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Social and income inequality
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Trade, money & power
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Social and natural forces
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Role of individual vs. society
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Public vs. private good
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Who controls progress?
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Who designs the future?
Progress & the Future
Any time we want to learn.
Since adults are not beholden to a school schedule, adults may choose to learn at any convenient time. Without a class schedule, adults determine how much, or how little, time they spend learning.
When and Where Can Adults Learn?
Any place we want to learn.
(with exceptions)
A large part of 21st century learning relies upon internet access. In many parts of the world, the internet is not sufficient for adult learning needs. This is unacceptable.
Attention, please.
Children, teenagers and adults face an extraordinary range of choices. We are barraged with media options, and must decide how to spend our time. Whether the media enterprise is a classroom, a TED Talk, a book, a videogame, a circus, or a Broadway musical, the game is always the same.
First, we must generate excitement so that people become curious.
Second, we must deliver on the promise. Attract, retain attention.
Keep them coming back for more.
Back in the 20th century, it may have seemed indelicate to compare a serious documentary with a comic book, or a tenured professor with a busker, but in the 21st century age of the internet, we all learn from one another. And, we carry the responsibility to educate the next generation.
Independence Media believes in the power of public media and new technologies to connect communities, promote diversity, and encourage understanding. In our next quarter century, we will harness the power of internet to help adults understand the world--just as Sesame Street did on television, for young children, beginning a half century ago.
We are beginning to understand the next generation of learning. Please lend a hand.
What we've learned
by doing
About us
What we've learned
from others
Children learn in order to pass tests, graduate and become successful adults, but why do adults learn? The easy answer is practical--because we want to earn more money, or improve a skill--but we all know there's more to it. There's this sense that we can become better people, that somehow, if we understand more deeply, what we discover will improve our life, and maybe, the lives of others. These days, people don't talk much about seeking wisdom--except, perhaps, in a religious or spiritual context. Why not? Given the opportunity, we're aiming first for understanding, then for wisdom!
