Lifelong learning from a European point of view

Transcription

1 49] Lifelong learning from a European point of view Jun.-Prof. Dr. Henning Pätzold University of Kaiserslautern [Erschienen in Journal of Educational Sciences, Timisoara / Rumänien 2/2007, S. 45- Abstract This article examines, if there is something specific European within the discussion on Adult Education. To do so, it starts with some historical remarks on European forefathers of educational science. It then moves towards a more contemporary perspective to finally conclude with some thoughts on the common European ground, on which the national discussions and strategies on adult education are founded. Key Words: European adult education; Learning; Teaching Dealing with the discussion on lifelong learning from a European point of view regularily leads to a quite concise and compact picture. It seems that the issue is well defined, particularly due to the effort of the transnational cooperation in defining a common policy of lifelong learning. The European Commission is one of the driving forces of such a policy, especially with contributions like the Memorandum of Lifelong Learning (European Commission 2000), the Communications on a European Area of Lifelong Learning (ibd. 2001) or Adult Learning (ibd. 2006). Furthermore, the Bologna process practically puts an emphasis on lifelong learning, as it prepares concepts to develop this field (e.g. putting a brace on different national qualification frameworks), and also fosters the scientific further education, which in several European countries still is a challenge. The various declarations on lifelong learning are accompanied by European founding programmes like GRUNDTVIG, which provide resources to actually implement concepts of lifelong learning, mobility in learning etc. And last but not least there is a broad and vivid scientific discussion, which even has lead to a Journal on Lifelong learning in Europe. Still, at a closer look one recognises that the discussion is very strongly based on political and organisational topics. To get to the point, the European discussion on lifelong learning takes the issue to a large political extent. From the perspective of a developing area of knowledge this position is understandable and might be target-aimed. But looking at the

2 concept of learning from a pedagogical point of view leaves the impression that this discussion misses the idea of common pedagogical concepts of learning which take the European idea into a rather social and cultural surrounding, in which learning as an individual s process takes place. In this perspective lifelong learning is rooted in shared ideas on what learning is. The question in focus is, if there are such shared ideas from a European point of view. European roots of learning To find out about historic European contributions to the issue of learning, we might at first just turn back and look at the policy level. The European institutions proved a high sensibility in finding names for the programs in view. So, as a starting point, we might look at the historical persons Johann Amos Comenius ( ) and Nicolai F. S. Grundtvig ( ). Grundtvig is behold as the founding father of the folk high school. His approach towards adult learning was rooted in ideas of the age of enlightenment. Furthermore, instead having a written text at the centre of learning, he emphasised the meaning of verbal exchange. Comenius was the first to popularise the term Didactic in his main opus Didactica magna. His thoughts on learning where impressively modern, as well in regarding the execution of teaching as with respect to political issues of the educational system. Comenius claimed the teaching of boys as well as girls and demanded that the school in general shall be open to all people. He developed ideas on the process of learning, which in our terms would be seen as concepts of developmental psychology. However, one of those ideas was related to the question of when people actually should learn. In this context one should keep in mind that in medieval European schools and universities it was not uncommon that children and adults learned together, aligned by a rough estimation of there state of knowledge rather than by age (Aries 2000: 240). Still, Comenius not only criticised this approach, but completely negated adult learning and devoted a whole chapter of the great didactic (Comenius, chapter seven) to the idea that learning must take please in the childhood and youth rather then in the age of adulthood. Taking only those to important figures already shows the whole bandwidth of approaches towards the learning of adults. Contemporary European Concepts

3 There are doubtlessly some very important contributions to the idea of adult learning, stemming from different European researchers. Important names to mention according to the present discussion are besides others Peter Jarvis, Knud Illeris, Ekkehard Nuissl etc. But how distinct is a European perspective to be found in those concepts? To find out about that it might be useful to pay some attention on the relationship between those and other authors in the field of learning in general and adult learning in particular. Figure 1 gives a first impression of some of those relationships. What is quite obvious in the first place is, that nearly all European authors draw strong relations to American scientists. As expected, names like Malcolm Knowles and Jack Mezirow play an important role, but also older authors like Carl R. Rogers, Ivan Illich and, of course, John Dewey. Of course those influences cannot just be regarded as American, as they themselves relate to philosophical ideas from both sides of the Atlantic Sea. Still, they serve as an important source of European thinking about adult education. The concept of andragogy may serve as an example, as this concept is tightly related to the work of Knowles, though its original roots are in central Europe the earliest reference of andragogy is dated back to 1833, when the term has been used by Alexander Kapp (Schoger 2003: 43).

4 Figure 1: A discourse network on (adult) education. Arrow points (x y) mean x relates his ideas to y. Of course the picture is intended to show more than the rather tight relationship between European and American contributions to the discussion on adult learning. It also gives an impression of the paths, the work of some researches took place throughout the discussion. For example the swiss educational psychologist and researcher of developmental psychology

5 Jean Piaget had a particular influence on David Kolb and Björn Engeström. Nevertheless, he also had a successor in his student Hans Aebli, who integrated the work of his mentor Piaget with that of researchers like Bandura, Gagné and others. Furthermore some of the knots of the graph in figure 1 can be characterised as sources. Those persons, who are hit by a big number of arrows, can be regarded as influential and inspiring to a lot of other researchers. On the other hand, some important contributers to the discussion, like Peter Jarvis (UK) have a specific function in structuring and providing access to the work of others. However, the sketch obviously gives a rather rough impression of the debate and shall not be mixed up with in-depth discourse research on the one hand or a kind of citation index on the other. So, without overestimating this approach, it can be accounted that Piaget has contributed a lot to a European (and international) concept of learning, Brookfield 1 may be regarded as one of the more contemporary authors extending there influence not only to the European debate, Jarvis, who doubtlessly has contributed a lot of original ideas to the debate, may also count as a kind of archivist of this debate, who, by his numerous books and articles, eases the access to it for the scientific community as well as practitioners in adult education. In other words, to get an overview on the debate on adult education, one might start by digging the roots in reading Piaget, proceed in learning about contemporary concepts and contexts with Brookfield (e.g. 1986) and find this and further ideas summarised and interpreted in the work of Jarvis (e.g. Jarvis 2006). This impression might be amended by Finger / Asún (2001) to gather a non british (in this case: German and Spanish) perspective. But is it European? In a sense one might argue that there is no such thing as European learning at all. Humans are equipped with a quite similar hardware, which is not related to any geographical nor social or national origin. On the other hand, learning is a process, which is not only related to the mind of a sole person, but always happens within and to the person in the world (Jarvis 2006: 13). The term world in this case is meant according to the phenomenological concept of life world, i.e. not only a material surrounding, but a complex of material and social 1 Calling Brookfield a British author may be a bit fuzzy. Coming form Liverpool, his his academic career lead him to positions in Canada, Australia, the United States and Great Britain (today he is a Distinguished University Professor in Minneapolis).

6 aspects of an environment, which eventually are individually experienced. From this point of view it makes a difference whether learning takes place in one social and cultural surrounding or another. To illustrate this idea one might think of the importance, the political idea of democracy had to the way John Dewey conceptualised the psychological term learning. Therefore it makes sense to talk of a European approach towards learning apart of the issues of educational policy. It is framed by the idea of the person as a learner, the emphasis of learning as emotional as well as cognitive processes and the relationship between the learner and the life-world. Each of these ideas are addressed by any of the abovementioned European authors and looking back you may trace them throughout the European history of learning theory. References Ariès, Philippe (2000): Geschichte der Kindheit [History of Childhood]. 14. Aufl., München. Brookfield, S.D. (1986): Understanding and Facilitating Adult learning. San Francisco. Comenius, Johann Amos (1960): Große Didaktik [Great Didactic]. Düsseldorf, München (Germany). 2nd edition. EU Commission (2000): Memorandum on Lifelong Learning. Brussles (Belgium). EU Commission (2001): Communication: Making A European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality. COM(2001) 678 final. Brussles (Belgium). EU Commission (2006): Communication: Adult Learning. It s never too late to learn. COM(2006) 614 final. Brussles (Belgium). Finger, M.; Asún, J. M. (2001): Adult Education at the Crossroads. Leicester (UK). Jarvis, P. (2006): Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Human Learning. London, New York. Schoger, Walter (2003): Andragogik? Zur Begründung eines Konzepts von Erwachsenenbildung / Weiterbildung. [Andragogy? Establishing a Concept of Adult Education / Further Education.] Baltmannsweiler (Germany).