For a score of years I taught at a lifelong learning program for senior adults in my community in mid-Texas. It was one of the activities we enjoyed. Reflecting on this, it occurs to me that much if not most of education should be elective like this. It may not be practical for all sorts of reasons, but then most young people take courses because \u201cthey\u2019re required,\u201d and looking back, this practice is rather odd, if you think about it. It\u2019s so common that it\u2019s taken for granted, because the degree is what counts. Huh.<\/p>\n
But learning should be voluntary, and being qualified means you\u2019ve learned what you need to learn, as considered by those who are supposed to know. Beyond that you read or learn what you want to learn\u2014or maybe you never pick up a book again! Well, I won\u2019t pursue that\u2014it\u2019s full of whereas and buts. <\/p>\n
The point is that it\u2019s a good phrase for lifelong learning at whatever pace, intensity, and regarding whatever subject matter is preferred. It\u2019s a good phrase for what I\u2019ve done much of my life, taking classes, teaching classes, doing it just to be enriched. I\u2019m pretty wealthy knowledge-wise, I\u2019m happy to confess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a score of years I taught at a lifelong learning program for senior adults in my community in mid-Texas. It was one of the activities we enjoyed. Reflecting on this, it occurs to me that much if not most of education should be elective like this. It may not be practical for all sorts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-papers","category-favoritethings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}