The story appears as a newsworthy event letting the world know of this significant effort on behalf of some “left-leaning bloggers” that are “trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.”  It goes on to explain that this group believes that “Blogging is very intense — physically, mentally,”   The final quote is “You’re constantly scanning for news. You’re constantly trying to come up with information that you think will mobilize your readers. In the meantime, you’re sitting at a computer and your ass is getting wider and your arm and neck and shoulder are wearing out because you’re constantly using a mouse.”

     I’ve got some real issues with this one.  First, while I appreciate the power of a blog and the ability to freely express myself, in no way do I feel that I’m providing real “news” or furthering the advancement of mankind, or curing cancer.  It’s words, my words, your words, interesting words, controversial topics, and it’s free.  But the validity of it is only as good as the person writing it and the person reading it.  No check and balance, no way to know the source, no triangulation of the facts.  A blog is someone’s opinion and you know what that say about opinions… everyone’s got one.  I can’t see the need for the formation of a union, nor could I in good conscience support “health care” for people that write blogs, including myself! 

     I found Havighurst’s theory most interesting because it focuses on the type of learners that I deal with in my job, adults.  As Dr. Blanchette went through the three main stages of adulthood (early adulthood, middle adulthood, and later maturity) I looked around the room to see if I could spot the three types in my cohorts.  I recognized that indeed the types were there.  I had heard some of our younger members talking about being recently married, starting a family, and starting careers, almost a perfect match to Havighurst’s “early adulthood.”  On the other end of the model is “later maturity” and while I’m not sure if anyone in the cohort has recently lost a spouse or adjusting to retirement, there had been some of our group complaining about getting older and having poorer health.  Certainly our daily trip up the hill to the Arbutus classroom had generated some grunts and groans, including from me.  Finally as I did a quick review of the “middle adulthood” parts of the model, I was able to see about a third of our class fitting the description (raising teenage children, focus on occupation, having aging parents, etc.). 

     I was satisfied that Havighurst’s model worked, or at least fit our class pretty well, but now what?  What did it mean to me as a person responsible for adult learning?  I know from reports from my company’s HR (Human Resource) department that the demographics show that our workforce now has four generations in the same workplace for the first time in history.  What does it mean to training if the student that is just starting a career is sitting next to the person that is within a few years of retirement?  It’s easy to say that the younger learner is more motivated since they will be around for a long time, while the motivation for the “mature” learner is more to maintain the status quo until time to go.  And what about the middle adults, still having years to work but not nearly as adapt at technical or computing skills as their younger co-workers?  Looking at it that way, motivation can’t be the only challenge.  

     HR had more demographic information to share… because of the “Baby Boom” our attrition rate for the next 6 to 8 years would be higher than any time in history, likely to rise above 15%.  As a training professional I know what that means to me.  We not only must try to recruit and train those younger workers, it’s just as important that we try and keep our mature workers’ skills current without making training so difficult they opt for retirement.  I haven’t gone there yet, but one of the thing’s I’ll be doing is more reading on Havighurst and others in Developmental Theory, mining for more information.  I recognize that the solutions to these challenges apply to me too, thus my attendance at RRU.           

‘How do you know? You’re a Zen master!’ exclaimed the samurai. ‘Yes, but not a dead one,’ Hakuin answered.” ~Zen mondo  

     And so goes my thoughts about how I learn.  It once seemed almost beyond me to think that we possibly “know” something without experiencing it at some level.  Long before I had ever heard the word “constructionism” I was the kid in class that would ask why or how, always needing more proof, and it would often come down to “show me” or better yet let me do it before I could truly believe.  I can think of numerous times in my life when I was being “taught” something and couldn’t wait to get to the part where I could actually “do” the thing being taught.   

     An easy example that comes to mind is when my father was showing me how to use the lawnmower, not exactly something I was looking forward to.  He explained how to make sure it had gas and oil, gave me the basics on how the motor worked to turn the blade, covered the important safety aspects and then spent a good deal of time instructing me on the logistics of how to mow the lawn.  His motivation was likely threefold… hoping to not loose all the flowers, trees and shrubs, making sure I still had ten fingers and toes when I was done mowing, and getting out of mowing himself.  But during my mowing lessons all I could think about was getting on with it, let me actually start the darn thing and cut some grass!  It wasn’t until I had experienced it myself that I felt that I had really learned to mow.  In spite of the great intent and instructions from my father, the learning came from the doing.  

     Of course I did a horrible job mowing the first few times and I quickly came to understand why my father didn’t want to mow the lawn himself.  But soon I came to know that I could make money mowing lawns and thus I now had motivation to get even better.  I continued to build on my experience, checking my own performance, watching how others mowed their lawns, and I worked at improving my efficiency.  Soon I was on my way to mowing half of the neighborhood and saving up for that dirt bike I so desperately wanted.   

     I realize that this is a simple example of how I learn, and it’s based on a sort of “face value” view of what happened back then.  What I have learned since, and especially reinforced in the past few weeks of learning from classes, from cohorts, and from my textbooks, is that my perception about how learning takes place tells as much about me as it does about what learning actually took place.  Recognizing this other dimension of my learning style and how I believe others learn has led me to better understand other aspects of my learning preferences.   

     As an example throughout my adult life I have never been drawn to believe in statistics, charts and graphs.  For me it’s always been the old adage “liars figure and figures lie.”  I’ve clearly fallen on the side of qualitative verses quantitative in my trust and therefore my assimilation of knowledge.  But over these past few weeks I’ve gained a heightened awareness that my assumptions about learning are not necessarily correct, that there are many ways people learn, and it’s not all the same as the way I learn.  My “quantitative” and “positivists” friends in class have made very good arguments about the validity of their deductive beliefs as applied to learning.  I must say that questioning my beliefs wasn’t at first a comfortable thing for me.  Like the mowing lessons from my father, I have a growing need to take another look at the realist epistemological approach to learning.  I’m not necessarily taking the word of others, I’ll need to see it, experience it, understand it and learn it for myself.  So far my motto is still “live and learn.”  I’d sure be interested in your perspective too.