For more than 15 years I have presided over my university’s Arrival Day, the time when families drop off their sons and daughters about to start their college career. Every year some parents will take me aside to say they wish they were starting college, and that they’d get a lot more out of the experience now because they’ve become better learners.
As society becomes more polarized, the educational spaces for adults to learn from people with different points of view grow rare.| Sep. 13, 2023, 12:00 p.m.
One mother laughingly called herself a “perpetual student.” She meant she pursued learning for the sheer joy of inquiry. But the term is usually one of gentle derision: someone who keeps taking more courses as a way to avoid holding down a job. In other words, a slacker, or a loser. I think that’s wrong. We should begin to see this sort of lifelong learning as a way for individuals to gain not just knowledge, but liberation.
Across the West in the 19th century, formal schooling became more widespread, and debates about education centered on preparing independent thinkers who could also be free citizens.
There are many ways be a student. Some will strive to find balance and harmony by fitting into their educational context. Others build intellectual muscle by criticizing every move the teacher makes. In daring to be critical and competitive interlocutors with their instructors, they work harder and learn to think more deeply. Some students learn through imitation, eager to follow their classmates as well as their teacher.
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