Relevance in Changing Times
We need to actively involve in lifelong learning because we are moving into a Fourth Industrial Revolution which promises will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.
The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third. The Fourth Revolution has been emerging since the late 1940s. It combines the worlds of physical, digital and biological and is preceding at an exponential rate rather than a linear pace. And it is disrupting almost every aspect of social interaction, production, and governance.
The tremendous upheavals/disruptions caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution means that lifelong learning is a necessity if we are to remain viable in the workplace, conscious of changing lifestyles, and able to uphold our end of discussions with others. At the same time our lives are becoming busier and more more complicated. So how do we find the time to engage on a learning regimen, a learning lifestyle?
Actually it’s quite easy because the same rapidly changing times and technologies offer us tools to grow and expand.
How to learn independent
The first thing to recognize is that no one is going to do the learning for you. You need to be the captain of your own journey. You must have a purposeful attitude and a plan to achieve a higher level of knowing, a mastery of greater levels of detail in emerging disciplines, and a facility to discuss it with others. This self awareness and self direction is the key to achieving new levels of learning.
6 Simple Habits to Lifelong Learning
- Make is a priority even if this is only 10 minutes per day first thing in the AM or maybe over your lunchtime . Make it simple. Just get started
- Buddy up. Find others with a similar interest and start a learning circle
- Be aware and inquisitive about matters you see doing your day. If you wonder how bumblebees fly, or why the polar ice cap is melting, or whether cosmic rays cause cancer, jot the question down and look it up on YouTube, Wikipedia, or the Internet in general. We guarantee you will find the answer. And if you are hungry for more information, download an ebook (usually for free)
- Search out adult learning classes in your community. County school system, library, Adult Learning Center
- Do homework with your children or grandchildren or mentor a child. Their lessons are often on the leading edge of technology, biology, and world affairs.
- Refresh what you learned decades ago in school or from your parents. You will be amazed by what lurks in the recesses of your memory and how much things have changed
