Being a Free Learner means you are self-directing your learning. You can take part in activities and classes that interest you and skip the ones you don’t need or find boring. You can learn on your own or in a group. You can follow your own dreams, interests, and passions.
How does self-directing make learning pandemic proof?
If you are interested in certain topics, skills, or ideas you are free to seek them out online, in person at a library, place of business, museum, nature center or anywhere. You are not confined to only using resources from school.
Sure, school resources are great and you can use them as long as the school is open and available to be used. But what happens to learning when schools close? If you rely solely on what the school has to offer then your learning may be temporarily interrupted or delayed until the school is open again. |
But a Free Learner is an agile learner. If one source of information dries up you can move to a new source of information without too much delay. Even if you are blocked on one front, Free Learners know how to open up another area of interest that they continue to have access to. They are not dependent on a particular school building and a particular expert teacher for learning. They are independent learners.
That agility is what will make learning pandemic proof. |
“Effective education is rarely done to people. It’s done with them...As our hemisphere goes back to school this week, I hope you’ll spend a few minutes thinking about who school is for, what it’s for, how it works and how it doesn’t. We’re wasting a huge amount of time and money, bankrupting our children, hindering progress and stultifying growth, all at the same time. Even worse, we’re not even seeing all the things we're not learning, not engaging with, not creating, because we’re so busy learning like it’s 1904.” Seth Godin