Educ for Life-long Learning LO4853

DHurst1046@aol.com
Sat, 13 Jan 1996 14:21:46 -0500

Replying to LO4744 --

I'd like to support Rol Fessenden's comment that life-long learning is a
systemic issue. We have to look at context as well as content. For
instance, Scientific American had an article some years ago (February
1992) on the superior performance of Indochinese refugees in the blighted
inner city schools of America. The difference between them and locals was
the home context. If I remember correctly the refugees did twice as much
homework as their American peers. Every day after dinner the Indochinese
family sat down as a mini-community to do "it's" homework! The scholastic
results are astounding.

In my book "Crisis & Renewal" (HBS Press, 1995) I examined the success of
the Quakers entrepreneurs of the first industrial revolution, who created
communities that produced learning across multiple generations! What
strikes one as important is the systemic nature of the process and the
complementarity of context and content. The Quakers were wary of what they
called "head" knowledge. Behavior spoke louder than words and in their
view people learnt from example by watching an expert and then practising
themselves. The Quakers systematized the apprenticeship system and created
communities which took responsibility for the production of well educated,
ethically sound young people for an entire network of enterprises. Their
results were also astounding.

--
Best wishes,
David Hurst
Speaker, Consultant and Writer on Management
dhurst1046@aol.com