Remember the day you graduated from High School or College? Maybe you have even achieved an advanced degree. Regardless of the level of education, when it’s over, the feelings are the same. Exhilaration! Relief! Freedom! No more books, no more tests, studying, or grades. No more education, right? Wrong!
Much as we believe and hope on graduation day that our education is over, it is really only just the beginning. Certainly, we may not experience the formal school process again, but still our lifelong education should be beginning at graduation, not ending.
Saint Ambrose has counseled “there is no time of life past learning something.” Our continuing lifelong education, be it formal or informal, is critical to our mental well-being. But, why? Here are three reasons:
1. Because the world doesn’t stand still-and neither should we.
Composer Samuel Butler described life as “playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes along.” A more commonly heard definition is that life is not a dress rehearsal. Both descriptions merely remind us that we’d better be able to learn by the seat of our pants, or we’ll end up at the finish line wondering where we’ve been.
Education is often thought of as the formal “book learning” that children and young adults receive in school. Equally, or even more important are the daily experiences we encounter as we muddle through our lives. Experience is the compass that guides our decision whether we are on the right path or the wrong path. If we want to reach the destination of our choosing, we had better be willing and able to read that compass, and to adjust our journey accordingly.
Imagine a small child trying to stand for the first time. Over and over she grasps at a table, painfully pulls herself up, and lets go -only to fall on her bottom. She continues to fall because she keeps trying to stand in the same way - with the same stance, balance and motions that she used before. But finally, she wises up. She adjusts her balance, or the motions she makes. She builds on her past experience to succeed in her mission.
Life changes all the time. Because of this we won’t be successful at everything we attempt every time. The rules change. But, learning from our experiences can help us to succeed in the future. Author Archibald McLeish said it so well: “There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience. That is not learning from experience.”
2. Because we never stop being taught.
Much as we’d like to stop learning, it’s a fact of life that we never stop being taught. New techniques and procedures are introduced at work. We read a new recipe in a magazine that we want to try. We open a map to find a part of town we haven’t been to before. Not a day goes by without a situation that calls for learning - and if we refuse to accept that, our lives will be pretty empty and dull.
Over the past month, I have been stuck in a rut over something I’ve been trying to write. It’s a piece I needed to get done for work, but isn’t the type of thing I’m used to or even good at writing. Over and over I’d make an attempt, willing myself to just get it right! And the more I failed, the more frustrated I’d become.
Finally, I had a brainstorming session with a friend. The transformation was amazing. Where I had been in a dark tunnel of confusion, all of a sudden a light appeared - and I got it! When I stopped assuming I had to do it myself and accepted the help of another person, I was catapulted in an all new direction.
As we get older, it’s hard to be taught. We call it criticism rather than education. We reject it because it makes us feel inadequate and slow. But sometimes, a helping hand from a friend or mentor is just what we need to get over a hurdle that’s been plaguing us.
According to Brian Tracy, a person’s biggest opportunity for success often lies right at their own feet - in their current job, experiences or interests. But without our willingness to take the level of expertise that we already have and expand it to become outstanding - even if that means getting some help from an outside source, be it friends, mentors, books, or classes – we’ll just end up being one of many in the middle of the road. The opportunities for growth and improvement never end, and because of this, we must always be willing to learn more.
3. Because our children deserve it.
The other day, my five-year-old son and I were reading about sharks, and learned that sharks will sink if they stop moving. “How do sharks sleep, then?” was his logical question. “On waterbeds!” I was tempted to reply, but the truth was that I didn’t have an answer (although am now happy to report that I found it - thank you Google!) I’m sure this is only one of a hundred incidents where I will be caught at a loss, unable to satisfy my children’s insatiable curiosity.
Richard Henry Dana, an author and lawyer once said “he who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” Even if we aren't formal school teachers, we are our children’s greatest teachers as they follow our example every day of their lives. Their belief in the importance of education and lifelong learning comes first from us, and then from school. Don’t they deserve to see parents who are as committed to continual learning as we want them to be?
Over the years, I’ve discovered that the best part of graduation isn’t that I’ll never have to learn anything again. Rather, my exciting discovery is that the best part of graduation is that what I learn now is up to me - not a class syllabus or a teacher’s lesson plan. Life is a continuous journey of lessons and experiences - each woven together to create an adventure limited only by our imaginations. When it comes right down to it, what better reason for a lifetime of education do we need?
