Learning with a purpose
During my career, I’ve worked with learners of all abilities in both formal and professional education and learning. It spans from teenagers in school, college and university trying to get through exams, to professionals who have been in work for decades which have created and run services in the worlds most iconic companies. I find it amazing that there are so many similarities between the issues and challenges they experience and the things that stop them progressing. One recurring theme that crops up is the ‘why do I have to learn….’ question followed by the ‘….I’m never going to need …’ thought process. It’s a problem with any education system that dictates a specific curriculum and mandates the majority of learning.
There are times in life when some other agent has done some thinking that you might not have done which results in concluding that we would be better off knowing about something. However, it doesn’t need to be the dominant method used. Unfortunately, today, in our education systems and work learning, this is still the most typical approach. The problem is that there are consequences:
- It removes agency from the individual.
- It destroys motivation.
- It creates a vacuum for the reason why someone has to learn something.
- It makes space for excuses.
The downsides can be destructive.
One of the most common subjects that this problem occurs in for teenagers is Maths. Why do I have to learn quadratic equations? Why is calculus necessary? I’m never going to need trigonometry. These learners often believe they need the answer to come from those in authority in the system. The question exists because the learner has no control over why the topic might be useful.
When we have no self-determination or reason why we do something, we lose a crucial ingredient for pushing through the pain when things get hard. There’s an old saying ‘one volunteer is worth ten pressed men’.
“If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.”
— Henry Kissinger
At Cormirus, we are developing ways for helping learners spend more time on finding compelling reasons that build drive. By spending time exploring the possibilities of opportunity, interest and need, we can cultivate a vision for life. Vision gives pain a purpose.
When agency is lost, it creates tension when things become challenging. It gives people excuses and reasons to whine rather than persevere. But, when you make a choice, it becomes much easier to justify doing the work.
There may be times when a learner has to learn something that they struggle to see how it fits with their life plan. Life can sometimes be like that. But, if we shifted the dominant model to be passion or purpose-led, the times when things are mandatory or dictated become fewer and easier pills to swallow.
Learning occurs best when we are doing things just at the edge of our comfort zone. Not too easy, or we get bored. And not too hard, otherwise we get frustrated because we can’t be successful. When we have the added burden of doing something, we have no reasons for doing, and it’s either too hard or too dull, we have a recipe for disengagement and apathy.
That’s why more time must be given to people to discover their purpose and passions.
There is a fantastic program, called ALU, in Africa to grow millions of leaders in Africa. Their approach is purpose-based learning. You can learn more about [here]. The founder, Fred Swaniker, believes it’s part of the key. And, in [a podcast with Oxford University], he suggested that this approach might be hard to instil in the established education systems of the west because of our optimisation for test scores. So far, though, we are seeing the passion, purpose and motivations grow when helping people discover where they want to explore. It’s more than a one-off careers advisory session. It’s an ongoing process of exploration and discovery that builds in excitement.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
― Yogi Berra
Getting through school can be a struggle. Progressing at work and life can be more challenging. If we don’t give the proper attention and support to coming up with the fuel that will help us overcome the obstacles and make it worthwhile, then people generally stop trying. And if people don’t come up with a reason to work hard, they’ll end up in places they might not want to go.
The curriculums that our education systems have designed for society are useful. Thought has gone into them. They provide remarkable frameworks for learning in the future. But, they lose meaning and value when the sole reason for doing them becomes about passing tests. And the answer to the question posed by the learners is ‘just because you have to do well in tests’. They become the most valuable they can be when we need to inspire the love of learning and the reasons why a lifelong love of learning is required.
We must spend more time learning the skills of decision-making aimed at determining what we want to do, where we want to go, and the steps to get there. Having space to explore purpose is essential to these skills. What’s more important: figuring out what you want to do with your life and how you will contribute to the world or quadratic equations? Knowledge-based curriculums that were decided by someone else stop these skills developing. And it’s never too early to start to develop these skills.
We need to help learners develop heart, wonder and curiosity.
