These days people consider learning their school and college subjects as learning. They also have the ideology that they have nothing to do with learning after graduating from school and college. But this is not the case in reality. Learning is not a short-term process, but it is a lifelong process. Now we will learn, What Is Lifelong Learning? Its Importance, Benefits & Examples.
What Is Lifelong Learning?
The process of mastering skills throughout life to apply in day-to-day life for comfortable living is known as lifelong learning. Humans go through different stages of life as they age. Every human experience a new lifestyle and problems during each stage of life. A human has to learn lifelong to solve the problems caused by the new lifestyle. So we need to know the importance, benefits and examples of lifelong learning.
Importance of lifelong learning
There are seven stages in human life. They are infant, Toddler, Child, Teen, Adult, middle adult and senior adult. ‘Nobody is born a master’ is a proverb. From this proverb, we may know that a human has to learn something new during each stage of life. Now we will see the importance of lifelong learning by analysing each stage of human life.
Infant stage
The infant stage refers to 0 to the 1-year baby. A baby is born from the mother’s womb without knowing its mother’s face. But the baby learns to identify its mother after observing the mother’s face for a few days. A baby also learns to identify the father similarly. A baby learns to identify the voices of its mother and father. A baby also learns to get its food by crying. The baby reacts to strangers by crying since it feels it is not in the safe hands of its parents. The baby also reacts by laughing when it observes funny things done by its parents.
Toddler stage
Babies between 2 to 4 years are known as toddlers. Toddlers imitate by observing things around them. During this period, Toddlers learn to speak by repeating the words spoken by their parents. They learn to walk after several attempts of failure. They listen to the sounds of animals and try to mimic those sounds. They also learn the names of everything around them. During their infancy stage, these toddlers did not know to get things by asking their parents. Now they get their required things by asking orally to their parents. They also learn to play by themselves by running around the homes.
Child stage
The child stage is between 5 to 12. Till the toddler stage, children were under the care of their parents 24×7. At the age of 5, Children step into their school. They need to leave their parents for approximately 8 hours a day. They had never been in a communal environment before. When they step into the school on the first day, they cry. Children cry because it is a new environment for them without their parents. As the day passes, children get used to the environment and step into the school without crying.
School is the foundation for every children’s professional career. They step into school without knowing to read and write. After a few years, children learn to read and write. By engaging in the communal environment, students make friends. They become aware of the country they belong to and abide by the laws of the country.
Teen stage
The teen stage is between 13 to 19 years. Technically Teen stage is known as adolescence. During this stage, every teen will attain puberty. Puberty will transform a teen mentally and physically and develop their personality. Teens would have fought for silly things during their childhood stage. Now, they find those things foolish because they have gained the understanding to respect the feelings of others. Since they develop sexual organs during this period, they learn more about the sexual aspects of human life. They expect to look very appealing in terms of physical appearance. So they learn to present themselves with a clean outlook in front of others.
Adult stage
The adult stage is between 20 to 39 years. A teen becomes an adult when he reaches 20 years of age. After graduating from school, teens step into college as adults. They no more depend on their parents to live their life. They do part-time jobs to repay their loans. The part-time job also helps them cultivate their professional characteristics.
After graduating from college, adults step into their professional careers. In the professional environment, adults cultivate more responsibility, punctuality and perfection. As a professional, an adult continues to learn to keep himself updated with the latest developments in his career. It eventually helps the adult to grow and excel in his career.
Also, we need to focus on people who don’t get a job instantly. People of this category face rejection, citing some backlogs in their skills. These people never lose hope. They rectify their skill backlog and appear for the interview back to back until they get selected. During this phase of life, they learnt the skill of perseverance.
The adult stage is the perfect stage for marriage. Most married couples have opinions and thoughts in contrast to each other, which leads to disagreement. To solve the disagreement, one always gives up in favor of the other. Marriage life teaches couples the nature of giving up. They also say patient with the notorious activities of their kids.
Middle Adult age
The middle adult age is between 40 to 60 years. Middle-adult age people are prone to disease. After contracting the disease, people begin to learn more about health. For better health, they turn towards healthy foods. They learn to exercise and practice yoga regularly. They try to know more about their disease. They have faced so many problems personally as well as professionally. By the time they have learned the skill to handle all those problems. They learn more about insurance and pension schemes that will be helpful for their life post-retirement.
Senior Adult Stage
The senior adult stage is above 60 years. Senior adults learn to teach what they learned throughout their life to the younger generation. They teach how their heart filled with joy when they helped the poor and needy. Senior Adults educate children about virtues like honesty, courage, humanity, etc. Sharing these stories with the younger generation helps them to learn about life. Senior adults care more about others than themselves. The younger generation should learn these qualities from the senior adults.
Benefits of lifelong learning
Learning is the process of mastering skills by observing, practicing, questioning, reading, writing, and experimenting. Humans master the skills using the above techniques throughout their life. Now we will see how these lifelong learning techniques benefit humans.
Early humans observed different climate patterns. So they categorized the climate patterns into four seasons. A sports player practices to enhance his speed and gaming techniques. So practice benefits humans in the way of improving speed and techniques. With help of questioning, we have invented many inventions. Reading and writing help us learn skills and it is the primary medium of learning. Humans experiment to learn the way how things work.
Lifelong learning enhances the skills of an individual. It originates new ideas in every individual. The origin of ideas will give solutions to many problems we face. We learn to produce something. Therefore, lifelong learning increases productivity. Lifelong learning helps a person to do things faster. These are the various benefits we get through lifelong learning.
Examples of lifelong learning
Now we will look at the life story of Peter as an example to know how he used lifelong learning to achieve his goals. Peter was born into a middle-class family. At the age of 6, he joined the school. Their handwriting of Peter was very poor. The teacher faced difficulty to read the handwriting of Peter. One day the teacher yelled at Peter for his bad handwriting in front of others. Peter felt very sad and wanted to improve his handwriting. So Peter practiced for one hour every day to improve his handwriting. After one month of practice, Peter improved his handwriting. He showed his handwriting to his teacher. The teacher was very happy to see Peter’s new handwriting. To appreciate his effort, the teacher praised Peter in front of others.
We knew Peter was born in a middle-class family. As a member of a middle-class family, Peter faced a lot of difficulties during his childhood. One day Peter thought of becoming a rich man in the future. So he decided to know the way money works. In his research, Peter found that Gold is real money. He further discovered that Gold value appreciated s and the Paper currency depreciated over the years. So he insisted his father to invest some little money in gold. After fifteen years, gold gave 1000 times the return on the invested amount. This is how a simple turned Peter into a millionaire. So Peter became aware of the power of learning and learned lifelong to achieve his goals.
The process of learning is a part of human life. From birth to death, a human has to learn throughout his life to achieve his goals. So let’s learn lifelong to live a successful life.
Frequently Asked Question
- Why is lifelong learning important?
Lifelong learning is important to keep ourselves in touch with the latest trends. It helps us to achieve goals and success in our life.
- How many types of lifelong learning are there?
There are four types of lifelong learning. They are Nonformal, Informal, and Self-Directed, Formal.
