LEARNING PRODUCTIVITY
Wingspread Journal, Summer 1997
REFLECTIONS
PUBLIC WORK:
DOORWAY TO LEARNING PRODUCTIVITY
by Susan J. Poulsen, Program Officer
The Johnson Foundation
The more we at The Johnson Foundation explore our
various program areas, the more everything seems connected.
Central to an understanding of learning productivity
-- the focus of this issue of the Wingspread Journal
-- is the concept of community, the way we learn as
part of community, and become part of communities
through the learning process. We know that learning
is most effective when it is relevant and important
to our lives and the world in which we live. Nowhere
is learning more relevant and important than when
we engage in the work of our communities -- public
work.
Public work is more than occasional volunteering
or voting in elections; it involves, in Abraham Lincoln's
words, work on common projects for the public benefit.
There is also, as it happens, no better, more productive
way to learn. The articles in this issue examine learning
at many levels -- schools, higher education, the workplace,
and in our public work. Whether we are young or not
so young, learning is central to living; how we learn
and how we know are directly related to the kind of
world we create for ourselves as a society.
The principal work of young people is learning. It
is what they are expected to do, what they want to
do, what their brains were designed to do from the
moment of their birth -- indeed, even while they are
in the womb. Yet far too many young people fail to
learn what they need to prepare them for adult life.
Why? What are the barriers to learning?
We know that all children have the capacity to learn.
Brain research is now demonstrating that the capacity
to learn can be dramatically expanded through early
stimulation, through reading to very young children
on a regular basis, playing games, and engaging children
in useful, culturally relevant activities with caring
adults. Unfortunately, we fail to apply what we know
about the brain to the design of the schooling process;
indeed, most schools operate almost uniformly against
the grain of the brain, not with it.
As Stephanie Pace Marshall of the Illinois Mathematics
and Science Academy reminds us, the outdated hierarchical
system of schooling is not capable of generating the
organic patterns we need as a global learning community.
She suggests that even our language of learning must
change before we can truly begin to think -- and learn
-- in new ways.
Many people -- educators, scholars, and observers
of the education system -- believe that one of the
major barriers to learning for the millions of young
people who fill our schools is the disconnection of
what is being taught from the realities of the lives
we lead. This does not mean that we no longer need
an education rooted in the fundamentals of math and
science and reading. Rather, such learning must be
enriched, shaped, and made relevant by learning experiences
that are connected to real life. Public work -- perhaps
in the form of service-learning, or in participation
in other useful work that acknowledges children as
assets in communitiesis -- is a key to learning in
context and learning how to learn.
Adults too need to continue to learn throughout their
lives. To cope with the ever-changing world and to
feel a sense of meaning in their lives, everyone must
be engaged in useful, productive work. Today perhaps
more than ever, genuinely useful and challenging public
work that connects one with the larger community is
vital both to the individual and to society. Public
work is one way for people of all ages to become part
of the communities of practice and of knowing.
As you explore the ideas presented in this issue,
we invite you not only to read the Wingspread Journal,
but to engage with us as a part of our community of
knowing. Visit our Web site at <www.johnsonfdn.org>
and join us as we reflect on the connections that
bring us together as a community and make us more
productive, lifelong learners.
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