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Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, London Learning Lives conference, Birkbeck, 26 March 2014

Sub-brand to go here. The Future of Learning is Lifelong, Lifewide and Open: some challenges for the Ecological University ( and even some for lifewide learning ). Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, London Learning Lives conference, Birkbeck, 26 March 2014. Centre for Higher

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Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, London Learning Lives conference, Birkbeck, 26 March 2014

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  1. Sub-brand to go here The Future of Learning is Lifelong, Lifewide and Open: some challenges for the Ecological University (and even some for lifewide learning) Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, London Learning Lives conference, Birkbeck, 26 March 2014 Centre for Higher Education Studies

  2. Lifelong, lifewide and open – starting point • A concern for individuals, for them to be able to author their own lives • - and since this is a continuing project of self-becoming • - and since education can help • Education has to be available through the lifespan and allow connections across the individual’s learning experiences • So, lifelong and lifewide – and open (readily available).

  3. A philosophical analysis • LW & LL learning - an educational philosophy of perpectual becoming • Individuals can be self-generating (beyond merely being in the world) • A philosophy of educational self-immanence and personal emergence • Individuals have the resources to generate and re-generate their own subjectivities • A philosophy of openness, of personal openness and pedagogical openness • Due attention is paid to collaboration • But, individuals can – & ultimately have the responsibility to – self-author themselves • After all, no-one can do that for individuals. Only they can do that for themselves.

  4. An issue • It may sound as if this is a project concerned with individuals as individuals • It is concerned about their welfare, their needs, their possibilities, their own learning • Is this an agenda for late capitalism, in which everyone looks out for themselves • - and reconstructs themselves (for a fluid world) • And goes on developing themselves for themselves? • Cf ‘Bowling Alone’. A solipsistic educational journey devoid of any sense of universal claims and possibilities.

  5. An ecological point of view • Thereis a real world – it’snotjust a matter of ourlife-projects • Itis a globalisedworld • And a worldrivenwithconflicts, powerdifferentials, and ideologies • Willy-nilly, we are embedded in networks – antagonistic as they are • A challengethenisthat of bringing a (greater) concernfortheworldintoourlearningtasks • Neitherself-centrednorselfishbutself-less, notmerelyimmersed in theworldbutengagingcriticallywiththeworld • - with a careforitsflourishing.

  6. Points of connection • This then is the issue: to what extent (and how) might the individual’s connections with the world come into play in the eking out of that individual’s life-education, her/ his education for her/his life? • NB the problem is complex • For the ecologies in which the individual is held are numerous: • Knowledge • Culture • Social institutions • Economy • Self

  7. The ecological university • The ecological university takes its embeddedness in the world seriously • - within all of its ecologies (knowledge, institutions, economy, society etc) • Is interested not just in their sustainability or even their well-being but their improvement and their flourishing. • Is active in the world – intent on world advancement (the university as a site of critical action) • Higher education - an education for critical & constructive action in world • Students as global citizens – critical, active, constructive (‘critical action’) • Their LW education becomes crucial: an open curriculum but their discipline/ professional field retains a key part.

  8. Conclusions: Challenges before the ecological university and lifewide learning • What is to be the relationship between the univ curriculum and the student’s LW education? • How is the student to be brought up against the ‘real world’ and confront its messiness • And helped to develop the human qualities for engaging with the world, with its power structures & antagonisms? • How is the student to be enabled to develop an active sense of her/his relatedness to the world • And come to be an active, critical but constructive actor in and across the world? • Formidable questions – to which we have hardly glimpsed the answers. So there is much work to be done. Institute of Education University of London 20 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AL Tel +44 (0)20 7612 6000 Fax +44 (0)20 7612 6126 Email info@ioe.ac.uk Web www.ioe.ac.uk

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