We hear the phrase “lifelong learning” thrown around a lot in education, whether it’s about training our kids to be lifelong learners or embracing it for ourselves as we engage in professional development. It’s about seeking new knowledge and being open-minded to change as we receive new information, and then responding to evidence with logic and reasoning. It’s the antithesis of the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” analogy, and we demonstrate it whether we’re getting a graduate degree at seventy-five, picking up a new gardening hobby at twenty-two, or even reevaluating an iffy post on social media.
As a biology teacher, I actively push my students along the “lifelong learning pathway” every day. When students ask me why they have to take my class even if they don’t plan to be a doctor or a nurse or a researcher or anything relating to science, I always have an answer. “This class isn’t just for people who want to study and use biology - it’s for people who want to understand why things work the way they do, and to learn how to question new information they are presented with.” At some point, I’ll show them a few posts that went viral on the Internet relating to health, and show them how to track it to find where the information originally came from and how it may or may not actually align with what the post is saying (some of my favorite examples include cosmetic “miracle products” and workout-enhancing supplements).
Sometimes they nod and say some variation of “okay, I get it,” sometimes they blink and stare at me like I’ve lost my mind, and sometimes they say “but I don’t care.” That’s fair, kid. I can’t force engagement. But I can keep showing you things that I think will help you in the future, whether it’s making a habit of showing up on time, why you need both carbohydrates and fat in your diet, or learning to pick apart a questionable Facebook post’s claims.
Sometimes, it’s hard to teach these things, and I get it. Biology is a tough topic and not every kid wants to take it or even be at school. But then I see misinformation being spread, and I know that teaching this skill of critical thinking and committing to lifelong learning is more important than ever. In the past several months I’ve seen countless pieces on the news, posts on Facebook, clips on Youtube and random events in public that demonstrate a lack of lifelong learning. I’m sure you’re already thinking of a post you saw about masks or vaccines. Maybe you’re thinking about a legislator’s statements on critical race theory in classrooms or a researcher’s quote on climate change.
I see profound posts almost every day that are designed to elicit some sort of response, and my brain lights up with dopamine at the thought of contributing to the conversation on the Internet so I start to click “share.”
But then I stop, and I think “what would my students say if they saw these posts? Would they remember what I taught them about questioning information we see and making sure we find the original evidence before we spin it back out into the universe?”
Sometimes, my deep-dive into the post finds the content is valid and backed by unbiased experts, and I click share. Sometimes, I find out that some things were taken out of context. Sometimes, I recognize that the post itself was just so sensationalized that it’s trying to get shares just by being clever, and I think maybe that’s not the kind of objective content the Internet needs.
Regardless, every time I do a deep-dive, I learn something a little bit new, and it almost always challenges what I thought I knew, and that’s what is supposed to happen. Maybe I’m wishy-washy or inconsistent on an issue, but the way I see it, I’m learning as I go, and I’m committing to acting and speaking with unbiased evidence and reasoning so that I only put helpful information into the world.
This blog isn’t so much about how to build lifelong learners, but why it’s so important to do so. Any education article will give a bulleted list of actions to build lifelong learning into our students, but now more than ever, it is critical that we recognize its importance in our classrooms alongside the content we deliver each day. In many subjects, our content changes frequently as new events occur and context changes, so why wouldn’t we take the opportunity to let our students know that changes to our knowledge are not only okay, but a good sign that we’re growing and getting better?
