Adult Learning

"Societal interest in, and pressures for, lifelong learning continue to mount. This growing interest in education throughout life can be documented in many ways. I (Osborne, Marks, & Turner, 2004)ncreasing adult and continuing education enrollments, a growing recognition of enormous educational deficiencies existing in the United States and other countries, mounting pressures for providing individualized, non-traditional, or distance learning, and available evidence that formal school experience does not adequately equip people to cope with life's challenges are some major reasons cited in support of continuous learning needs." (Roger Hiemstra, 2004)

Lifelong learning has become a popular phenomenon these days. Many people are now going back for what is referred to as a continuous education. This means that they have been out of school for a while and are now returning to school to update their degrees or to even receive a first level degree. People go back to school for many reasons a few being, better jobs, broaden their knowledge in the field they work in or to even gain knowledge and keeping their minds sharp. For whatever reason they go back, that is of no great significance, but what is, is the adversity and the dilemma's that they find themselves facing day in and day out.

In order to explain and state what dilemmas they face, we need to talk about the factors that influence people in general to go back to continue their learning. We then can see how the interest in lifelong learning brings about these dilemmas and how they affect the learning in general. There are three key points that generate this interest in continuous learning and bring about a need for lifelong learning.

As quoted before, one of the primary reasons that people are interested in even attempting to attend school again is societal changes. Society at large is changing so rapidly that there it created a need for further schooling. One primary example how society is changing is in the aspect of technological innovation. The Generation X living simultaneously with The Generation Z today which is that of technology advancement, where a computer at the age of 2 for a kid is its favorite toy is just one proof of how our society has changed. There are four generations working together and the old folks, as in the Baby Boomers, are all capable they just don't know and they are too old to start learning. The next Generation which is The Generation X which didn't grow up with it but they are the force behind all the innovation. The Generation X though, is the ones trying to return to school and get a continuous education but they are facing problems. Around 20 years ago if you didn't have computer in your house that was fine but today if you don't have one let alone know how to use one you are given no chance at any job or even at work there is no promotions. I have a personal example. I work with a salesman, he has many customers and is around 70 but has no idea how to use a computer. In fact he is the only desk in the entire office that has no computer. The only thing he has is a phone and he takes care of all his customers that way. He used to run his own company but he could not run it because of this handicap that he had. He then sold it, got a job working at the same company as myself, continuing to work with his clients the way he ran his company, with only the use of a phone, pen and paper. There is no email involved or internet quick look ups for prices on items we charge market price for. He is amazing at what he does but it does not allow him to get any promotions because he is lacking that skill.

A secondary reason to the one stated above but definitely related, is one that adults are continuing towards "occupational obsolescence" (Roger Hiemstra, 2004). In other words it means that sooner or later adults will be out of job because of new advancements. For example a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is required to take a certain amount of classes or workshops a year to continue their education. In this field of Finance and Law there are so many new things that come up every day that if they didn't continue with education they wouldn't be competent to complete the job properly. Even if it's a small job like payroll, its involvement in the taxes is enormous, and taxes increase and decrease daily. If CPA's are not aware of the increases and vice versa than they will be incapable of completing the task correctly and they will be out of a job quickly. It's the same with Computer technicians; software is updated every year, which would then force the need to continue their education. I know someone personally who hasn't continued his education in computer science and is now suffering for it. There are many kinds of people and they are categorized into groups. One of those groups is called "careerists" or "Escapees". The first is someone wanting to make further progress in their careers and the second is someone who wants a qualification as a way out of "dead-end jobs". (Osborne, Marks, & Turner, 2004)

A third