I have always been honest with people and especially my own children that I don’t know all the answers. This means that I am open to learning new things on a daily basis.
This sometimes fell on stoney ground with teenagers I worked with who wanted “learning” to stop as soon as possible.
As a teacher for 28 years I always had subject content changes to keep up with; new case studies or examples to use in my teaching that would have relevance to the young people that I taught; teaching theories / techniques / pedagogies; new laws concerning actions in school; new research on how conditions might affect some children’s learning; school management decisions and implications…it was a very busy time.
Alongside that as a adopter parent I learnt about my own children’s needs and conditions as well as the day to day parenting skills
As an individual trying different hobbies and sports I learnt techniques to warm up / warm down / exercise …
In reality life is full of learning and we will never know all the answers.
As a part of lockdown I have continued to add to my knowledge about how businesses can successfully attract clients through marketing, publicity, PR, social media, print media, photography, video… On Monday I attended a business network zoom meeting where I again got some leads to follow up re some sales opportunities other artists are using. Today I spent over two hours in a zoom event about PR led by a Dorset based expert. I took on a completely different role as an artist when I restarted my new ‘career’, the learning curve has been incredibly steep and as am only four years in and new ideas / changes appear every week. Sometimes I am more open too formation, at other times just creating work is enough to be getting on with.
How do you manage lifelong learning?