LIFELONG LEARNING

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During the baby boom years of the 1960s through the 1980s, a professional career and job security were taken for granted in the American workplace for many college graduates and skilled workers. Lifelong learning was an activity undertaken largely when an individual retired from his or her chosen career.  Former Governor Jerry Brown's derision of "knitting macram‚" classes reinforced misinformed public perception that lifelong learning was a luxury in which only the retired and/or well-heeled were engaged.

Corporate downsizing of the 1990s and the emergence of information technology have changed public perception of lifelong learning.  The notion of a stable career after college graduation has come under severe question.  More than ever before, many professionals and workers feel that there is no job security, no matter how dedicated and hard-working an individual may be.  Many today find themselves having to seek out lifelong learning opportunities just to survive in the job market, reposition themselves into new or self-created jobs, and/or acquire new skills as a safety net in a multinational economy that can easily obtain contract work performed by individuals living in Malaysia, Brazil or other foreign countries.

In the midst of the economic recession during the early 1990s, California erred in raising community college fees for college graduates who found themselves having to return to the classroom to acquire new knowledge and skills.  The imposition of higher fees on baccalaureate degree holders depressed community college enrollment at a time when enrollment should have increased so that unemployed and underemployed Californians could reposition themselves in the job market.  The lesson learned is simple and severe - lifelong learning is a necessity for survival in the 21st century without regard to an individual's previous education attainment level.   This survival is not solely related to economic and job market challenges.  Rather, lifelong learning is an imperative for all as cultural, racial and ethnic identities and experiences come closer into contact, and even clash.  Lifelong learning provides the calm, reflection and excitement in which Californians can question where we have been, what we have done, and where we need to go. This is critical in an emerging, technologically oriented world that applies seemingly straightforward, number-crunching solutions when complex, multilayered cultural solutions may be equally, if not more, appropriate and vital.

In short, lifelong learning is the process by which every Californian becomes information-literate about any conceivable subject, topic, policy and/or challenge of interest and necessity.  Information literate individuals are those who learn how to learn and seek out information as needed for any task or decision.  Lifelong learning necessarily begins at the earliest age possible; it is not an activity undertaken when an individual begins to think about retirement.

Rightfully or wrongfully, there is considerable public anxiety that today's young people may not be effective learners, much less lifelong learners. Even though California is home to the top-ranked public research university in the nation, state policy-makers bemoan the unacceptably high numbers of first-time California State University freshman students who must enroll in remedial English and math classes.  On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test, California students rank at the very bottom with Louisiana students in reading.  Between 1989 and 1994, the number of poor children, age 5-17, grew 44 percent to more than 1.4 million.  Due to circumstances beyond their control, poor students do not acquire academic and other learning skills as well as their more affluent counterparts.  As the single largest ethnic group in California public schools, more than 80 percent of all Hispanic students score "below basic proficiency" in NAEP tests.

The California infrastructure for lifelong learning is on unstable grounds.  This instability is not solely a function of inadequate funding for public education.  To a large extent, the lack of rigorous academic standards and expectations of California students, the absence of culturally sensitive and relevant support services for racially diverse students, and the often open hostility toward more than 1.3 million limited-English- proficient students, all undermine the foundations of lifelong learning.  The functional illiteracy and inadequate job skills of hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients, who are now required by the so-called federal welfare reform bill to work, underscore the need to reinvigorate and expand California's infrastructure for lifelong learning so that these individuals can secure the necessary job skills and knowledge for successful employment and self-sufficiency.

The passage of Propositions 187 and 209 and the 1995 anti-affirmative action resolutions by the University of California Board of Regents have sent harsh signals to certain groups of Californians that they may be excluded from lifelong learning opportunities. At a time when national and state leaders have temporarily ceased partisan battles over the role of education in American society, lifelong learning must be inclusive if California is to remain a viable, multiracial democracy. California society cannot allow any citizen or groups of citizens to be either anti-education or wrongfully perceived as such by the general public.  Lifelong learning must be one of those essential experiences that bind Californians together, without regard to race, ethnicity, linguistics or cultural background.

Even as the California economy continues its upward trend and, at least for now, more dollars are available for public education, the challenge remains to have every Californian, young and old, see themselves as a lifelong learners and secure every opportunity to be so.  Our public institutions must collaborate and acknowledge that all Californians can and should be lifelong learners or information-literate citizens. Lifelong learners will not only help California society to survive in the next century, but create a society that is economically competitive, culturally open and enriched, and politically engaged to make decisions which benefit the public good.
 

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