Please pardon my crowing....

... but I just heard that I passed my final paper. I have a Masters' degree. It has taken far longer than anticipated, because I had a bit of a breakdown in the middle, but I did. I actually did it!

Next up, sign language course.

What? Why are you looking at me like that? It's called lifelong learning, and I've wanted to learn sign since my niece's deafness was diagnosed in 1988!

Can I say it again? Loud enough to be heard by the lost little girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. You did it, kiddo!

Fear of flying

Well, well! So it's 2010. I have been away for much of December, visiting family in South Africa, with no access to the Internet, which was very difficult. I hope you have had a wonderful festive season and that 2010 brings you all manner of good things.

One of the necessities of visiting family in far flung places is air travel. I hate flying. The merest hint of turbulence, and I become convinced that I am about to experience a plane crash first hand. The day before my return journey, my 'sensitive' stepfather regaled me with the story of a flight from Dubai to Durban that, he claimed, pretty much fell out of the sky. Charming. He was adamant that he was being helpful, because, as he pointed out, no-one actually died.

The thing is, I'm not scared of death. I just want the bit between being alive and being dead to be pain and terror free. So those people may have escaped death, but they all experienced something really scary. I don't do scary. I don't even go on fairground rides and I'm pretty much scared rigid on a ski-lift or cable car.

As luck would have it, the second - and by far the longest - leg of my return journey was pretty much turbulent all the way. After about an hour and a half of smooth flying, we encountered 'mild turbulence'. This lasted for about five hours. Then we had the joy of 'severe turbulence' the rest of the way to Paris.

I had been a nervous wreck during the mild bit. I lost the plot during the severe bit.

Several people near me were being sick. This was unfortunate, since Air France had neglected to provide us with barf bags. I managed not to be sick. I did not, however, manage to hold together any other shreds of my dignity. In my defence, there were several others who were moaning in fear, too!

I have been flying since I was a small child. From the age of 6, I flew with my 2 year old sister to visit our grandparents, and later to visit our father. We flew, if you can believe it, as unaccompanied minors, and there was no special provision for us the way there is these days. We were expected to sort ourselves out. I was the older child and therefore the target of my sister's expressions of fear and uncertainty. I have no doubt that this contributed to my current attitude towards flying.

On one of our flights, we were delayed on the runway in Johannesburg for an hour and a half before finally being cleared for take off. Because of the lateness of our eventual take off, I fell asleep. Unexpected turbulence threw me from my seat (we used to keep our seatbelts unbuckled in those days) and I woke up as I was making the express journey down the aisle. The pilot announced that the conditions made it too dangerous to land at our destination. Instead, we would fly to Port Elizabeth, where we would spend the night in a hotel, and be flown back the next day. My sister went ballistic. "My Mommy is waiting for me, down there! She will think I'm dead!" The cabin crew tried to assure her that her Mommy would be informed, but she was having none of it. We had no telephone at home and there was no other way to contact her Mommy. To this day, part of me believes that that brave pilot put that plane down in East London in order to shut my sister up!

Be all this as it may, I have decided that this is my year to overcome my fear of flying. So I have enrolled on an online programme. Another aspect of my lifelong, lifewide learning journey. I am fairly sure that fear will be diminished by knowledge and understanding. At least, this is what I hope. Thus far, they haven't told me anything I didn't already know, so we aren't winning, yet! Watch this space!

Unfinished symphonies

Yesterday, Dominick Dunne died aged 83. He overcame a drinking and drug problem to start writing at the age of 50... and went on to become a best-selling author.

He didn't consider himself 'too old' to start something new.

Stories of octogenarians going back to university abound. There are even stories in Africa of these old folks going back to school. Why not?

Have a look at the wikipedia entry for unfinished symphony. Many, many composers started pieces they did not live to finish.

But they started them.

Some years ago, my mother in law needed a new pair of shoes. I took her shopping. She took a shine to a certain pair of good quality shoes. Of course, the quality came at a price. Her view was that at her age, she didn't need to invest in a pair of shoes that would last and last, because she wouldn't be around very much longer herself. She chose something cheaper and altogether more ill-fitting. That was eight years ago. She is still hale and hearty and walking without the aid of a stick, with better eyesight than mine. Eight years of wearing a cheap pair of shoes (if they even lasted that long) when she could have treated her tired old feet to the sort of comfort and good craftsmanship they have earned after a lifetime of faithful service.

Have you noticed that people no longer talk about 'dying of cancer'? Nowadays, we talk about 'living with terminal cancer'. Because dammit, until you actually die, you're alive!

So why not start that thing? Enrol for that study programme. Sign up for those lifedrawing classes. Start knitting that Kaffe Fassett pattern with the 23 different yarns.

So what if you don't get to finish it?

There's a choice: you either give up on life and sit back waiting for death, or you take the chance that you might not achieve your goal in your lifetime... so you bow out still reaching, still stretching, still striving.

I know which I'd rather do! When I talk about my lifelong learning journey, I fully intend for it to last as long as I do.

Stephen Downes: ten things you really need to learn

This is not a new post. In fact it's more than two years old now. Nevertheless, the conversations I follow have brough it bubbling back up to the surface again, nad it hasn't lost currency in the intervening period.

Stephen Downes compiled a list of 10 things you really need to learn. These are skills and attitudes that go way beyond the classroom/training room. Indeed, they tend not to feature in the curriculum for either of those two places, more's the pity. Then again, the responsibility rests in a child's early years with parents and family/community as well... and, in due course, with the individual himself. Note the list is not titled, things we really ought to be teaching.

Personalising learning

ICT Results e-zine has published an article that looks at the use of ICT for personalising learning using a system called iClass.

Initially, the developers tried to design a system that would replace teachers, only to find that this wasn't achievable. I like the idea of the teacher increasingly becoming the tutor/mentor. More guide on the side, less sage on the stage, but I don't think a no-teacher-at-all idea is going to fly any time soon.

At the moment, the tool is aimed at 14-18 year olds. This is cool, don't get me wrong. But I am getting incerasingly worried about what happens after 18. As I touched on in my earlier post today: we seem to be spending a lot of time and money encouraging higher order thinking and learning in our teenagers, only to drum it out of them when they hit the workplace.

The problem is that He-who-signs-the-cheque in the corporate world can't be doing with all this fuzzy research stuff, "What's it got to do with me? I just want my staff being more productive." Their focus is not conducive to a long term view on optimal learning experiences.