8. TOWARD LIFELONG LEARNING Adult education in the year 2000 will be shaped by two trends: first, in the general social development of North American society, and secondly, in the evolution of formal education. Canada and the United States are undergoing a major transformation that affects their economies, political systems, cultures, and social structures. This transformation, Henchey (1991) wrote, is the result of the following factors: (1) the changing role of knowledge in society; (2) an ongoing revolution in communication technology; (3) increasing global economic competition; (4) ecological limits to development; (5) growing cultural pluralism; and (6) greater difficulty in finding meaning in a changing world. He stated that the major goals of education are now priorities and performance. As advanced societies recognize their economic priorities as dependent on skilled resources, economic competition and restructuring set educational priorities. To reorient education toward these priorities and to improve performance, education systems rely largely on quantitative change within the framework of existing structures and assumptions. The concept of lifelong learning, from his perspective, does not appear to have caught on. Society continues to believe in a series of assumptions about schooling and education that need to be questioned. The vision of learning and education systems needs to be enlarged to include integration of learning policy into broader social and economic policies and creation of a learning culture. The 1990s seem to be a strategic moment for fundamental rethinking of learning for the 21st century. The landscape of higher education is being changed by increasing numbers of adult students, most of whom are part time. By 1992, Kerka (1992) predicted that 48 percent of all higher education enrollments would be part time and half of all college students would be over the age of 25. Causes of the trend include shrinking numbers of traditional-age students, greater emphasis on mandatory continuing education, and more jobs affected by technological change. Although adults may be motivated by job/career change, career enhancement, or personal enrichment, education is only one of many competing priorities. Part-time study may be an adult's only option, because the university climate does not cater to this clientele. Some of the barriers to part-time study for adults include the following: inability to resolve home/work/study conflicts or to organize study time; embarrassment, anxiety, and ambivalence about returning to school; inconvenient scheduling and access to campus services; lack of financial aid; time limits for completing course requirements; and campus rules and regulations designed for traditional-age students. These trends and barriers bring out four areas needing attention by the adult education establishment: academic assistance and personal advising, financial assistance, access to services, and flexibility. Continuing with this notion, Onushkin (1990) predicted that the crisis in education that faces the nations of the world at the end of the 20th century requires not only a new approach to the development of education as a social institution, but also the restructuring of the traditional systems of planning and management of education. The democratization of educational planning is called for, in which a flexible and open system would involve all persons and groups of people with a stake in the system, not just educational administrators and bureaucrats. A new system of educational planning and management must put individuals at its center, not some social or economic problem to be solved at the moment. Education must be seen in terms of fostering lifelong learning. His predictions were consistent with what Knowles and the others described as the principles and practices of andragogy, ultimately leading to LLL. For Glines (1991), the emerging global and societal conditions demanded more than the rhetoric of restructuring, reform, change, and innovation. He stated that "educators must adopt the spirit of astronauts to confront the issues directly, create a desirable future for learning, and overcome the inertia of the existing school system." His description of the proposal for the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) presented an exciting educational alternative. Planned for a community of 250,000 people, the MXC features waterless toilets, a geodesic dome, centralized/decentralized living, electronic technology, people movers, and no cars. Most importantly, it is designed with no schools; the city itself will be a lifelong learning laboratory. Although the city has not yet been constructed, creative educational architects can adapt the concepts and weave them into the local district transitions needed to move into the 21st century. School leaders can begin by designating one existing facility as a district-wide MXC space center for education or by creating school-within-a-school experiments throughout the district. Glines indicated that the idea of research and development in education must be restored. Year-round schooling offers creative possibilities, but the Coalition for Essential Schools is focused on improving what already exists, promoting 20th century notions such as school-based management, teacher development, and interventions for disadvantaged students. Taking a very simplistic approach, vanderZee (1991) wrote that the strategic issues in the development of a learning society prepared to face the 21st century and avoid the "obsolescence of mankind" are (1) broadening the definition of learning to include "cradle to grave" concepts; (2) making the goal of learning the growth toward human completeness (in Maslow's terminology, becoming self-actualized); (3) increasing collective competence; (4) fostering autonomy in learners; and (5) stressing a political approach to learning, or, the right to learn as a civil right. vanderZee's principles closely parallel many of the suppositions presented in Part's 2, 3, and 4 of this paper. The reader will note the collectiveness of his approach. Given the nature of the new information age, his approach fosters the interconnectedness of all people, rather than isolating the individual learner from the mass of other human beings also struggling to become increasingly competent in the midst of social upheaval. In "Teaching for the Information Age", Dahlberg (1990) reviewed assumptions about learners, learning and the learning environment in an information age economy and argued that one approach to encourage literacy and lifelong learning was to bring a learner's natural learning abilities, and especially problem solving, into the learning environment. As the society continues to evolve away from a second to third wave or information age, problem solving, thinking, creating, and synthesizing will be the new three R's, and without them, man is doomed to obsolescence. The skills of knowing how to learn and apply information, which have been collectively grouped under the heading "learning management," are becoming increasingly important as society progresses farther into the information age, Harrison (1988) wrote. Because adult learning is usually more self-directed and because adults are largely free to determine their learning objectives, they must learn to manage their learning even more than young people who are still in school. Several courses in learning management have been developed to meet the growing need for instruction in this area. Although most are based on the premise that learning how to learn can and should be an integral part of learning a content area, at least one undergraduate level course (part of the Cognitive Learning Strategies Project at the University of Texas at Austin) is devoted to learning to learn as an area of study apart from any other content area. The latter course focuses on executive control and knowledge acquisition processes, active study skills, and support strategies (such as reducing anxiety and dealing with procrastination). Harrison maintained that memorizing, understanding, and doing (MUD) are the primary keys to pedagogical learning. Digressing from the premise of MUD, adult educators are urged to use few formal lectures, plan for group work, use nonassessed worksheets, and allow a pondering period in each class session. Group problem-based learning was another method of enhancing learning management skills. It was particularly well-suited to work site learning management programs. Each of these educational strategies supported the goal of lifelong learning concepts, because the learners are being prepared not for amassing a personal body of knowledge, but learning how to learn regardless of what the area of interest or the problem that is facing them. Across the nation, experiments are being implemented to meet the challenges of lifelong learning in the context of the 21st century. In Livingston, Montana, a project in LLL was conducted in two parts. The first part gathered data about the following: (1) what respondents had learned in the previous 12 months; (2) their sources of information and how they rated them; (3) why they initiated learning activities; (4) economic costs and benefits; (5) what they might like to learn in the future; and (6) resources to which they would turn. The second part generated additional information about learning networks and learning providers. Data gathering relied on field research and field theory. A stratified random sample using the local telephone directory generated names of 100 prospective respondents; 60 were interviewed. Findings showed that positive and negative forces, both internal and external, led respondents to engage in learning activities. Respondents identified 302 learning activities with which they had been involved during the past year. The most frequently mentioned resources were themselves, their own books, friends, family, and library books. Respondents were more satisfied with human than nonhuman resources. The most frequently mentioned reason for learning was necessity. The average learner spent approximately $1,000 per year. Respondents did not realize economic benefits in 68.42 percent of their learning activities. The most frequently identified category of learning for the next year was cultural; the most frequently mentioned resource was paid teachers. Learning providers exhibited a wide range of teaching skills at various levels of proficiency. These findings correlate with Tough's research in Canada, and other research being done in other countries cited earlier in this paper. As the information age continues to crash toward the shores of civilization throughout the world, more and more people will undertake individual learning projects as part of their own individual growth and development. It is interesting that even though there was no significant economic outcome to be realized in any of these projects, individuals continued to pursue them. This is the essence of a third wave or lifelong learner; the person who chooses to pursue individual self-fulfillment and ultimately, self-actualization through the pursuit of learning projects. Ohliger (1990) argued that knowledge has been narrowed to "facts" or "information", that there is a superstitious pervasive belief that education is a panacea for preparing individuals for the future, and that education lacks a coherent set of goals or philosophy. He called for an increase in lifelong learning to focus more on understanding and less on knowledge gathering, more on being and less on doing, and more humor and less seriousness. He emphasized the need to utilize modern tools of the information age like computers, FAX machines and other mass media. He believed these tools will further accelerate the individuals ability to learn to cope with the information explosion. Supporting this position and focusing on understanding and the use of computers for learning in the information age, Johnson (1991) argued that the process of education, experiential learning, and facilitative teaching provide an answer to the educational challenge and malaise spawned by the information explosion. He believed that experiential learning programs, internships, and cooperative education experiences would facilitate new approaches to dealing with the problems facing the individual bombarded with the overwhelming amount of new information. Wolter (1988) researched the use of computer assisted instruction with adults. A Canadian pilot project in computer-assisted instruction (CAI) was conducted to allow adults who have not succeeded in traditional education programs to work independently at their own level and receive regular constructive feedback. The project was intended for learners requiring specialized training to get this training in their community and improve their chances of either becoming employed or raising their level of employment. Computer systems were installed in all Keewatin (Canada) communities in August 1987. The system consisted of a local area network of either five or eight computer terminal work stations, connected to a file server that stores the courseware, a printer, and a communications modem. The instructional package purchased was Plato, courseware providing academic upgrading for grades 4-13. Plato was to be used three hours daily as part of the adult basic education program. Business application software was also used extensively. The number of students attending the centers and applicants for the next year increased markedly. The rate of learning significantly increased. Learners gained job readiness skills through academics, job search, and life skills programs in Plato. The learners' chances of getting employment increased, because of their new skills and employer perceptions of students who can use a computer. Though this was just one project, there is a need for increasing research into the effects of CAI in the lifelong learning environment of the onrushing information age. Computers will surely affect learning in first world countries, but Jalaluddin (1990) considered how computers may affect lifelong learning in developing nations. He suggested computers might qualitatively change education and liberate existing systems from centralization and curriculum to information processing, thinking, creating, and synthesizing. He expressed concern however, that modernization may widen the information gap between developed and developed nations if in the developing nations there is no emphasis on this type of lifelong learning. Lifelong learning as a concept, and as a process will continue to be researched, reviewed, toyed with, debated, challenged, supported, and hopefully, once and for all accepted by the majority of educators around the world so that human beings will be successfully prepared to meet the new information age. Looking into the crystal ball with prescience, the adult educator or facilitator will need to consider many nuances never before faced by humans involved in learning. But given the availability of information from all over the world, using computers and other mass means of communication, people will learn, problems will be solved, and like the Sartre-ists, humans will be able to give meaning to their lives, all their lives- long.