For years, we sit in a classroom and learn what someone else wants us to how they want us to. And then we stumble out into the Grown-Up World, knowing everything.
Okay, really, we don’t know everything. We know the basic skills and knowledge to be able to function and respond to the world around us. But there’s always something else to learn, and once we’re out of the classroom it’s up to us to figure out how we’re going to learn.
In my case, I’ve always had a research or creative project going since I was a teenager. I’d be in the library carrying around a Reader’s Guide to Periodic Literature, combing through card catalogs, and piling up books listed in the bibliography of a book I’d already found. I’d be in the middle of my room, papers, scissors, markers, and glue spread out around me (or some sort of fiber and cloth in my later teens). I’d be choreographing to a new favorite song. I’d be doing something.
As I’ve gotten older, my research and my creative projects have really intersected. I’m learning new skills so I can do new things. I’m learning more about a topic so I can include it in something I’m writing. I’m on a forum trying to figure out where I screwed up with something I just learned how to do. (That last one happens more than you’d imagine.)
The point is: just because we’re out of the formal classroom, we haven’t suddenly earned the right to stop learning. We’re doing it informally now. We’re pursuing our own projects, experimenting with ideas and tools to learn, create, and share. When we stop learning, when we stop experimenting, we stop growing as people.
