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THE IDEA OF CONTINUOUS LEARNING IN THE TRADITION OF WESTERN EUROPEAN AND POLISH PEDAGOGICAL THOUGHT
V. Jamrozek,
K. Jakubiak
The concept expressed in the title is often substituted with other terms. In modern Polish pedagogical terminology, many terms that are close in meaning or simply synonymous are used to define the ones we have adopted in the present discussion of terms: “continuous learning”, "lifelong learning”, “lifelong education”, “perpetual learning”, and finally, “permanent education”. Among these terms, the concept of “permanent education” is rather widely used in modern theory and pedagogical practice. This is most often understood, according to Zigmunt Wiatrowski, as a “set of educational and training processes over the course of a person’s entire life, and then the lifelong processes carried out in all possible organizationally scheduled forms and in all situations of interpersonal contacts” [1]. According to the same author, permanent education includes: (a) natural education (implemented in the family home, the local environment, and at work); (b) school learning and education (from kindergarten through institutions of higher education); (c) so-called parallel education and training (implemented in extra-curricular organizationally scheduled forms); (d) continuous learning, which is understood as post-secondary education or continuous learning of adults. In this context, the term itself continuing learning refers to one of the areas for educational activities essentially related to adult education.
At the same time, many contemporary educational theorists use the term “continuous learning” (or “continuing education”) instead of the concept of “permanent education”. They do not consider this term to be related only to post-secondary education and adult education. The definition of “permanent” is derived from the Latin “permanens” and means constantly acting or constant [2]. Therefore, when we use terms such as “continuous learning”, “continuing education”, and “permanent education” interchangeably, they are perceived as a “unified system of didactic and educational activities” directed at a person from early childhood until advanced old age; they are also used to refer to such concepts as both “education and training of children and youth” and “adult learning” [3]. In the context of the aforementioned, it is possible to conclude that - in the words of one of the theoreticians of permanent education Thaddeus Alexander -
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its essence is the “constantly acting, constantly realized, systematic and rational influence on human development at every stage of life” [4].
The idea of so-called continuing education arose back in the philosophical thought of ancient times (for example, in the works of the Chinese philosopher Confucius or the Greek Plato [5]). In modern history, Jan Amos Comenius wrote about it, especially in his work Pampaedia (written in the 17th century, but remaining in manuscript form until 1948). Comenius distinguished eight periods in a person’s life and related them to eight different school institutions or school levels (the concept of “school” is often arbitrarily used: “the school of age” or the “school of death”). In this essay, the concept of education continuing throughout one’s entire life -permanent education - is widely presented and justified in the history of pedagogical thought for the first time. In this essay, Jan Amos Comenius expanded the concept of “school” to all of human life. He wrote, among other things: “Thus, just as for the entire human race the whole world is a school, from prehistory to the end, for an individual, his entire life is a school from the cradle to the grave.... Each age corresponds to a study, and human life has no other purpose than the mastery of scientific knowledge” [6].
The idea of continuing education could not fail to encompass the educational ideas of the Enlightenment, in which study and school were assigned the role of initiator of progressive changes in social and individual life. For example, one of the French Encyclopedists, Helvetius, stressed that education concerns not just childhood or adolescence, but should extended throughout one’s entire life. This idea was included in the project of organizing public education during the French Revolution by Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Condorcet, who argued that “learning should not leave individuals from the moment school is left; it should concern people at any age. There is no age at which study would not be possible and useful” [7].
In the era of modern contemporary Polish pedagogical thought, Helena Radlinska belongs to the best-known defenders of continuous learning, the creativity and pedagogical work of whom took place in the first half of the 20th century. She considered training and education to not only refer to school. “Organization of an educational system,” she wrote in 1919, “does not include all that it is necessary to do. It is impermissible that people, roused by school, are then to be left to the arbitrariness of mental hibernation. It is unacceptable when adult people faced with the challenges of building a new society for the next generation remain at the level of a school education” [8]. At the same time, H. Radlinska wrote about the great learning abilities of the older generation. Education and training of the
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elderly is possible and effective. She wrote that in regards to this generation of people, it can be said that they have a great mental and physical capacity to learn [9].
The figure of Helena Radlinska is linked largely with practical activities in Polish education in general, as well as in the part that relates to adult education. Especially great are her contributions to the development of reading and the movement of self-education (before the time when Poland regained its independence), as well as in the work of different cultural societies, including the Galician People’s University of Adam Mickiewicz, founded back in 1898. The basis of the work of this university was laid by the concept of so-called free university, the idea of which was born in Britain in the second half of the 19th century. The free university was a unique type of institution: on the one hand, the learning process was not associated with obtaining a certificate of education, but above all, it was designed to meet the students’ own intellectual interests and to develop their cognitive needs (through readings, lectures, and conversations); on the other hand, it was an open university for all who wanted to deepen their knowledge and obtain a profession and place of work, regardless of age [10].
A broad approach to the understanding of continuing scholarship (continuing education) was characteristic, among other things, of the Edgar Faure Report, which was sensational in the last decades of the twentieth century. It was a UNESCO report compiled by the International Commission on the Development of Education, which was established by UNESCO in 1971 and led by the former French Prime Minister Edgar Faure. The purpose of the Commission was to study the then existing state of education and training in the world, as well as to prepare strategies for its future development [11]. The report was published in 1972 with the title Apprendre a etre. It was also published in Polish in 1975 with the title Learning to Be.
The report provided a critical analysis of the state of education existing at that time and indicated existing and emerging trends in its development. It contained recommendations to facilitate development of optimal strategies for the development of education. Faure introduced, above all, a concept of education based on the belief that man as a potential being can realize himself only through continuous study, due to the accumulation and actualization of already acquired experience. Education in this context was not so much the process of transferring a certain quantity of knowledge, as the process of human existence. Another important provision in the Report was the thesis of the growing role of
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education in the life of society on a scale disproportionate to previous ages. It was suggested that future training (education) will obtain great significance, such that it will become one of the most important outcomes of social, economic, and cultural achievements.
All the strategies for transformation of education proposed in this Report were contained in 21 theses. One thesis begins: "The cornerstone of any forward-looking educational policy should be the principle of continuous learning.” This idea was constantly present in the rest of the theses as well. The second thesis expressed the belief that continuity requires a complete change in the currently-existing structures of didactic and educational activities. It is necessary to stop referring to education as a set of actions that take place exclusively or mainly within school walls. Continuous learning is in equal parts a process of organized study (primarily) in school, but it is also a process that is accomplished during professional work, or during so-called leisure time.
A similar understanding of the idea of continuous learning arose at this time, incidentally, under the influence of the aforementioned Report, also in the environment of the existing pedagogical theorists and researchers of education and training. In Poland, the exemplification of this may be considered the content of the two most famous publications of that time - that of Ryszard Wroczynski [12] and Josef Poltuzycki. [13]
A broad understanding of the idea of continuous learning is also reflected in the content of other well-known report - the report of UNESCO’s International Commission on Education for the 21st century, prepared under the direction of Jacques Delors with the title: Education: the Treasure Within. It was published in Europe in 1996 and a translation into Polish appeared in 1998. The report drew attention to four "pillars of education”, imbuing it with a unique conceptualization and meaning. They are presented in the form of the following distinctions: "Learning to Know”, "Learning to Do”, "Learning to Live Together”, and "Learn to Be” [14]. At the same time, the report noted that "The concept of learning throughout life thus emerges as one of the keys to the twenty-first century. It goes beyond the traditional distinction between initial and continuing education” [15]. In the fifth chapter entitled "Learning Throughout Life”, it is stressed that "continuing education is truly geared to the needs of modern societies, it cannot be defined in respect to a particular period of life, for example such as adult education as opposed to the education of youth, or in respect to a narrowing of the goals, such as vocational training in contrast to general training. The time of study covers one’s entire life. It is stated that
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‘education throughout one’s entire life’ is not a distant ideal, but the reality, all the more often confirmed by facts and characterized by a number of changes that emphasize its need. In order to organize this process -education throughout life - it is necessary to change the relation of the various forms of education as an independent and seemingly superimposed on each other or even competitive, but to the contrary, to try to raise the value of what is modern in time and space” [16].
Continuous learning is becoming increasingly widespread in modern society. It can be said that we now live in the next period of a breakthrough in civilization. Every day we feel the ever-increasing role of science and education, which, as written in one of the latest Polish works devoted to the problem of continuous learning, "are becoming the principal resources in the epoch of a learning society” [17]. The author of the previously mentioned work, Eva Solarczyk-Ambrozik, writes: “Technological changes, development of mass communications technology, and changes in work, competition on the labor market, and the need to constantly adapt creates the phenomenon called an ‘educational lifestyle’, which appears as forming equally in the field of professional work and in the sphere of social life. Continuing education is a requirement of civilization and at the same time a great challenge” [18].
References
1. Z. Wiatrowski, Ksztafcenie ustawiczne dorosfych, w: Encyklopedia pedagogiczna XXI wieku, T.II, Warszawa 2003, s.904
2. Stownik wyrazow obcych PWN Warszawa 1972; Stownik wyrazow obcych, Wyd. PWN, Warszawa 2002, s. 849.
3. T. Aleksander, Edukacja ustawiczna| permanentna, w: Encyklopedia pedagogiczna XXI wieku. Tom I, Warszawa 2003, s. 985.
4. Ibidem, s. 985.
5. Zob. J. Pofturzycki, Tendencje ksztatoenia ustawicznego, Warszawa 1981, s. 5.
6. J.A. Komenski, Pampaedia, Wroclaw 1973, s.70.
7. Cyt . za J. Pofturzycki, Tendencje..., s. 7.
8. H. Radlinska, Oswiata i kultura wsi polskiej. Wybor pism, oprac.
H. Brodowska i L. Wojtczak, Warszawa 1979, s. 170.
9. Zob. W. Theiss, Radlinska, Warszawa 1984, s. 41-42.
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10. Zob. R. Wroczynski, Praca oswiatowa, Warszawa 1965, s. 77 i in.; J. Mi^so, Geneza i rozwoj uniwersytetow powszechnych w Anglii, „Rozprawy z Dziejow Oswiaty” 1984, t.XXXVI, s.109, 122 i in.
11. Cz. Kupisiewicz, Przedmowa do wydania polskiego, Uczyc si§, aby byc, Warszawa 1975, s.8.
12. R. Wroczynski, Edukacja permanentna, problemy i perspektywy, Warszawa 1976 (wyd. drugie rozszerzone) .
13. J. Potturzycki, Tendencje rozwojowe ksztatcenia ustawicznego, Warszawa 1981.
14. Edukacja - jest w niej ukryty skarb, Raport dla UNESCO Mi^dzynarodowej Komisji do spraw Edukacji dla XXI wieku, pod przewodnictwem J. Delorsa, Warszawa 1998, s. 85-86.
15. Ibidem, s. 113.
16. Ibidem, s. s. 99, 100.
17. E. Solarczyk-Ambrozik, Ksztatcenie ustawiczne w perspektywie globalnej i lokalnej. Mi^dzy wymogami rynku a indywidualnymi strategiami edukacyjnymi, Poznan 2004, s. 7.
18. Ibidem, s.7.
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