Lifelong Learning Lifelong learning is the, “Lifelong, voluntary and self-motivated: pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. People learn in different ways at different times. There is many ways that people can learn and people they can learn from. Lifelong learning starts from the very day that a person is born until the day that a person dies. There is several established contexts for lifelong learning to include but definitely not limited to the following: schooling, continued education, work knowledge, and personal learning environments.
Schooling involves learning to learn or the development of informal learning patterns. Work knowledge includes professional development and on the job trainings. Personal learning environments or self-directed learning using a range of success and tools including online applications. School systems are very important. A person can learn so much just by going to school whether you are home schooled or go to a public or private school. I have only ever attended public schools and have learned everything that I have ever used in my life there. I learned how to work with people and get along with them.
I met extraordinary friends when I was young and am still best friends now. I always have enjoyed going to school and developing a one on one learning and teaching environment. Being in a public or private school will give children the understanding of being around other children and working together on projects. While they are in school they learn to work together and start to get the feeling so when they are older and get a job they will know how to work with other people. Adult education to me is where as an adult a person will continue to learn through life experiences and possibly more schooling.
I received my first job when I was 14 years old at McDonald’s. I had to get a work permit and eventually resulted in me working full time ever since then. During the summer I kept the job at McDonald’s and when I turned 16 I also started working part time at a video store in my home town. I continued to work full time at the McDonald’s job for four and a half years. Soon after turning eighteen, I joined the United States Army and have been in the service for six years now. While I have been in the United States Army, I have learned some of the most important and life changing experiences ever.
I have learned how important it is to trust the people someone works and lives with on a day to day basis. A person needs to be able to trust that his or her life will be safe in any of their hands. While being in the Army, I have learned so much from the way that I live my everyday life to how I have to get along with everyone and not be able to bicker or say “NO. ” In the Army a person has to learn to get along with everyone that he or she works with no matter what, due to the fact that they could be that person that is sitting next to him or her in war, which a person must depend on to save your life.
I have learned a deeper meaning of life and the way that I see myself. I believe that I am my own person and I can accomplish anything I put my mind to as long as I stick to that problem and complete it. While being in the military you learn a new way to respect people who you never thought that you could do while being a civilian. I have been taught how to be a good leader from all my past leadership that I have had both good and bad. I have put it all together and developed my own way of being a good leader to my soldiers and fellow service men and women.
I have learned how to be a superior leader and soldier and to overcome anything. I know that being in the United States Army will help me further my career and be a better person in the civilian life. I believe that the Army will be setting me up for success later in life when I decide to leave the military. I have learned many different skills that will make me ready and transform me back to civilian life when I am ready. I already know how to work well with others and work with people that I do not necessarily get along with at the time.
I know that you must over come and adapt to any situation that will arise. You can learn from family; talking or watching people; and/or from what a person has experienced in the past. For instance: my older sister, since she was 16, had always had a problem with alcoholism and drug abuse. Growing up I had always seen the effects that all of that had on her. She had always been in trouble with both the law and with our family. I would see her go through all the hard times she had. She ended up dropping out of high school during her senior year.
She also lost all her genuine friends that she had growing up and the only friends that she could keep were the ones that would end up partying and doing drugs with her. During the eight years that she had been doing drugs and partying all the time she had gone to rehab three times. She ended up gaining an extreme amount of weight from the medicine she was put on. She would not accept help from our family until she realized what she was doing was hurting all of us. She had cut off all relationships with us.
However, reluctant, she also ended up learning from all her mistakes that she made. She has been clean for the past three years and cut down her drinking dramatically. She is currently in the process of getting her GED so that she can get a better job than what she currently has. She has regained her relationship with our family and has since her rehabilitation been doing very well in life. I learned from all this by observing the effects of all the shortcomings in her life and what it could do to mine if I ever decided to experience that.
After seeing this I have never and still have not done any drugs until this present day. People can learn from watching or even just hearing or reading what to do. For instance, me I can learn from both it all depends on what the task at hand is. If the task is difficult I can learn from reading and getting an understanding of what I need to do and then see someone do the task. If the task at hand is something that I have never seen or heard of before more than likely I will have to observe someone do the task before I do it just in case I mess it up.
I believe that the easiest way for me to learn something though is actually to see the task be done rather than hear what to do; whether it be written down on paper or a drawn diagram showing what exactly a person wants something to be done. I know there are many different ways that things can be done but certain people want it done a certain way. There are many people that a person can learn from as well. There are several professionals in the Lifelong Learning domain; trainer, coach, and mentor. There could be many others this is just to name a few that people use every day.
Kids and adults have coaches and trainers to help them either with eating or playing sports or even while in the gym. A mentor can be someone that you believe can teach you and you can learn from and someone that you look up to. I have had plenty of mentors though out my life from my parents to my fellow soldiers. I am able to learn from people every day. In conclusion, you can learn many things in many different ways throughout your life, which is all part of your lifelong learning. From the very second that you are born until the day that you die you will always be learning.
People think that they can never learn from another person if he or she is less wise or not even older than the other person, which is not true in any case. You can learn from schooling, work experience, other people’s lives from family and friends. People learn in a vast variety of ways, some take more time to learn than other do. People also learn from either reading and listening or even watching a task is completed. I believe that the United States Army has formed me into a better person than I once used to be and could have been if I never joined the military.
