What did you learn today?

At 44 years old I am well past my formal school days. While I did ok academically, my memories of school aren’t that great. And I certainly don’t have much interest in sitting exams anymore. But I still love learning new things.

Lifelong learning provides the continuous building of knowledge and skills. Research shows us that this has an extraordinary set of benefits both for the individual student, and for society as a whole. For the individual that can include improving communication skills, developing greater confidence and gaining a wider social network. There are also indications of direct health benefits relating to lifelong learning.

Our world continues to change at a dramatic pace, and being able to learn new things will be crucial to remain relevant, productive, and stay up to date in the decades ahead. But what to learn? And how to learn?

To be effective learning doesn't have to be formal, but it does require some planning. It might happen through self-directed curiosity, but generally won't happen by accident. Finding the right way of learning things for me - my preferred learning style - has been key for me to continue.

I like a reasonable amount of structure.
I don’t necessarily need a huge goal, but like to see that I’m making progress.
I like to practise what I’m learning, not just learn the theory.
In person or online is fine - but I prefer to have an instructor so I can ask questions.

I’m currently deep in two very different learning projects, one physical and one technology focussed.

Two and half years ago I took up Kung Fu (Shao Chi Chuan) and Yang Style Tai Chi. For both I go to the Wellington branch of a New Zealand club, Chans Martial Arts.

This style of teaching suits me really well. Everything is learned directly from an instructor – the role of oral transmission runs deep in both Kung Fu and Tai Chi. But improvement relates directly to practice, and so with my instructors help to structure my practice I can also achieve a lot in my own time. I'm slowly gaining confidence in my new skills, plus I've gained a lovely new group of friends.

I’m also learning to build iOS apps with the help of the London App Brewery’s iOS Development Bootcamp a Udemy course. I’m very new to this, and in fact to any form of coding. The first thing I've noticed is that I enjoy the immediate feedback - the thing I’ve built either works or it doesn’t (mostly it doesn’t at the moment!) I can also see that I’ll enjoy the wide ranging nature of this new challenge, including the chance to learn design skills as well along the way. I’m enjoying the step by step building up of my knowledge. Regular small achievable challenges.

My parents recently bought and moved onto a beautiful olive grove in the Wairarapa. As they enter retirement they are having to learn a lot of new skills as they begin to manage that property. Lifelong learning indeed. They are actively seeking out others in their community to learn from, as well as researching specific subjects online, and then just trying things out - learning by doing. They recently completed their first harvest and I have bottles of olive oil to prove it!

What are your current learning projects?