Continuous Learning

I was reading last night and came across a sentence that stuck with me. It referred to people pursuing growth as a “continuous learner.”   Are we all continous learners?  Are our students?  Think about it, there is this common perception that learning has endpoints.  We have grades that we assume show mastery, grade-levels that students “reach,” and textbook chapters are plowed through.  Is learning perceived as a series of stops on a long track of education?  Are we always just going, trying to make it to the next stop?

Learning is way more than that though.  Those stops are just signposts.  They are not meant to be stops at all.  The important stuff, the real learning, is the connections made along the way.  If we keep our eye so focused on the destination, we lose sight of the moments right before us that can have meaning, connection, and powerful learning built right in.   I am a fan of goal-setting in the classroom, but be careful that the goals don’t blur out the very journey your students are on each day.  Real, authentic learning doesn’t happen because you tell it to. It happens by chance, by accident, where roads meet, where ideas grow together.  If you keep you eye on only the destination, you’ll miss it.