New Horizons for Learning: Lifelong Learning

New Horizons for Learning: Lifelong Learning

Presented at the Conference on
Lifelong Learning for European Business
Oxford University - October 6-7, 1992

by Dee Dickinson



In recent years humanity has been surfing through times of unparalleled challenge for both individuals and organizations. Regressive undertows try to pull the world back into calmer waters, but there are no quiet pools. Tidal waves of change engulf every country causing social, educational, ecological, political, scientific, and economic revolutions for better or worse, and bringing in deluges of new information, along with new technology to communicate and process it. Such acceleration of change necessitates flexibility, the ability to learn and unlearn and relearn, and a willingness to experiment and take risks. Many of the increasingly complex problems of today's world have no solutions in textbooks, databases, or authority figures. Furthermore, in nearly every community and in every country throughout the world there has never been such diversity of people--from different cultural, racial, social, economic, and educational backgrounds and consequently with very different ways of learning, thinking, and behaving.