«Lifelong Learning» does not refer only to adults

 Rosa María Torres

Sharon Nowlan

«Aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida» no se refiere solo a adultos

«Lifelong Learning» (LLL) has been proposed by UNESCO since the 1970s as a new paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century. LLL means learning "throughout life", "from birth to death", "from cradle to grave", in and out of the school system, through formal, non-formal and informal learning. LLL includes all ages: children, adolescentes, youth, and adults. However, LLL continues to be associated mainly with adults and adult education, and is generally illustrated (photos, drawings, caricatures) with adults. 

Three examples of the use of LLL as equivalent to adults: 

1. Most «Lifelong Learning policies and strategies» collected by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) refer to youth and adults. 

2. Most national qualifications frameworks developed at international level associate LLL with adults. 

3. The article What We Learned From Reading 1,000 Articles On Lifelong Learning, written by Steve Rayson, student at the London School of Economics, was circulated in social networks in May 2018. I checked the list of 1.000 articles, coming from many countries in the world, and found that most of them referred to adults. 

UNESCO-UIL

Why the strong association between LLL and adults? Among others:

1. Lack of information, definitions and public debate on LLL at all levels: local, national, regional, and global. LLL is used and understood in most diverse ways throughout the world. 

2. Inconsistent use of the terms lifelong education and lifelong learning in key international reports such as the Faure Report (1973) and the Delors Report (1986).

3. UIL's mandate is adult education and non-formal education. It was created in 1952 as UNESCO Institute of Education (UIE) and was renamed as UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2006. 

4. UNESCO has traditionally focused LLL on adults. The  Global education monitoring report 2016. Education for people and planet: Creating sustainable futures for all, the first one linked to the 2030 Agenda, referred to LLL as adult education (p. 431). 

5. Sustainable Development Objective 4 (SDG4), focused on education, is confusing: "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all". "Lifelong learning opportunities for all" appears as an addition to "inclusive and equitable education" rather than as an embracing concept. SDG4 refers to LLL as youth and adult education.  

6. Translation problems: LLL is regularly translated into Spanish as continuing education or permanent education, terms associated with adult education.  

The fact is that LLL has no attracted the interest of the professional community linked to children's education. They also associate LLL with adults. Children's education and learning specialists often highlight the weak conceptual status and development of LLL. 

To learn more

 - UNESCO, Global education monitoring reports
https://es.unesco.org/gem-report/allreports
- UIL/UNESCO, Políticas y estrategias de aprendizaje a lo largo de toda la vida
https://uil.unesco.org/es/aprendizaje-largo-de-vida
- CEDEFOP/ETF/UNESCO/UIL, Inventario Mundial de Marcos Regionales y Nacionales de Cualificaciones 2017, Volumen I.
https://uil.unesco.org/es/aprendizaje-lo-largo-vida/marcos-cualificaciones/inventario-mundial-marcos-regionales-y-nacionales

- SDG 4 Data Digest. Data to Nurture Learning, UIS, 2018

http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/sdg4-data-digest-data-nurture-learning-2018-en.pdf
- Torres, Rosa María, The Lifelong Learning approach: Implications for education policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, UNESCO, París, 2020
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373632_spa  

- Torres, Rosa María, De educación a aprendizaje: De Lifelong Education a Lifelong Learning, Blog 

OTRAƎDUCACION, 2017.

 https://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2017/11/educacion-lo-largo-de-la-vida-y-ALV.html

Lifelong Education and Lifelong Learning are different concepts

Rosa María Torres

There is teaching without learning and there is learning without teaching.

Lifelong Education (LLE) and Lifelong Learning (LLL) are different concepts. Many people use them as equivalent because they do not differentiate education and schooling and education and learning. UNESCO's international Faure Report (1972) and Delors Report (1996) used LLE and LLL indistinctively, without clear definitions and without rigour. UNESCO itself, and its various institutions, continue to refer to LLL in diverse ways, often associating it to the adult age. It is difficult to see the differences between the Network of Educative Cities (coordinated by  ) and the Network of Learning Cities (coordinated by UNESCO) operating worldwide. 

Lifelong Education involves some form of teaching, tutoring or coaching. People who associate education with school education understand lifelong education as all levels of the education system (formal and non-formal), from initial to higher education. When preparing for work and on-the-job development is a concern, lifelong education includes also training. 

Lifelong learning (LLL) is an embracing category. It sees learning as a continuum that is life-long (from birth to death) and life-wide (taking place everywhere, not just in classrooms and educational/training institutions). We learn at home, in the community, in libraries, in playgrounds, in contact with nature, at the workplace, with friends and peers, through the media, through art, with pets, playing, reading and writing, teaching, doing sports, drawing, painting, navigating the Internet, chatting, helping others, traveling, etc.). Lately life-deep learning has been added. The idea of an learning ecosystem has emerged.

Building a national LLL policy needs systemic thinking and a coordination structure involving several ministries, not just the ministry of education. Some countries have started to incorporate the LLL terminology and to create a LLL Department or a LLL Section within the organigram of the ministry of education, thus indicating that the LLL concept has not been fully understood.  

The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) refers to formal education, non-formal education and informal learning. There is no informal education: informal learning does not involve teaching. Informal learning is self-directed and autonomous learning, mostly invisible for and little appreciated by the conventional world of education and training. Informal learning takes place also in the school system but as part of the hidden curriculum (relationships, norms, practices, rituals). 

The book Rethinking education: towards a global common good? (UNESCO, 2015) was built on two landmark UNESCO publications: the Faure Report, Learning to Be: The world of education today and tomorrow (1972), and the Delors Report, Learning: The treasure within (1996). The book analyzes formal and non-formal education; it does not include informal learning in the rethinking exercise.

"Education is  understood  here  to  mean  learning  that  is  deliberate,  intentional,  purposeful and organized. Formal and non-formal educational opportunities suppose a certain degree of institutionalization. A great deal of learning, however, is much less institutionalized, if at all, even  when it is intentional and deliberate. Such informal education, less organized and structured than either formal or non-formal education, may include learning activities that occur in the work place (for instance, internships), in the local community and in daily life, on a self-directed, family-directed, or socially-directed basis" (p. 17).

And yet most of what we learn in life is the result of informal learning, and increasingly so,  given the loss of protagonism of the school and the school system, as well as the appearance and rapid widepread of the Internet.

There is also what I call «invisible teaching».

Sustainable Developmen Goal 4 (SDG4) - "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" -  part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda approved in 2015,  was divided in two parts: "inclusive and equitable education", and "lifelong learning opportunities for all." However, adults and the elderly remain marginal in the 10 targets of SDD4, the school system remains at the center, and informal learning opportunities are not mentioned anywhere. 

SDG4 (2015-2030) - 10 targets

4.1 all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes.

4.2 all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education.

4.3 equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.

4.4 substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

4.5 eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.

4.6 all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.

4.7 all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

4.A build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.

4.B by 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrolment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering and scientific programmes, in developed countries and other developing countries.

4.C substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states.

 Translation problems

There are many translation problems that complicate the differences between education and schooling, education and learning, and lifelong education and lifelong learning. 

A few examples:

» Paul Lengrand's book An Introduction to Lifelong Education was published by UNESCO in 1970, International Education Year. Lifelong Education was selected by the General
Conference of UNESCO as one of twelve major themes proposed to Member States in connection with the international year. The book was later translated into Spanish as Una Introducción al Aprendizaje a lo Largo de la Vida o Una introducción al Aprendizaje Permanente.

» The Faure Report (Report to UNESCO by the International Commission on the Development of Education, Learning to be: Education in the Future, 1972) proposed two basic concepts: lifelong education and learning society. In the report in Spanish they were translated respectively as permanent education and educative society (!).

» The Delors Report (Report to UNESCO by the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, 1996) was published in French as L'Education: Un trésor est caché dedans, in English as Learning, the treasure within, and in Spanish as La educación encierra un tesoro.

» 1996 was proclaimed European Year of Lifelong Learning (translated into Spanish as Año Europeo de la Educación a lo Largo de la Vida o Año Europeo de la Educación Permanente).

» Sustainable Development Objective 4 (SDG4) within the Agenda 2030 aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Many translate «lifelong learning opportunities» as «oportunidades educativas», which is not accurate. Not all learning opportunities have to do with education.

■ The Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996) referred indistinctively to lifelong education and to lifelong learning, without defining these concepts. The Faure Report proposed “lifelong education as the master concept for educational policies in the years to come for both developed and developing countries.” The main concepts proposed by the Faure Commission were learning, learning to learn, and learning society. The title of the report - Learning to Be - indicates its main concern and orientation.

The Faure Reportt is based on four basic assumptions: 1) the existence of an international community moving towards the same destiny, 2) the belief in democracy, each person's right to realize his/her own potential and to share in the building of his/her own future, 3) the aim of development as the complete fulfilment of man, in all the richness of his personality, 4) the need for an overall, lifelong education, able to produce «the complete man». We should no longer assiduously acquire knowledge once and for all, but learn how to build up a continually evolving body of knowledge all through life.

The report began with a critical assessment of the educational situation in 1972 and some of its dead ends. It aimed at leading to action in the twenty-three countries that were visited by the Commission members.

“The Commission laid stress above all on two fundamental ideas: lifelong education and the learning society (…) If all that has to be learned must be continually re-invented and renewed, then teaching becomes education and, more and more, learning. If learning involves all of one's life, in the sense of both time-span and diversity, and all of society, including its social and economic as well as its educational resources, then we must go even further than the necessary overhaul of 'educational systems' until we reach the stage of a learning society. For these are the true proportions of the challenge education will be facing in the future" (Preamble, Learning to Be, 1972, page xxxv).

“The aim of education in relation to employment and economic progress should be not so much to prepare young people and adults for specific, life-time vocation, but to ‘optimize' mobility among the professions and afford a permanent stimulus to the desire to learn and to train onself” (Preamble, Learning to Be, 1972, pages xxxiii-xxxiv). (1)

■ The Delors Report, Learning: The Treasure Within (1996), proposed four pillars for education: «learning to be», «learning to do», «learning to know» and «learning to be together». Learning throughout life was wrongly translated as lifelong education. Learning society was translated into Spanish as educative society and as cognitive society (sociedad cognitiva).

■ The Report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education, created by UNESCO in 2019 (Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, UNESCO, 2021) refers to lifelong education. It does not mention lifelong learning. It defends "the right to quality education throughout life".

From the right to education to the right to learning

Many countries acknowledge in their constitutions and education laws the right to education throughout life, including all ages: childhood, adolescence, youth, and adulthood. However, few acknowledge the right to lifelong learning, which implies ensuring a) effective learning in the education system and b) learning opportunities beyond the education system.

» Education implies a teaching-learning relationship, whether it is formal education (organized education taking place in the formal education system at the various levels) or non-formal education (organized but more flexible education taking place on the margins of the formal system).

» Learning occurs with or without teaching. Informal learning takes place in daily life, without the intervention of a teacher or an educator. Children learn while playing; they learn to speak without anyone teaching them to speak. Most of what we learn in life is informal learning through observing, listening, talking, working, reading, watching TV, interacting with nature, navigating in the Internet, etc.

Lifelong Education and Lifelong Learning

Lifelong Education (LE) is a concept developed in the late 1960s. Its origin is attributed to Paul Lengrand, Chief of the Continuing Education Section at UNESCO's Department for the Advancement of Education, and author of An Introduction to Lifelong Education (UNESCO, Paris, 1970). Lengrand referred to lifelong education as an education covering all ages, and conceived it as a world movement to reorganize and overhaul education, not only to expand it. However, lifelong education - usually translated into Spanish as educación permanente - has been associated to adult education.” We by no means identify lifelong education with adult education, as, to our regret, is so often done” (Lengrand, 1975: 20). It is often associated also to the world of work.

After the publication of the Faure Report (1972), lifelong education became the focus of the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), in Hamburg. 

Lifelong Learning (LLL) was introduced in the 1970s. It has been proposed by UNESCO as the paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century. "A new vision of education" necessary to achieve the Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goal 4. (Incheon Declaration, 2021). 

The need for lifelong education and lifelong learning is generally conceived in terms of "catching up" with the new knowledge produced, and the new competencies required by evolving technologies and realities. 

In 2006, the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), focused on adult and continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education, changed its name to UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL).

Lifelong Education	Lifelong Learning
- The concept emerged in the 1960s.  - Paul Lengrand, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, 1970.  - Faure Report, Learning to be: Education in the Future, UNESCO, 1972.  - Delors Report, Learning, The Treasure Within, UNESCO, 1996.  - Report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, UNESCO, 2021. The report speaks of "the right to quality education throughout life".	- The concept developed in the 1970s. - The European Union adopted the concept in the 1990s. - The UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), in Hamburg, focused on adult and non-formal education, changed its name to UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2006. - UNESCO proposes Lifelong Learning as the paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century.
Focus on education.	Focus on learning.
Aims at building an education society.	Aims at building a learning society.
	Lifelong learning and lifewide learning. Learnng as a continuum, from birth to death, in and out of classrooms.
Formal and non-formal education, out-of-school education.	Learning in formal, non-formal and informal settings.
Mentioned by the Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996). The Faure Report proposed two main concepts: lifelong education and learning society for developed and developing countries.	Mentioned by the Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996). Also mentioned in the Jomtien Declaration (1990, Education for All) and in the Incheon Declaration (2015, Sustainable Development Goals).
“A new concept of education that takes into consideration constant and universal needs of human beings to educate themselves and to progress": Lengrand.	Proposed by UNESCO as the paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century.  "A new vision of education within a lifelong learning approach". Incheon Declaration, 2015.
Elaboration: Rosa María Torres

Notes

(1) Given the usual translation problems, I decided to translate the English texts myself. In the Faure report there are numerous inconsistencies between the text in English and its Spanish translation https://www.berrigasteiz.com/monografikoak/inklusibitatea/pubs/unesco_aprender%20a%20ser.pdf  

References

» Comunidades Europeas: Un memorándum sobre el aprendizaje a lo largo de toda la vida, publicado en 2000
https://uil.unesco.org/es/documento/comunidades-europeas-memorandum-sobre-aprendizaje-lo-largo-toda-vida-publicado-2000

» Delors, Jacques, Learning: the treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, UNESCO, Paris, 1996.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109590 

» Delors, Jacques, La Educación encierra un tesoro. Informe a la UNESCO de la Comisión Internacional sobre la Educación para el Siglo XXI (compendio), UNESCO, París, 1996.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109590_spa

» Faure, Edgar, Learning to Be. The World of Education Today and Tomorrow. Report of the International Commission on the Development of Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1972.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000001801

» Faure, Edgar, Aprender a ser. La educación del futuro. Comisión Internacional para el Desarrollo de la Educación, Alianza Editorial/UNESCO, Milán y Madrid, 1973. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000132984

» International Commission on the Futures of Education, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, UNESCO, Paris, 2021.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379707.locale=en

» Lengrand, Paul, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1970.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220612.1972.10671918

» Lengrand, Paul, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1975. (Enlarged edition).
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED118876

» Parkyn, George W, Towards a conceptual model of life-long education, UNESCO, Paris, 1973
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000005902

» Sinimaaria Ranki, Sinimaaria, Pinja, Ryky, Pinja, Santamäki, Iina and Smidt, Hanne. 2021. Lifelong Learning Governance in the Nordic Countries: A Comparison. Towards a systemic approach. 

» Soler Roca, Miguel, “El concepto de educación permanente”, en: Educación, resistencia y esperanza. Antología Esencial, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2014.
http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/se/20140718012935/SolerRoca.pdf 

» Torres, Rosa María, Escolarizado no es lo mismo que educado, Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2023.
https://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2013/04/escolarizado-no-es-lo-mismo-que-educado.html

» Torres, Rosa María, It all starts at school? It all starts at home, Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2020.
https://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2020/08/it-all-starts-at-home.html

» Torres, Rosa María, ¿Todo empieza en la escuela? Todo empieza en el hogar, Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2020.
https://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2020/08/todo-empieza-en-el-hogar.html

» Torres, Rosa María, El enfoque de Aprendizaje a lo Largo de Toda la Vida: Implicaciones para la política educativa en América Latina y el Caribe, Documentos de Trabajo sobre Política Educativa 9, UNESCO, París, 2020.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373632_spa 

» Torres, Rosa María, The Lifelong Learning approach: Implications for education policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, Working Papers on Education Policy 9, UNESCO, Paris, 2020.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373632

» Torres, Rosa María, El Ecuador y el Aprendizaje a lo Largo de la Vida, DVV, 2019. 

https://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2019/07/el-ecuador-y-el-aprendizaje-lo-largo-de-la-vida.html

» Torres, Rosa María, " 'Replantear la educación' " y la educación de adultos", Consulta regional de la sociedad civil "El derecho a la educación de personas jóvenes y adultas desde una perspectiva de aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida", ICAE-UNESCO, Brasilia, 25 abril 2016.

» Torres, Rosa María, "Rethinking education" and adult education", Regional consultation with civil society on the document "Rethinking education: Towards a global common view?", ICAE-UNESCO, Brasilia, 25 April 2016.

» Torres, Rosa María, Enseñanza invisible. Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2014.

» Torres, Rosa María, La comunidad local como comunidad de aprendizaje. Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2013. 

» Torres, Rosa María, OJO con traducciones y traductores, Blog OTRAƎDUCACION, 2011.

» Torres, Rosa María, Lifelong Learning in the South: Critical Issues and Opportunities for Adult Education, SIDA Studies 11, Stockholm, 2004.

» Torres, Rosa María, Lifelong Learning, Sida Studies, New Education Division Documents No. 14, Stockholm, 2003. 

» UNESCO. Education 2030. Incheon Declaration and Framework of Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4, Paris, 2016.

 

Life-deep Learning: A personal reflection

 
Rosa María Torres

En español: Aprendizaje Profundo de Vida: Una reflexión personal

PIMA asked me to write an article on Life-deep Learning. I have written abundantly on Life-long and Life-wide learning. The life-deep dimension is a necessary complement.

I decided to reflect on my own life-deep learning in a life dedicated to education through various roles: researcher, teacher, editor, translator, adviser, educational journalist, and activist.

From education to lifelong learning
My entry point to the world of education was adult education, a historically neglected field, subject to double discrimination: age and poverty. It is a field that stimulates empathy, a multidisciplinary, multisectoral and inter-generational mentality, and an impetus for social change. Organizing, directing, and evaluating a national literacy campaign in my country, Ecuador, with young people acting as literacy educators, has probably been the most intense and enriching professional experience I have been involved in. Watching an adult person learn to read and write, and write his/her name for the first time, with all the dignity and happiness that honour such act, is something extraordinary.

The acquisition of reading and writing is an ageless process and an endless continuum. Articulating child literacy and adult literacy is obvious and indispensable but resisted by society and by the education field. This is how I ended up embracing school education, family education and community education, and finally embracing the concept and the paradigm of lifelong learning, always from a human rights and a transformational perspective since education and learning need major changes. The personal blog I created in 2009 is called OTRAƎDUCACION (Another Education).

Writing
My father taught me to read and write when I was five years old and changed my life. Since then, I incorporated reading and writing as a life habit. Writing is often the first and the last thing I do in any given day. I have published several books and many academic and journalistic articles. I have nearly 700 articles in my blog (a similar amount is waiting in line). I have probably dedicated half of my lifetime to writing.

Writing is a profound and special pleasure: an opportunity to play with language, a phenomenal means of expression and communication, a learning method incomparable to any other one. Writing forces thinking, discipline, perseverance, rigour. When you cannot explain something in writing it is because you yourself do not have it clear. The natural flow between reading and writing is fascinating.

I generally write for pleasure, without anyone asking me or paying me for it. I also write research papers, evaluations, manuals, guides. Having a personal blog is having a space that is always available and at hand to write anything you want, privately or publicly. I always encourage teachers and students to create and manage their own blogs. I have taught ministry of education people how to do it, for example in Rwanda, Uruguay, and Mexico.

Re-reading
As life moves on one discovers the pleasure of re-reading. Besides rediscovering the book as if it were a new book, we rediscover ourselves, the persons we were when we read it, thanks among other things to the marks we left on the paper: notes, colours, underlining, and even residues of food and odours. Other ideas capture our interest because we ourselves are other people today.

I have re-read various books, in different epochs and with different motivations, most of them literature, psychology, linguistics, political science, sociology, and philosophy. Some of them books that I read when I was an adolescent or a young girl; I was curious to find out who I was then, and eager to experience once again the beautiful moments associated with those books. Or books that I read when I studied Psychology or Linguistics: Freud, Saussure, Chomsky. In recent years I have re-read books by Herman Hesse, Saramago, Todorov, Zygmunt Bauman, Paulo Freire, Quino, Montessori.

Traveling
Traveling is one of the more lasting and pleasant ways to learn. My professional choices and my knowledge of languages led me to traveling as a main means of work. From the beginning I incorporated school visits as a key activity and arrived a day earlier in order to be able to do it. Sound technical advice in the field of education requires immersion in the life and cultures of people. I have always found in those visits inspiration and valuable material to connect with people and with their experiences. Many of the articles I have written in all these years refer to these visits all over the world.

While preparing a study visit to Finland in 2015, I realized libraries had to be included in the visit. Finnish education policy includes reading as a key component, and the library system as a fundamental ally of the school system. The idea of education = schools is so deeply engrained in society that all other learning institutions and spaces, including libraries, become invisible. The Finnish experience is exceptional on many fronts, one of them being the education-reading connection. 

Advising
Advising - governments, social organizations, international agencies - is something that I have enjoyed very much over the years. A good adviser learns permanently, observes, listens, explains, considers and proposes alternatives, tries to consult and work with the local people. In my long experience as an international adviser, I have witnessed the many flaws of international advice.

I was hired to work in Rwanda for three weeks to do research and work with a team of the Adult Education Department at the Ministry of Education in the elaboration of a literacy policy and programme for the country. Once in Rwanda I found out that the persons I was supposed to work with expected me to do all the work. That was the institutional modus operandi in the relationship with international advisers and consultants. I explained to the team that I could not work on this by myself and that it would be of no use for the Ministry and for the country. I managed to have them dedicate time to the project. Other advisers worked the proposals by themselves, without any participation by local staff.

In northern Thailand I was taken to visit a one-room school. Mr. Panya, the teacher in charge of the school, had organized various groups of students, according to their age, and had aligned them in front of chalkboards against the wall. He walked up and down assisting the various groups. I suggested him to organize the groups so that students could see and help each other. He accepted the idea. Together with the students we moved the tables, chairs and chalkboards and reorganized the groups. Teacher and students were happy with the result. Now that they could see each other’s faces, the students started to talk with each other. Mr. Panya was a bit nervous about it. I left and after a while had to come back since I had left a bag in the school. Everything was back to 'normal', in their original places. Innovating takes time, does not happen overnight. A big lesson I have never forgotten. 

Going backwards
Education has lost historicity and historical perspective. Everything appears as new. Bibliographic references are recent; "old" references and authors have disappeared. Worries and debates focus on the future and the interest on the future does not lead to the past.

A few years ago, I started to feel the need to go back and recuperate readings of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. I regularly submerge myself in books and authors that are no longer mentioned or that are unknown to the new generations of educators and experts.

At the end of 2012, Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, invited a group of experts to rethink education in the 21st century. The book Rethinking education: Towards a global common good? (UNESCO, 2015) was the result of this initiative. I was one of the experts invited. The first task we were given was to study the two previous international reports prepared at UNESCO's request: the Faure International Commission for the Development of Education, Learning to be (Faure 1972) and the Delors Report (International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, 1996). I had read the Delors Report but not the Faure Report. It was a pleasure reading it this time, forty years after it was written. It became clear to me why Mrs. Bokova decided to re-publish it in 2013.

Going backwards is both re-encounter and discovery, it helps to put both feet on the ground, it expands and enriches the vision. It confirms that innovations are not only in the future but also in the past, wonderful ideas that were abandoned or that were not perceived as important.

Cognitive biases and «evidence»
Discovering and studying so-called «cognitive biases» is important for those of us who dedicate to education, teaching, research, journalism or technical advice. I recommend including the study of cognitive biases as a regular feature in teacher education and training programmes.

Becoming aware and vigilant of the many cognitive biases our brain leads us to in an unconscious manner is a very interesting and fruitful exercise. One finds out how difficult it is to judge objectively, to get rid of so many types of biases and stereotypes, and to find the 'evidence' that is considered so precious today.

Just to give an idea to those not familiar with cognitive biases, here is a brief list of some of the most common ones.

Confirmation bias
- tendency to search for, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
- tendency for experimenters to believe and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve or downgrade the data that conflict with those expectations.
- tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts previous knowledge or beliefs.

Egocentric bias
- tendency to rely heavily on one's own perspective.

Framing effect
- tendency to draw different conclusions from the same information, depending on how it is presented.

Logical fallacy
- tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events.

Status quo bias
- tendency to defend and bolster the status quo.

Self-assessment
- tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.
- tendency to believe that one is more objective and unbiased than others.

Association fallacy
- tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure.

Attribution bias
- tendency to judge human action to be intentional rather than accidental.
- tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures.

Conformity
- a collective belief gains more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse.
- tendency to do or believe things because many other people do or believe the same.

Learning to learn and to re-learn
Beginning to understand how learning takes place is an extremely powerful tool. Learning implies connecting the new information with previous information and understanding that if that new information contradicts somehow the old information our brain will try to reject it. Learning to learn is thus also learning to re-learn. Once we learn to learn and to re-learn we are much better equipped to become lifelong learners.

The more we learn and the more we know, the more we doubt and the more aware we become of how much we don't know. This is a lifelong, contradictory, and profound learning process that, if properly understood, makes us humble and modest. Life is wise in letting us know and accept that wisdom is an honest face-to-face encounter with our own ignorance.

* Rosa Maria Torres was a close friend of Paulo Freire and is a multilingual giant among Latino scholar-activists in andragogy and the policy and practice of lifelong learning and associated field of applied scholarship. An international adviser as well as a widely published researcher, she has lived in Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, USA and Argentina, working in the academic world as well as with social organizations, governments and international agencies, and undertaken professional missions in all Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as in many African and Asian countries. In Ecuador she was Pedagogical Director of the National Literacy Campaign,1988-1990, and Minister of Education and Cultures in 2003.

Let's transform education | Transformemos la educación

Rosa María Torres

Our education and learning systems need to change so deeply and in so many ways that it would take thousands of words to explain it. These powerful images from cartoonists and illustrators from different parts of the world show us some of such changes without words. We say thank you to all of them. Nuestros sistemas educativos y de aprendizaje necesitan cambios tan profundos y en tantos aspectos que tomaría muchas palabras explicarlo. Estas imágenes de maravillosos caricaturistas e ilustradores de diversas partes del mundo nos muestran algunos de estos cambios sin necesidad de palabras. Queremos decirles gracias por eso a todos ellos. Banksy (Great Britain/Gran Bretaña), Mauro Biani (Italy/Italia), Angel Boligan (Cuba-México), Bonil (Ecuador), Pancho Cajas (Ecuador), Carlín (Perú), María Centeno (Venezuela), Arcabuz (Ecuador), Marcelo Chamorro (Ecuador), Claudius Ceccon (Brazil), Daniel (Ecuador), Eneko (Venezuela-Spain/España), Pawel Kuczynski (Poland/Polonia), Alberto Martínez - Betto (Colombia), Quino (Argentina), El Roto (Spain/España), Rudy y Paz (Argentina), Francesco Tonucci - Frato (Italy/Italia).

PAWEL KUCZYNSKY

MARIA CENTENO

ALBERTO MARTINEZ - BETTO

ANGEL BOLIGAN

QUINO - ARGENTINA

FRANCESCO TONUCCI - FRATO

CLAUDIUS CECCON

PANCHO CAJAS

CHAMORRO

ENEKO

BONIL

ARCABUZ 

RUDY Y PAZ

EL ROTO

BANKSY

DANIEL

CARLIN

MAURO BIANI

- Rosa María Torres, El sistema escolar que conocemos hace mal a la salud
- Rosa María Torres, El trauma del primer grado