Progressive, radical and informal community education

I am a writer, an editor and an educator. I am a scientist, and a social scientist. I am a dreamer, and an analytical thinker. I am a pragmatic idealist.

I am currently practicing adult education with the Nova Scotia Securities Commission, as an Investor Education and Communications Coordinator. In this role, I am tasked with educating Nova Scotian investors on topics such as smart investing, working with financial advisers, and avoiding investment fraud. This is a challenging mandate, and I have many distinct audiences. On any given day, I may be talking to seniors about investment fraud, facilitating a workshop for recent graduates balancing debt with new savings goals, counseling new parents on education savings, or speaking to school children (future investors) about the importance of saving and budgeting.

Each audience, and each specific situation requires a different set of skills, yet all are filtered through my own personal philosophy of what education is and should be, and what are the roles and expectations of learners and educators.

I believe in the importance of lifelong learning, particularly informal and experiential learning. I believe that people, as social creatures, have a hunger for interaction and information sharing, and will use any opportunity to learn from one another. I see my role as an adult educator as the facilitator for this interaction.

I believe that to some degree, all learning must be self-directed. A teacher may have a curriculum to follow, and objectives to meet, but if the student does not see the relevance of these pieces to his or her situation, that student will not be engaged and learning is affected.

For meaningful learning to occur, an educator must work with students to create an environment in which everyone takes responsibility for their own learning. In this kind of environment the educator is not an expert and does not do the students’ learning for them, but inspires a hunger for knowledge, insights and skills.

I believe learning and education are indispensable to all community efforts for positive change.

Having worked for many years in community education, for non-profit groups and for government, I am interested in finding new and effective ways to engage individuals in topics of social importance, topics which are not immediately on their radar. In the past I have worked in environmental education, in topics such as litter, waste reduction, water conservation and climate change.

My current interests lie in the field of personal finance, and I am working in investor education and financial literacy.

My practice is a mix of both progressive and radical adult education philosophies.

Progressive education is rooted in experience. It emphasizes learning by doing – hands-on projects, and experiential learning. There is a strong focus on problem solving and critical thinking. Progressive education encourages the development of life-long learning and social skills, and is often associated with education for social responsibility and democracy.

Radical adult education philosophies are in many ways similar to progressive ideals, but more specifically radical education is the belief social, political, and economic changes are a direct result of education. Radical education programs are designed to raise consciousness, inspire critical thinking and reflection, and drive political action or change.

I believe in the importance of life-long informal education, and this is where I choose to focus my career. I define informal education as the learning we do every day, merely as a consequence of living. Friends and family talk to one another about experiences, to share wisdom and handle their feelings and reactions, and to think about what to do next. Parents show children table manners, or how to tie their shoes.

Informal education is also learning projects engage in on our own time. We may buy a guitar, as I have done recently, and a copy of “Guitars for Dummies.” We may then set up a series of “play dates” with friends who are also learning, to practice together and learn from one another.

Informal education may also be the result of group involvement. You may be the member of a Rotary Club, whose purpose is not learning specifically, but at each meeting you listen to presentations from other group members and invited guests, and as a result learn more about your community and your peers.

So, if informal education is an individual, automatic process as described, how can it also be my vocation? While I believe everyone is a student, and everyone is an educator, it is also true that sometimes people need encouragement or assistance to fully understand a given topic.

A situation may require a broader base of knowledge or wider range of skills than we can find among our family and friends, or involve complex theories not easily learned from a website or book. For example, individuals may learn basic financial behaviours from family and friends, but without the help of someone with specialized training, they will not fully understand the characteristics of a particular financial product, or how it may help or hurt their personal situation. My role is to be a resource – either through a public presentation or workshop, or through the brochure that I print, the website I design, or the through my blog and Twitter postings.

A good deal of the work I do as an informal educator is in engaging with other professionals. For example, to work within the public school system I spend a lot of sharing information with teachers and other staff. I network with other financial professions, so they are aware of the resources I can offer. I work with community leaders, to ensure they know where to refer people seeking information or assistance with financial matters, or who may already be victims of investment fraud.

I work in a wide variety of settings, in community centres, shopping malls, expos and showcases. I may be behind the scenes, writing a brochure or press release, or designing a webpage. The aspect of my work that interests me most presently is the work I am doing online.

Again and again, budget cuts have left me struggling to reach more and more people with smaller and smaller budgets. My ability to travel the province, attending meetings, giving workshops and engaging with learners face to face is dwindling. In a desire for meaningful engagement with the public, I have gone online, and turned to social media.

Informal learning and teaching centres around conversations. As an educator, I monitor conversations, searching for the opportunity to say or do something to deepen people's thinking or question their assumptions. It is not enough to say, this is right, and this is wrong. I share alternate ideas, and direct people to resources.

Social media are applications designed share information and allow conversation and interaction between people online. I believe social media is the key to taking informal education online.

In summary, I am a progressive, radical educator. I believe all people have a desire to learn, and the ability to teach themselves. I believe it is my role as an educator to facilitate learning by listening to and engaging in conversations with others. By monitoring conversation and pointing people toward the appropriate resources, at a time when they have identified their need for more information, I can help individuals acquire the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their goals. While I strongly believe in the power of face to face interaction, the realities of working for government and non-profit organizations with large mandates and broad audiences has led me to explore the use of social media to facilitate learning conversations.