Becoming a lifelong (un)learner

As an educator, teaching is my core business and, in a world of increasing accountability, being able to measure and demonstrate students’ learning progression is paramount.

That is, how much they learn. Historically, people would gain the requisite educational qualifications and commence a career. The expectation was that over time, with hard work, the increased confidence and competence that comes with experience, and some upskilling along the way, one could progress upwards on the so-called career ladder. However, in a time of digital disruption, many career paths are twisting, crossing, and even ending. How we think about careers and career progression must change. Increasingly, the Jobs Report points to the need for 21^st Century skills or transferable skills (digital literacy, intra and interpersonal skills, critical and creative thinking, and problem-solving skills) as being just as important and, in some cases, more important than the hard skills or technical skills learned through formal training. These transferable skills are often listed as graduate attributes that can and should be taught and embedded throughout programs of study. With each edition of the Jobs Report, which provides an overview of trends in the labour market, the ranking of importance of these 21^st Century skills is adjusted in line with the demands of employers and the skill-sets needed in the current job market. However, one that has yet to be listed and should be at the top is ‘unlearning’. In his book Future Shock (1970), futurist Alvin Toffler wrote,

“the illiterate of the 21^st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn”.

Within any level of education and in the very real race to top the national and international education League Tables (e.g., Australian NAPLAN and the OECD PISA and TALIS reports), I believe that we have fallen into the trap of counting what we can measure but not measuring what counts. Trying to understand and focus on the real purpose of learning is not new. Wesch, a cultural anthropologist, argued that “education has become a relatively meaningless game of grades more than an important and meaningful exploration of the world in which we live and co-create”. In the most watched TED talk of all time (over 71 million views), Do schools kill creativity” Sir Ken Robinson argued that we ‘don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it’. It would seem that the idea of what is ‘important and meaningful’ has changed and is being challenged. Why? For the most part, there is an increasing awareness of the rapidly changing nature of everyday life, the world of work now and in the future and the need to do things differently: Traditional schooling approaches no longer adequately prepare people for what can be described as an uncertain future.

Belief Perseverance

Our historical attitudes that cumulative experience leads to increasing competence need to be disrupted and contested. Continuing with practices that worked in the past or ‘are the way we have always done things’ is akin to belief perseverance. Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to an initial belief despite receiving information that contests or disproves that belief. Adding to the struggle for us to unlearn is confirmation bias where we don’t want to unlearn things that are valuable to us but continue to look for ideas and information that confirms our belief and thus, the belief perseveres. The answer is for us to be willing to and know how and when to unlearn.

Unlearning

In a world that values learning and education as a critical commodity, unlearning would appear to be an oxymoron. However, unlearning is not about just forgetting what we have learned. When we learn, we are either adding a new skill or extending what we already know. When we unlearn, we move away from our current mental model and do something differently. We don’t forget what we already know, but we change the habit of doing it in a particular way. For example, as an Aussie travelling overseas, I have had a couple of near misses as I have attempted to cross roads in countries that drive on the right hand side of the road. I don’t forget to look out for oncoming traffic but, rather, to be safe, I have to unlearn to look right, then left, and then right again and relearn to look left, then right and then left again! The same principle applies in other aspects of our lives. Within a fast-changing world, many of the skills, attitudes, and beliefs that we learned throughout our formal education and work histories are either lacking or ineffective and we need to unlearn and relearn more efficient and effective ways of doing things.

How do we learn to unlearn? Unlearning is about changing or modifying something that you already know. For the most part, unlearning is unpleasant. It creates a sense of disequilibrium as we struggle to change our beliefs, values, or thinking about something that we once thought was correct or complete. It is also challenging to feel confident that unlearning is necessary in a world where there is such a plethora of conflicting and confusing information that seems to be ever-changing. But the importance of being able to unlearn to embrace new ways, new ideas, and new solutions has become an important part of being a lifelong learner.

The process of unlearning has three basic components:

1. Recognising what needs to be unlearned. There are many myths and misconceptions that many of us hold and to admit that they are wrong or outdated can be confronting. For some the stakes are higher where a reputation or career has been built on an outdated model or idea. Being open to change and to challenge ideas is key to being able to unlearn.
2. Learning a new way to replace the old learning. Sometimes unlearning may be simple as we are provided with additional or new information that corrects previous misconceptions or understandings. However, sometimes unlearning and relearning may need a whole new way of doing, seeing, or believing which may include the need for problem-solving and critical and creative thinking to find solutions.
3. Creating new habits with the new learning. Without embracing and committing to a new learning there is the danger that old habits will resurface and take over again. Where new habits are not entrenched and pressures mount, many people default to what they know and can do easily which negates the unlearning and relearning cycle.

Moving forward, key to the process of learning is asking, what do I have to unlearn? Even raising the idea of unlearning starts people looking at current beliefs and practices with a more critical eye. Practising unlearning becomes easier the more that you do it. Our brains adapt as we challenge our ideas and practices and we become more flexible, adaptable, and more open to new ideas.

So, moving forward unlearning is the new 21^st Century skill that we need to learn.

Katherine Main is an Associate Professor and Program Leader in the School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University. She has been a lead or co-lead on several large-scale professional development programs (both face-to-face and online). Her research is focused on areas around middle school/junior secondary reform and, more recently, on student and teacher wellbeing and school wellbeing programs.