Is Our Current Model of Adult Education Broken?

There’s something inherently restrictive about the way we learn as modern adults.

And if we pay close attention, we can sense it all around us.

Information gathering has become a common and socially acceptable pastime.

The ability to recite facts is rewarded from the second we sit our first high school exam.

Philosophy and the arts have been disregarded as economically valuable.

Adventure, play and uncertainty have been labelled the enemy.

Knowledge has taken the place of wisdom because we can have it now.

Yet the creativity, innovation and desire for more all stem from the dream state we’ve collectively suppressed.

We can’t help but feel our brains and bodies are capable of so much more than we offer them.

We can’t help but hear them knocking at the door of our imagination, requesting access to the world of potential they were designed to create.

We can’t help but hear them whisper on a daily basis, ‘there’s so much more to us than what we’re settling for’.

We can’t help but see ourselves in the mirror and ask. ‘what could have been possible for us, had we truly learned what we came here to learn?’

But we’ve ignored their calling time and time again.

And as a result, what we’ve come to label education as nothing more than the ability to just remember.

Remembering facts.

Remembering names.

Remembering scripts.

Remembering questions.

Remembering processes.

Remembering what to remember.

Therefore, we’ve gone about our way on the path to remembering as much as possible.

We’ve submitted ourselves to a journey of information gathering, whilst the path to true wisdom goes unchartered.

‘Online courses’ are just a click of a button away.

Now we can gather information at 11 megabits per second.

Audiobooks and Podcasts are downloadable instantly.

Now we can gather information while we exercise.

‘Just Google it...’ is uttered at the slightest experience of the unknown.

Now we can just gather 10,459 webpages of information in under a second using the device in our pocket.

And the result?

We have more knowledge at our fingertips than we could ever imagine.

It’s incredible.

It really is.

To give ourselves such high level and instant access to all of this information may just be the single most profound and phenomenal human achievement ever.

But the cost?

We’ve mistaken knowledge for wisdom.

And that’s an important distinction.

To confuse them is to sell ourselves astoundingly short of our capabilities.

To think they’re the same thing is to only ever dance on the surface level of learning and understanding.

And to desire one without the other is to experience life half blind.

Because knowledge is factual.

Wisdom is experiential.

Knowledge gives us something to say.

Wisdom shows us what to ask.

Knowledge is remembered.

Wisdom is embodied.

Knowledge changes with time.

Wisdom is interwoven with it.

Knowledge can be lost and found.

Wisdom provides the map for its discovery.

But wisdom comes at an extraordinary cost.

It requires us to not just gather information about war, but put ourselves in the line of fire.

It requires us not to just remember, but to question that which we already believe to be true.

It requires us to take what’s already working, break it and make it better again.

It requires us to face what makes us most uncomfortable, not just in the outside world but internally too.

And it requires us to do that every single day, as a way of life.

That’s wisdom.

It’s scary.

But the reward is plentiful.

And it can’t be found in the pages of a book or the third slide of a PowerPoint presentation.

It can only be found under the rocks that are hardest to lift.

That’s why its reserved only for those who are willing to do the work for it.

But if you’ve read this far, there must be a desire within you for its attainment.

Which means you’re in the right spot.

Because we all deserve to transcend the minimum standard of ‘information gathering’.

And to be able to spot the difference between knowledge and wisdom is the first step.

Darcy J Smyth is the co-creator of The Sales Game - an experiential sales training event that's turning heads across Australia and the US. Play 'The $20 Game' for free at www.sales.game/20