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Unfortunately this truth has taken on a slightly aggressive mythology. You either 'use it or lose it'! You may well have heard of this idea as it has gained in popularity. Is it true? Technically yes. From early on in your life your brain cells dies away and this process, sometimes referred to as 'neural pruning', continues as you get older.
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In a year-long journey, Bill Lucas helps us to discover all that is important about the methods and processes of learning
Ten years ago the phrase 'family learning' was barely used. Increasingly, however, as new research shows the huge benefits of learning in terms of the educational performance of young people and the health of older adults, family learning is seen as an important concept.
Employers are also beginning to realise that providing learning opportunities for their staff that are not just about training for their jobs is a powerful way of showing that they care about their employees.
Some have even gone as far as to open up their doors to the families of their employees. Most are beginning to see that, as Table 1 shows, people generally want to learn at home above all else.
Familles are not only our first and most important teachers, but they also teach us many of the most important things in life. The values, attitudes and culture that we learn from our families can stay with us throughout our lives. We acquire knowledge from school but that knowledge is given a context by the family.
For example, children learn to read at school but it is often the family that nurtures a love of reading. History can seem remote in textbooks, but a grandparent's stories of World War II can bring it to life.
Family learning covers all forms of informal and formal learning. It can involve many different generations. For most people it is largely informal. It is often social, involving activities with friends to find out new things, visit places or enjoy cultural events together.
Pushing back the boundaries safely
In developmental terms the home is important both as a secure base and also as a stimulating environment for growth and discovery. If home is to be a place where everyone feels safe, then it is the ideal place for you to encourage your family to make mistakes, which may seem a bizarre principle to be suggesting, but I assure you that it is not.
My reasoning goes like this. If you want to make progress, you have to learn new things. If you have never done something before, you are unlikely to get it right first time every time; you are bound to make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you learn from it and try to do things differently next time.
Therefore, it makes sense to cultivate a mindset in which you actively welcome mistakes and develop lots of ways of extracting the learning from them. And the home is the best place to make mistakes, as it is a private and safe space.
This line of argument is what underpins everything from learning to ride a bicycle to the evolution of our species. As Charles Darwin put it: 'It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.'We need to learn how to adapt to the many new types of circumstances we find ourselves. If we do this, then we become stronger.
In practical terms, this means developing a relationship with your family that mixes trust, acceptance of the likelihood of mistakes being made, and the ability to learn by reflecting on things. It is particularly important for children to be able to experiment, but that need is also present in adults, especially if their working lives do not appear to afford them much chance to try out new things.
These examples of decisions you might take with children make the point:
* Let your child cook you a meal (with appropriate supervision) and do not worry that you may go hungry if it does not quite work out!
* Trust your child to walk to the shops and buy some things for you even if not everything s/he gets is quite what you really wanted. (This assumes that you have taught your child basic safety precautions)
* Give your older child a deadline by which s/he has to return home and, if s/he misses it, be firm but reflective with her so that s/he can work out why it happened and avoid it next time
* Let your child experience drinking a glass of wine when you feel they are old enough.
The process you need to learn and to teach your family members goes like this:
It is definitely something that you can help people acquire by coaching them, and guess what: it is as useful at work as it is at home.
Being a parent
For many people (some 8 million families in the UK) family learning involves parenting children. Bringing up children has always been a daunting challenge.
Today it is particularly the case, with relentless pressure from the television, the web, the music and fashion industries and the media in general to conform to the view of yourself that others would like you to have.
Much of parenting involves dealing with the emotions that inevitably fly around the home. Effective parents will constantly be explaining the boundaries within which their children can act.
This will inevitably lead to conflict and, from time to time, tears. (Quite like the workplace, really...) It's not just the emotional needs of children that you have to deal with, however. You are also likely to be dealing with your partner's, too.
In the April edition we explored the idea of emotional intelligence and why it was useful in life and work. Here is another, more specific idea that you might like to try out at home.
The idea of the emotional bank account
Everyone has heard of a bank account for money, but how about one for emotions?
The emotional bank account (see above) is a really useful concept invented by American writer Stephen Covey. As with a bank account, you can make deposits or withdrawals from an emotional bank account.
The central idea is that, in any human relationship, you need to keep each persons account adequately topped up so that they feel sufficiently loved and valued. So, for example, if you constantly make demands on your partner but never give support back to him or her, then the relationship may not work well.
Coaching not telling
The home is the ideal environment to hone your coaching skills, for the more you can play the role of coach, the more you are helping your children and other family members to grow and develop.
The way that you talk to others can also have a huge impact on their confidence and self-esteem.
The RESPECT model, developed by Alistair Smith and I, is a way of helping you see the kinds of things you might want to say to your child when you are in coaching mode. It is also adaptable enough to be helpful with adults.
The RESPECT method:
* concentrates on what the person is doing
* gives positive feedback
* motivates people to want to help themselves to get better.
If you were coaching a child it might sound like this:
Reassuring
Learning new things is hard, so finding ways of reassuring will show your child that you understand this. 'I know this may seem difficult at first, so just take it gently.'
Enthusiastic
Positive feedback helps learners. 'I really liked the way you kept going even though it was difficult for you.'
Steady
Children need your patient and consistent support. Take your time. I am happy to help you for as long as you'd like me to.'
Practical
Giving your child practical advice about how they can improve is a really good way of helping. 'You might like to try putting your foot here to stop you falling off.'
Engaging
It helps if you can motivate your child. 'If you keep on improving like this you are really going to see the difference.'
Clear
Giving your child specific advice helps, too. 'If you use both hands you may find it easier.'
Truthful
It will not help your child if you exaggerate too much or if you hide the truth from them. 'You're not as good at writing as you are at reading at the moment, so let's practise shaping your letters, shall we?'
As with many aspects of family learning, it is easy to see how applicable it is to the workplace.
Developing your environment
'A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. '
-Horace Mann
How do you react to this quotation? Is it too harsh? Perhaps it unwittingly suggests a certain class attitude? Perhaps it seems a bit dated?
In fact the originator was Horace Mann, the founder of the American public school system. So you would be right to deduce that it was not spoken yesterday. But I have included it because I believe that, where once books might have been perceived as a luxury item and implied certain cultural values, today they are affordable for anyone and need to be seen, along with computers, as much more universally accessible.
In any case, you can always visit your local library and borrow books if you choose not to spend your money on them. What you do in your own home really matters for you and your family.
Environment matters, and the home is one of the most important places to any family. Most people have an emotional reaction to a home, either warming immediately to it or finding it in some way unsatisfactory. Given the amount of time you spend at home it is hardly surprising that it should have a major impact on your happiness and self-esteem. It can also undoubtedly affect the life chances of children.
The environment of your home has two components, physical and emotional. One is created by the place - the neighbourhood, the view, the presence or absence of a garden, the noise levels, the colour and shape of the rooms - the other is influenced by the people who live in it; their values, approach to life and the way they choose to organise and use it. These are the kinds of things we have already begun to explore with the concept of the emotional bank account.
Some homes are spotless and would make some adults and many children unhappy. Some homes are messy and would make many adults and some children unhappy.
Other homes are clearly designed for the adults to use and the fact that children are there is a temporary inconvenience lasting for some eighteen years or so. In others still, it is difficult to see where the adults might go to relax, so dominated are they by children's toys and the things young people want to play with.
The point is that, without turning your home into a training room, there are very many ways in which you can create opportunities for learning. You can:
* make sure that you eat supper together and talk (rather than watch television)
* watch the television you are really curious to see rather than just what is on
* play games that stretch the mind
* regularly choose and put up new posters which shed light on areas of living, from the amount of salt in your food to a map of the world
* make use of your local library, bringing books, tapes and DVDs back home regularly
* plan and make regular visits to places of local interest.
Creating a healthy mind in a healthy body
We are turning into a nation of fast-food eating, television watch-ing, computer game playing, car using blobs. Quite soon children will be born without legs and with stomachs that are half the size of their total body. True or false?
There is, unfortunately, more than a grain of truth in this exaggerated view of the current reality, as Jamie Oliver and others have recently pointed out. Parents are squarely in the frame for doing something about it.
When dealing with health, it is all too easy to get bogged down in arguments about competing claims. Is cow's milk good or bad for you? Is it safer to drive your children to school than let them walk? Should you take vitamin supplements? The most important role you can play is to concentrate on your mindset.
If you start from the premise that you are always going to go for the healthy or active option when faced with a dietary or physical choice, and that you are always going to try and make being healthy and active fun, you are already halfway there.
If you believed everything that you read about diet you might be forgiven for thinking that, if your child drinks enough water and pops enough vitamins he or she will become a genius. Sadly this is not the case.
Here are three simple ideas:
* Stay hydrated, drinking more water than you do now, and cutting down on coffee, tea and alcohol;
* Balance your intake, making sure that you include lots of slow-release energy foods include grains, beans, potatoes, vegetables, wholegrain bread and nuts and less sugary food, and
* Eat little and often and choose what you eat carefully.
Regular exercise is essential. It has an added benefit, too. Ever noticed how often you have a good idea when jogging or cycling? Or perhaps ideas come to you in the shower after you have had a good workout? Exercising the body is essential not only to your health, but is also a key element of wellbeing.
Healthy children tend to be happier - research suggests that there is a strong link between exercise and mental health. A small amount of aerobic exercise three times a week as effective as most antidepressants.
Getting an LP for yourself
Important as your family are, it is essential that you make time for your own planned learning at home. What form this might take is, of course, up to you. You may want to be undertaking some kind of formal activity as well as the many different types of more informal learning.
A useful first step you could take is to make sure that you have someone who can act as your buddy or critical friend. I believe that everyone needs an LP or Learning Practitioner. An LP is a friend, relative or colleague who does for your mind what your GP does for your body, that gives you feedback and advice whenever you need help.
Ageing happily
There is no doubt that one of the best ways of staying happy and healthy is by learning throughout your life, especially as you get older.
Unfortunately this truth has taken on a slightly aggressive mythology. You either 'use it or lose it'! You may well have heard of this idea as it has gained in popularity. Is it true? Technically yes. From early on in your life your brain cells dies away and this process, sometimes referred to as 'neural pruning', continues as you get older.
But the fact is that, with more than 100 billion nerve cells, you still have plenty of brain power and are capable of learning new things until the day you die. It is also true that the more you use your brain the better; studies have shown how good health in later years correlates with the amount of learning you do. I suspect the 'use it or lose it' idea scares more people than it motivates, so I will quietly move on....
Employers supporting family learning
Many years ago Ford led the world with its Employee Development and Assistance Programme (EDAP) under which every employee was given money and time to learn something of personal and family benefit.
Some managers questioned whether this was a good idea or a waste of money. Employees, however, loved it. As it turned out, something really interesting happened. Whether they were taking part in a local drama group or improving their fitness, the positive motivation and desire to learn transferred itself from their home environment back into the workplace. Ford reaped the benefits.
This transferral still happens today. In fact the most important thing that an employer can do is to stop thinking of training as one kind of work-based learning and family learning as something that is irrelevant to vocational activity.
Whatever wisdom is learned from that latter is, in fact, likely to make its way back into the day job.
Conclusion
In this article we have explored some of the issues around family learning. Next month I will be looking back over all of the ideas covered this year, and suggesting lots of practical ways in which you can use them.
Bill Lucas is chairman of the not-for-profit organisation, The Talent Foundation, a patron of the Campaign for Learning and a nonexecutive director of The Live Group. His most recent book is Discover Your Hidden Talents: The Essential Guide to Lifelong Learning from which this series is adapted. You can contact Billatwww.bill-lucas.com.
Copyright Fenman Limited Nov 2005