Education and Joy

Social Lives

Author: Derek Barter, ALL Institute, Department of Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University

The words ‘Education’ and ‘Joy’ do not sit naturally in the same sentence – at least that is what I have come to find. A few years ago, when our son was about eight or nine years old, I was preparing a PowerPoint slide for a talk on Lifelong Learning and Continuing Education.  He read the slide and looked at me, his eyes brimming with fear and disappointment and said, ‘You mean school goes on forever?’ I reassured him that with luck and time off for good behaviour his sentence could be up in another eight years or so if that is what he wanted.  School and Learning are not the same thing.

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