Emotional predisposition

My brother has lifelong experience in adult education. Exchanging ideas about learning, he drew my attention to research on topic-centred interaction, the essence of most educational processes. Discussions on lifelong learning usually focus almost exclusively on the cognitive level. This may, however, only cover 1/7 of the preconditions for learning, while the emotional predisposition would account for the remaining 6/7, as the iceberg drawing above illustrates.

That implies that the basis for lifelong learning is not so much laid in primary school and later, but already before entering school in early childhood, when our emotional costume takes shape. We need enough self-esteem to learn. It has to be engrained into our value system. We need to feel affection, love and safety when we have learned something. It should not go against the taboos and unwritten laws that we have inherited. It should not undermine our status.

Lifelong learning begins with birth, or even before.