Long Life Learning summary

Meet Steve, a 51-year-old IT specialist. He’s been working in his field for the past 20 or so years and expects to work another 15 before retirement. But he finds that prospect daunting because it’s getting harder for him to meet his job’s physical demands.

Steve is considering a career change, but he isn’t sure where to start. He loves kids, so he’s thinking about becoming a teacher. To do that, he needs to go back for his bachelor’s degree –⁠ but to do that, he’d have to stop working, which he can’t afford. Plus, it’s not clear whether teaching is even the right path for him.

Head to Amazon, search for a laptop cable, and click on any choice. On the page, you’ll find hundreds of reviews –⁠ all for a product that costs less than $10.

Education, by contrast, can cost thousands of dollars. Yet prospective students are offered very little in the way of reviews for the degree, certificate, or apprenticeship programs they might choose. American higher education institutions are loath to provide or publish any information on students’ job or grad school placement rates, lest those numbers make them look bad.

When adult learners take classes or go back to school, they’re often bombarded by the message You don’t belong here. One young mother the author interviewed described how isolated she felt when taking a math class geared toward younger learners. No one could relate to her, and doing group work was difficult because she couldn’t bring her three-year-old into the library.

The obstacles for mature learners go far beyond the problem of not fitting in. Take, for instance, the fact that most companies require people to apply online. Where does that leave people without internet access – people experiencing homelessness, for example – or the economically disadvantaged?

Jaylen is a machinist working at an aeronautical company in Kansas. He makes $40,000 a year and has been working in the industry for 15 years. With that salary, and in that region of the US, he’s able to live comfortably. But he’s at risk of losing his job to automation.

Jaylen’s boss doesn’t want to let him go. She would, however, like to shift his responsibilities away from machining and more toward oversight. But Jaylen doesn’t have the requisite technical skills for the job. Going to night school seems like an overwhelming –⁠ not to mention time-consuming –⁠ prospect, especially with his family to care for.

For adult learners, one of the greatest and most difficult barriers to surmount is the issue of finances. As one woman put it in an interview with the author, “It’s money. When you’re poor, you’re poor.”

Another precious and finite resource that many adult workers lack is time. How are they supposed to focus on learning or working on their businesses when they still need to work to survive?

The process of seeking out and applying for a job is nothing like it was in the past. Nowadays, you’re expected to submit résumés and cover letters through a website instead of in person. Applicants never get a chance to speak to anyone, and they rarely hear back after they apply.

Then there’s the issue of the job requirements themselves. Often, even entry-level positions require years of experience or specific educational achievements that are unrealistic for most applicants.

Currently, the networks between K–12 learning, postsecondary education, and workforce training are weakly connected, if at all. These need to merge – but how? The answer to that question, surprisingly, might be found in a tree.

In Fishlake National Forest, in Utah, a giant tree called Pando stretches over an incredible 160 acres. Pando weighs over 13 million pounds and consists of a mass of 47,000 aspen trees that share a root system. Underground, the trees communicate with one another through networks of fungi, sending needed nutrients and ultimately helping the whole system thrive.