WHY IS INDEPENDENT SELF DIRECTED LIFELONG LEARNING IMPORTANT? 

INDEPENDENT LEARNING has become a critical part of learning in the 21st century. 

There are two reasons for this. 

The amount of information at our perusal is growing exponentially every day. Such growth often changes the nature of facts and corrects or modifies older facts and knowledge with new discoveries or theories. The scale and scope with which this is happening makes it impossible to have knowledge published in books remain valid and current for too long. New information is more easily available via the open internet. Where text book knowledge was once easy and safe to obtain and required little "searching skills" on the part of the learner, obtaining information from the internet requires some very complex and critical skills on the part of the learner. Without such skills sound learning cannot occur.

A second reason why process mastery has become so critical in the 21st century we live in is due to the fact that one has to continue to learn throughout our lifetime. Learning never stops. Where once learning predominantly stopped when one graduated, now learning becomes obsolete and new learning has to occur every so often, all throughout our lifetime. This phenomenon is known as LIFELONG LEARNING. It has become a highly touted term in every education context of this age. 

The most important aspect of process mastery is acquiring the THINKING TOOLS... from start to finish ... of the process. Although information or knowledge and facts may appear to be the center of "learning how to learn" they are simply the means to an end. They are the platform upon which the critical aspect of the process, that is the THINKING SKILLS are exercised. Independent and sound thinking skills are required from the start to the finish of the process of learning. The entire gamut of thinking tools from lower order to the highest order are critical during the process of learning.

It can be concluded that the more fluent a child is in their thinking development and application the better they will perform during the process of investigation. Many many simple and complex thinking tools work in tandem to produce a good outcome during the learning process. Having as knowledge of these thinking tools put a child in an advantageous position when they approach independent learning at school and beyond.

A learner with sound "Learning how to Learn" skills will demonstrate skills such as high degree of organisation, self direction, critical evaluation, creative solutions and useful insights throughout the investigation. Such a child is an ACTIVE THINKER, perhaps growing up to be leaders and innovators, and useful participants in a highly connected society.

A learner lacking in such skills will struggle with finding authoritative information, will simply copy and paste information from the internet or regurgitate the wisdom of others without any original thinking. This would be useless at best and plagiarism at worst. Such a child would be a passive consumer of useless information and fads, perhaps growing up to be led and misled by others.

Content free thinking skills training has the advantage of being highly transferable in new and novel situations. Thinking skills becomes a toolbox of effective tricks to be applied as and when needed in the process of learning