Building meta-skills for adult learners (EPALE Turkey 2022 conference)

When TED Talks first broadcasted Sir Ken Robinson’s educational video ‘’Do schools kill creativity?’’ back in 2006, probably nobody would have expected it to skyrocket to the fantastic 72 million views on the TED channel only, marking it the most-watched TED talk of all time. Sir Robinson, an inspiring educational expert and a creativity guru, quickly went viral with his witty and profound elaboration on how schools are, unfortunately, failing to nurture creativity in children. Amid many shrewd observations he made, Sir Robinson passionately affirmed that we are educating children for the future despite nobody knowing what the future will look like, arguing along the way that education can hardly address the unpredictability of what is yet to happen. Regardless of the absurdity that ‘’education is meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp,’’ it seems like educational systems across the globe have been growing stronger and more sustainable than ever. Indeed, how educational systems will cope with what the future brings in terms of employability of students, will be a decisive moment that might showcase the systems’ fragility and disruptiveness, on the one hand, or a promise of its further technological acceleration, on the other. Adult learners, being the biggest community of learners in the world, are reported to be mainly missing out on the high-tech wizardry and will certainly bear the heavier burden of what’s coming in these uncertain times.

Some of the key issues in the Digital Transition of adult education were successfully addressed at the EPALE International conference held recently in Turkey (21-22 March 2022). There were several takeaways from the conference within the scope of the future of adult education, one of which was how to implement the Metaverse concept into the general teaching practice in adult education. The prefix meta itself is derived from Greek to denote a quality of something that is ‘’more comprehensive’’ or ‘’transcending’’ or, more commonly, epistemologically, means ‘’self-referential’’, as, for example in metadata (data about data). However, although it originated in 1992 as a hybrid concept of ‘’meta’’ and ‘’universe’’, Metaverse has become globally popular in 2021 with Mike Zuckerberg’s company name change from Facebook to Meta Platforms.Given that we all experienced the abrupt shift to e-environments in education and business with the COVID-19 pandemic, Meta has become a buzzword used to encompass a broad network of various 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection purposes.

Ashighlighted by brilliant speakers and panelists at the EPALE conference, the robust world of Metaverse is what adult educators need to adopt in their regular teaching practices so that adult learners do not feel left behind. With the quantum leap brought by Industry 4.0 that has revolutionized the way companies manufacture and sell their products, the gap between education and the world as we know it will get bigger and trickier to bridge as time goes by. To secure upskilling and employability of adults we, adult educators, need to systematically build on learners’ capacity to respond to a permanent change in society and economy, so it must be performed as a collective transformation. In that context, we might be speaking of the necessity for learners’ to acquire meta-skills within meta-education, all geared toward fostering more diverse and practical educational programs that would engage adult learners in using the Digital Transition for their benefit. One of the concerns of such a concept might be how to increase and cultivate the learners’ Social Presence in an e-environment (emotional and social interaction, and connectedness) in that way that learners do not feel as if stuck in a dystopian space. To prevent what I would call ‘’educational claustrophobia’’ – a state of learners perceiving the educational process as worthless or confined, inadequate to enable their full personal and social development – both learners’ and educators’ mindsets must be directed towards mastering Metaverse and nurturing Social Presence for building successful online learning communities. Therefore, Metaverse as a teaching approach could be referred to as a dimension with huge transformative potential, understood, in Derridean terms, as a ‘’participation’’, not ‘’belonging’’ to a general educational framework, introduced to allow efficient educational paths and relevance in students’ lives in modern or future society at large.

Finally, from the Metaversal perspective, modern adult education could be observed as an instructional bricolage, a ‘do-it-yourself’ project within a larger scope of diverse e-resources, a design by means of which new educational profiles and identities are created, taking from a dominant culture what is handy and accessible, to provide it with fresh, purposeful meaning. Given that adult learners are considered to be “in a state of transition” coming from various educational and cultural backgrounds and job experiences, not following a traditional pattern to education and work might be a ‘’been there done that’’ moment for the majority of them. However, as their expectations of education are greater than those of a traditional student, higher pressure is put on adult educators to deliver meaningful instruction within the Metaverse concept and meet students’ rising expectations. And the pressure is a good thing, as ”diamonds are made under pressure”.

These photos illustrate the partnership between students and their lecturers in the Englit lab. The lab serves as a place where ideas are born and put into practice, through a meaningful and open discussion.

While we usually demonstrate eco-friendly behaviour on a regular basis and think twice when choosing plastic over paper, we somehow repeatedly get infected by the shopping craze during the Christmas holidays, not thinking ‘green’. Wherever you set your foot in December, you can witness how Christmas is overburdening businesses, schools and households with an excess of unrecyclable wrapping paper, plastic trees and tons of super expensive shiny decoration.

The world Economic Forum reports on the devastating environmental impacts of our 21^st century Christmas: globally, celebrating Christmas intensifies consumerism so much that of all the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remains in use six months later. Unfortunately, holiday shopping and the culture of gift-giving has become a vulgar extension of the consumption economy – it is said that households debt burden continues to rise in Canada, the United States, Australia, China and elsewhere. In 2018, Australians wasted an estimated 10 million dollars on unwanted gifts. The total amount of wrapping paper used only in the UK can cover the world 9 times over. Businesses feel forced to decorate their facilities early in December or even earlier.

To raise the awareness of the ‘toxic’ character of the Christmas spending sprees and to prevent unreasonable spending, especially in the workplace, the role of public educational institutions during this time of the year seems crucial. A wonderful example of good practice comes from the University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Technical Sciences in Čačak. Since the National Foundation for Environmental Education Serbia awarded this Faculty in recognition of their excellent achievements in ecology the status of an international ECO-school, based on the strict criteria, an Eco-friendlier approach to Christmas decorations the Faculty displays in its public premises has been adopted there. Every year in December, the entrance, halls and classrooms get changed into festive clothing, yet, all the materials used for the decoration are recycled or re-purposed: old cotton, hemp sacks, used chipboard, woollen ropes, upcycled glasses used as light bulbs etc. As a rule, unused or old pieces of furniture and thrift shop items are collected throughout the year and carefully stored so that they can be used later for this project. After both teachers and students carefully design a non-spending agenda for the forthcoming holidays, they brainstorm the ideas. Several teams partake in the crafting sessions, unleashing their creativity. Being accustomed to seeing many creative displays, the Faculty employees, students and visitors look forward to a new Christmas design hoping for a magical Eco-friendly atmosphere with zero waste.

The last December (2019) the Faculty went the extra mile. The traditional Christmas decoration project of the Faculty was enriched with a wider organizer’s initiative, with the right cause: for the first time, stakeholders and NGOs were actively involved in the process. The highlight of the 2019 event was the lecture given by the representatives of the Birds lovers’ association ‘Owls on Alert’ and Shabby Chic Design Studio, on how responsible spending habits and implementation of circular economy in everyday actions can help save the planet. Finally, at the end of the sessions, the mayor’s assistant in ecology gave a talk sharing an official 2020 Eco agenda on behalf of the local authorities, hoping to motivate students to broaden their eco-perspective and encourage their further activism in the community. It is estimated that the 2019 decoration project had engaged more than 200 students and teachers, both in lectures and decorating sessions.

It is essential that, at the times of the year when we might be less conscious of our actions, the initiative to ‘go greener’ takes place in academia, i.e. the adult educational institution. As a gathering place of young adults, educational professionals and industry representatives, academia serve as a fantastic eco-hub for the community, capable of mapping the spots of eco-intervention which might bring about the change. With the reputation universities have especially perceived as centres of science and progress, similar projects would likely be warmly welcomed and learned from, for the benefit of local communities and their inhabitants no matter their age or profession.

Universities, with their wide range of educational practices, have proven to possess the know-how, public attention and creative potential to change the negative trends in ecology. Academia easily adopts the role of a nucleus which incites collaboration, disseminates knowledge and searches for solutions in the field of sustainable development. Sometimes it is not enough to offer undergraduate or graduate studies in ecology or provide certificates for students who attend eco-seminars. Neither it is always necessary to write complicated eco-projects with big budgets whose first results are to be seen in the distant future. In many cases, what we need to see is small but sustainable actions of goodwill in which diverse structures of participants are involved in the same task – to demonstrate that we can bring about the change – here and now.

So Marry Christmas and happy ECO New Year.