Time to Take the Risk in the World of Learning and Development

Category: Education

As a Learning and Development professional have a think about this. A London school takes its pupils on 3 or 4 school trips a week. The head teacher's motto is 'London is our classroom' and the trips include those you would expect, such as visits to art galleries, museums and places of historic interest but pupils also go to local supermarkets, residential homes and businesses to do research and gain other experiences. The head teacher firmly believes that this promotes a belief that learning doesn't just happen from 9-3.30 between the four walls of a classroom but happens everyday in everything we do.

Its easy to assume that this school was in the news because of its pioneering approach and the positive impact this would have on developing a culture of lifelong learning. But no, the reason this school was in the news was linked to a call from a leading teaching union to stop school trips because of concerns over maintaining the health and safety of children who were put at greater risk out of the classroom.

Now not wishing to join the 'health and safety gone barmy' debate but you do start to think about workplace learning and why so many businesses seem to see taking learning out of the classroom as a risky option.

So what are the risks in allowing workers to explore and discover in a wide variety of more informal ways than either classroom or formal online learning? The biggest fear you will often hear is how will we know what people have learnt if we can't control it? The simple answer to that is by setting up the experiences to give lots of opportunity for learning and also talking, sharing and helping people process their learning afterwards.