Spirituality and Learning Connectivity

Life long learning and adult education scholarships rhetoric is moving away from producing knowledge of life experiences toward creative self expression and mind provocation activity. Objections to the grand narrative of Enlightenment era had implications on leaning toward spirituality as a reaction to uncertainties. İnvolvement of adult learners in life experience and new learning are processed into knowledge and meaning through evaluation and assessment which are part of our reflections. The context of learning where learners encounter and interact feuling the dynamics of challenges. Educational setting are used purposefully as public spaces for human actions and interactions. İn this sense, communities of practice share experience of reproducing together.

When there is space for learning, learners grow intelligibility to develop their own potential. Learning has always social consequences. Since learning is potentially a change process, it always affect social groups, socially or culturaly. Learning becomes participation in an activity system, which is motivating and dynamic, inducing mind to maintain its questioning stance and remain active in life making process beyond ordinary responses to needs.

Meaning making creativity is refined by life experience that is ultmately rational. İntuition and spirituality is placed in the heart of this reflection on meaning. İn this process values and facts are examined and elevated.

A study of social networks revealed that learned social relationships organisations influence knowledge-seeking behaviours. Learning for sociability motivates participation in the community to sustain mutual engagement and the pursuit of a joint enterprise. This opens a space of impartial involvements that diminishes influence of power in knowledge making. Power relationships can enable or inhibit the aim to acquire new knowledge. Despite the existence of new ideas, knowledge and technological skills, the influence of power can inhibit evaluation and grasp of new knowledge. The traps of not being able to motivate efforts to acquire knowledge by not seeing or understanding the potential of the new knowledge may be overlooked. The importance of recognizing the potential value of the new knowledge gives priority to value for capability of cognitive capacity.

Fostering sociability and extensive social networks help to identify relevant external knowledge and adapt successfully (Henderson, 1994). According to weak-tie theory (Granovetter, 1973) distant and infrequent relationships are efficient for sharing new knowledge because they provide access to novel information by linking otherwise disconnected individuals and groups. These ties naturally forms in learning contexts that contain participants of different means and purposes.

What is important here is that cognitive, emotional, spiritual and environmental dimensions of searching together and to engage with each other in the act of learning has impact on other social groups as it strengthens spiritual leaning, elevates human reasoning to reform relations. Act of learning induces motivation to explore and to connect.


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- The Academy of Mgt Review, July 2007