Formalizing the informal?

Here’s a question that is popping hither and yon:

Informal learning will face a classical paradox: if it starts gaining ground as a formal discipline, will it still be informal?

Answer: yes, informal learning can survive formalization. Informal learning has been going on since humans first walked the earth. It’s how you learned to speak, to interact with other people, and to understand the world about you. Time hasn’t hardened informal learning’s arteries.

Formal learning is formal because it has a curriculum. Generally that curriculum is rigid. It is handed down from superior (=teacher, instructor) to subordinate (=student, learner). Informal learning does not have a set curriculum; it occurs as needed, or incidentally.

I contend that humans have habituated to informal learning. It’s right before our eyes but we don’t see it. That’s why organizations leave it to chance. In a world that relies on brains, not brawn, it’s foolhardy to do that.

Six years ago, Elliott Masie and I and others were saying “It’s not the e that’s important, it’s the learning.” This observation is now trite. It is yesterday. It does not bear repeating. Yet I heard it from the platform again last week.

Instead of wasting our breath and bandwidth to play word games, let’s put our energy into improving our organizations’ conversations, connections, communities, and common sense.