| THE JOURNAL - Current Editorial |
Lifelong Learning
“Lifelong learning” has become one of the dominant themes of post-secondary education in the developed world, especially in Europe and North America. Universities, community colleges, trade schools, museums, and even local historical societies all have taken up the cause of creating and offering programs and classes for students from the ages of eighteen to well over eighty to explore and learn, ideally throughout all those fifty or more years that follow the completion of formal secondary education.
What drives this explosion of programming is the realization that learning does not cease with the end of formal education. Instead, almost all individuals constantly seek to discover and enhance their full capabilities throughout their lives. In an informal and unstructured manner, most people have always done this; lifelong learning programming simply aims to create a broad structure within which individuals can locate and exploit opportunities for discovery that appeal to them.
A huge range of classes and programs exists that has potential for our community of nautical researchers and ship modelers, often reasonably nearby. Some are more traditional in format, involving classroom work and home study, while others are built around concepts of experiential learning, with much time devoted to hands-on participation. Several universities and community colleges (rather more than one would expect) offer courses in aspects of maritime history, engineering, and archaeology that are open to the public beyond enrolled students. They, along with local historical societies and museums, also present lecture series by prominent speakers that can be very useful and pertinent to our interests. Many museums and community colleges program classes in the various aspects of boatbuilding (usually in wood and with a focus on vernacular or traditional construction methods) that can be invaluable to us in our miniature endeavors. A host of educational establishments (in the broadest sense) teach courses in smithing, metal fabrication, machining, wood carving and turning, joinery, and jewelry making, all of which are skills directly relevant to our particular passion for making detailed scale models. These lists only touch on the range of classes of use and interest to us as a community; exploring the course catalogs and events calendars of local educational institutions almost certainly will turn up more.
Our own community also is a valuable resource. Local model clubs can present programs at their meetings that help members advance their skills. More experienced modelers can act as mentors for less advanced practitioners. There are opportunities for local, regional, or (thanks to the internet) even national or global model making practica, through which individual modelers can learn from each other as they each construct the same model. Conferences, such as the Guild’s annual meeting, also are venues for practical instruction, both in formal presentations, and in the interaction between attendees. The Guild’s regular regional model makers’ symposia are also excellent venues for learning new skills, updating techniques, and interacting with one’s fellows.
If one looks back through the issues of the Nautical Research Journal from 1948 to today, it quickly becomes apparent that, either deliberately or by accident, the Guild has advocated lifelong learning throughout its history. We should take pride in this, and actively explore ways to expand our reach.
Paul E. Fontenoy
Editor
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