European Biographies of Learning and Living => EuLe Stages of learning are stages of living. In the course of their lives, people experience a lot of different situations of learning – formal and informal ones, either by choice or of necessity. Sometimes people will succeed, sometimes they will fail. They may start once more, but even then, they may fail again. On close examination, peoples’ processes and experiences of learning often show many ruptures. Particularly in the field of adult education it is important to offer a new chance to people who have previously failed. Very often they need help to organise their everyday lives, to define possible aims and establish a set of rules in order to assess their respective achievements. This project will mobilise partners from different educational institutions for adult education who want to improve the tools and devices which support and motivate “educationally frustrated” people. Examining and revising the conditions which impede or even seem to prevent peoples’ processes of learning will be at the centre of the project work. Against this background the focus will be on: family backgrounds previous educational experiences conclusive career planning traditional role models constant self-determination In the context of formal and informal adult education we meet students who have so far made various experiences and who now try to build a career based on circumstances which are very different in each case. Students who once tried and failed to pass their A levels sit next to those with A level certificates or proper vocational qualifications who want to improve their opportunities. And both groups are joined by students from abroad whose school systems and qualifications are not always compatible with their present lives. Some of those students aim straight at a professional career, some want better qualifications to find a new career and others do not know what they want and / or what they have to offer. In a multicultural society, we find divers concepts of living existing side by side. Students at our institutions live different everyday lives: They are single parents – mothers or fathers working mothers and fathers – some of them do shift work women and men who, because of their migration backgrounds, have family ties as well as religious and social bonds which are rather foreign to us women and men who are just going through a radical change in their lives people who formerly have dropped out of school or college because of psychological strain. Many of our students are often afflicted by self-doubt, they try to change their lives, to find new openings. They have dropped out of school, they have given up working. Growing up they have had many frustrating experiences so that when they make another attempt the students have accepted other people’s ideas of them as their own and therefore often have little or no confidence in their own gifts and abilities. Working successfully in the field of adult education means that teachers have to know what kind of students they encounter. Often, however, teachers do not know who the persons are with whom they are working, whom they are trying to teach. For in their everyday work teachers often believe that they are facing a homogeneous group, which in fact is not true. They believe that the students in front of them have a positive attitude towards learning and have taken a conscious decision of their own to come, but then again, this is often not true either. When we look at the students’ biographies of learning we will recognize that there are biographies of learning which are controlled by outside influence, here the details will be enlightening fragmented biographies of learning, here we should find out about the different sets of circumstances broken biographies of learning, here we have to explore the tangled and multifaceted causes gender-related biographies of learning, here we have to examine decisions determined by social roles. At first biographies of learning will be re-constructed and compared in order to determine backgrounds and effects more exactly. Then we will analyse their relevant factors and finally we will provide tools and devices to be used by teachers and lecturers. These will involve tools used for communication as well as specific training material to improve individual circumstances and to teach strategies of “learning to learn”.
In the project, results from interviews and data collection were to be obtained and analysed. Through narrative interviews with adult learners, we wanted to generate more detailed information on the course of learning and life biographies. The results were stored and analysed in a structured way by each partner and in a second step compared with the results of the partners in the other countries. The relevant categories were identified and reflections followed on how factors that are significant for learning biographies can be better communicated, what education and information can be provided, how transparent our education systems are. Materials for guidance, support and motivation of learners were summarised at the end to create a pool of materials for the training course. In addition, there are flyers and brochures at the end that address this study, its results, the available materials and the support course. The results are largely posted on the homepage, which depicts the project steps in an easily comprehensible way.
Years ago, our association carried out a Grundtvig project on the topic of "learning and life biographies" (focus on women's education). Now this question has gained new topicality. In all partner institutions there are learners from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds / with a migration background. These learners use their second chance aggressively and stringently. It is important to know previous experiences as well as frustrations and fears of failure, to ask about experiences that have led to learners often appearing introverted, cautious and closed, their frustration tolerance often poorly developed, in short: to know the background and the situation of the learners. In DE and in SK, learning biographies - and first of all one's own - are now part of the modules in teacher training in order to make clear to teachers in training the importance of educational biographies in the life plan. By reflecting on educational biographies, teachers should be enabled to react more sensitively to the learning preconditions and experiences of their learners in teaching situations. Through this transnational project we can exchange and adopt practices, develop new modules and a course for multipliers in the field of education.