Since last year I discussed in my first blog post about the incidental learning, I have been interested in learning outside the classroom-based learning, which is normally called informal learning. What really is informal learning defined? I asked constantly. Gradually, I figure out a way to make sense informal, nonformal, and formal learning. That is to put them in a 2-dimension coordinate: one axis is the degree of intentionality, and the other axis is the degree of the learner’s autonomy of learning objectives and means. Informal learning is more likely to be placed in the quadrant where the intentionality is low and the learner’s autonomy is high. Whereas, nonformal and formal learning are in the quadrant where intentionality is high and autonomy is relatively low. However, nonformal learning leans more towards the origin of the coordinate and covers a larger area. Up to this point, the size of my schema around informal learning is still manageable.

 

Later, I read more about informal learning in a general sense and came across so many interesting subjects. They are like scattered stars in the dark sky of informal learning and I am trying to find sublines, the connections to my original schema, to make the “constellation” pop out.  Engaged scholarship, whose history is shorter than 20 years, is the first concept I heard that I can think about it bridging formal education and informal experiences. It is the integration of education with community development. It was designed to help high schoolers and undergrads, as well as communities, solve real-life problems with the application of what was learned in schools. For example, internship can be a typical activity that involves engaged scholarship only if the learner bear in mind the goal of connecting practical knowledges with academic researches. Engaged scholarship takes place at certain time points, usually it’s the end of someone’s current education period, say a school year or high school/college education. It is more likely to lean towards nonformal learning, even though not every experience is oriented by a credit or certificate. The learner’s agenda is often times explicit and intentional.

 

If I can’t answer the question “what is informal learning?”, then at least I can try to describe what learning experiences can be counted as informal learning. Leisure experiences are definitely one kind of it. Leisure, in the scope of learning, is mostly talked about as serious leisure, which is coined by Stebbins (1982) and is defined as the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity sufficiently substantial, interesting, and fulfilling for the participant to find a career there acquiring and expressing a combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience. In other words, serious leisure is the practice that the learner started with intrinsic pleasure and motivation and gradually becomes a strong skill or tool so that the learner can use to support other personal goals and yield most of its benefits. When the learner starts to consider the option of making the hobby into a career, the motivation becomes complex, both intrinsic and extrinsic for sure. Serious leisure was firstly studies in the context of senior adults’ lives after their retirement and starting to have their second careers. Because at this phase of life, they usually don’t need to raise children, many of them finally have opportunities to do things for personal preferences rather than solely for pay. To me, serious leisure is a process of moving from obviously informal zone to an ambiguously informal-nonformal zone. The informal elements of the learning process are getting fewer and fewer as the goals (not necessarily learning goals) are getting clearer and clearer.

A closely related concept, casual leisure, is considered the rest of leisure other than serious leisure. Casual leisure is less intentional and more incidental. It is like, when you walk in a shop, the salesperson comes to you and asks “How can I help you?” and you say “I’m just looking.” You may not have a clear goal about what you want to buy, but you may possibly end up buying something in the end. Kleiber (2012) wants to broaden people’s understanding about leisure education by proposing that casual leisure is valuable for the four reasons, and I resonate with 2 of them. First, taking leisure seriously requires commitment, and commitment can have the put-all-eggs-in-one-basket effect. That means serious leisure is derived from a repertoire of prematured interests, and if the repertoire is narrowed from the beginning, it could be problematic as life changes or negative events make the commitment impossible. The other reason why casual leisure is valuable is that serious leisure involves some shared identification with others in the activity of interest, and community of people who have the shared identity may isolate participants from other collective purposes. Whereas, casual leisure is more open to accommodating and surrendering to the interests of others than is characteristic of those seeking to gain expertise. Basically, the idea of casual leisure addresses the openness to future possibilities and to more social opportunities that can potentially lead to a balanced life later.

So, why is casual leisure important? Or why is leisure education in general important? Is it for the wellbeing of individuals, no matter it is from the creation of a second career path or from a having diverse hobbies kind of path? I think it highly depends on its audience, the learners themselves.

Another researcher, Packer (2006) created the term learning for fun which sounds very much like casual leisure. From her study about museum visitors, she proposed some characteristics of learning for fun. First and most important, learning for fun is an experience that is enjoyable, regardless of the learning objectives. Meanwhile, it allows discovery and exploration to happen naturally. Similar to casual leisure, learners don’t start with deliberate intention to learn, but it is a potentially transformative experience. Learning for fun emphasizes the process of learning and values the process because the positive emotions generated without caring about the learning outcomes may have positive impact on the learning outcomes.

 

All in all, no matter it is engaged scholarship, leisure education, or learning for fun, they are not new ideas from the root. They are based on many educational and psychological theories, such as free-choice learning, connected learning, intrinsic motivation, and flow. It’s a whole another story that I’d like to talk about in my next post if you are also interested. J

 

Read more

Stebbins, R. A. (1982). Serious leisure: A conceptual statement. Pacific sociological review, 25(2), 251-272.

Kleiber, D. A. (2012). Taking leisure seriously: New and older considerations about leisure education. World Leisure Journal, 54(1), 5-15.

Packer, J. (2006). Learning for fun: The unique contribution of educational leisure experiences. Curator: The Museum Journal, 49(3), 329-344.