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Making Time for Learning 243

In time management courses, a typical activity at this stage would
be to classify these activities into those that are urgent and those
that are important. Most of us spend far too much time doing
things that seem urgent but are not in fact very important.
I don’t think that this is a rigorous enough way of dealing
with your learning. There are other factors that need to be taken
into account.

WHY YOU NEED A LEARNING PRACTITIONER

In most societies, the notion of the apprentice used to be strongly
embedded. It is, in a sense, a potent reminder of the normality of
learning. If you wanted to be a printer, you did not go on a train-
ing course, you became apprenticed to a printer. If you wished to
learn to dye clothes, you spent a number of years with a dyer, and
so on. The same is true in our personal lives. We watch, imitate,
and learn from our parents. We are apprentice cooks, cleaners, car-
ers, and partners, with them as our home tutors.
Interestingly, having abandoned the concept a decade or so
ago, Britain has successfully reintroduced the idea of apprenticeship
as a means of learning, by creating a Modern Apprenticeship scheme.
Who we learn with is one of the most powerful influences on
our learning. The truth is, we all need help: we all need learning
friends just as we need friends in our social life.
When we were concerned about improving the health of the
British nation early in the twentieth century, we invented a network
of doctors called GPs (general practitioners). Everyone had the
right to be registered with a GP, free of charge. I believe the time has
come for each person to have an LP or learning practitioner as a
“critical friend” throughout their life. LPs could be to the mind
what GPs are to our bodies.
This could be an experienced coach or a mentor. It could be
a godparent or grandparent. It could be a professional friend in
another organization. It could be your partner. It could be a teacher,
tutor, or librarian. It could be a midwife or social worker. It could
be a therapist of some kind. It could be a work colleague.