Lifelong Learning and T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets [1

Abstract

This article challenges the dominant policy discourse about lifelong learning as a tool for economic productivity and competitiveness, and proposes the alternative language of poetry as a means to return to the vision of lifelong learning as a process of "learning to be", as first proposed in Edgar Faure et al. 's (1972) landmark UNESCO report of that title. T.S. Eliot's classic poem Four Quartets is examined as an example of poetic work that articulates a richly nuanced view of lifelong learning as a process of grappling with major existential questions about identity and existence. The prospect of truly learning to be, as Eliot shows us, is not a straightforward task of acquiring government-sanctioned skills, knowledge, and attitudes, but one of venturing into the dark unknown, and "costing not less than everything" in the process.