does being competent in L2L make your life happierD

in the last weeks I have read, reflected and talked a lot around L2L - and right now I have certainly many more questions than clarity. But I suppose that's good so although it feels a bit heavy. Some of the questions and reflections are:

If we consider L2L to be one of the essential "life competences" the question is:
How do you lead your life differently when being competent in L2L?
Can you lead a happier life then?? or a more successful one?
Is it anyway potentially relevant for everybody in the world to be L2L competent?

And - how do you notice that you have increased your L2L competence?? Meaning what are the indicators?

And last but not least - what is the relation between L2L and self-directed learning???

pfuuh, but still exciting - by the way found a good and useful book published almost 20 years ago(!) in the US: Learning to Learn across the life-span from Robert Smith and Ass.. Very useful articles from people like Maurice Gibbons and Malcolm Knowles which are still core references when writing and talking about this topic.

Why humans are not like coffee machines?

While preparing for the first meeting of the so-called Development Group (the work of which shall result in an elaborated description of our understanding of Learning to Learn) of our L2L-project I came across an article I wrote some years ago about "Systems Thinking and Learning". Then it was an effort to process some of the "input" I received through attending a long-term training course in Austria on "Systems Thinking in Education".
It reminded me of the inspiring thoughts of Heinz von Foerster, an austro-american philosopher who only died a few a years ago. He has created the term "Non-trivial machines" for human beings to describe his understanding how people process information or impulses coming from outside. A "Trivial machine" according to him is a system where there is a logical connection between input and output, cause and effect. The logic can be explained, endlessly repeated and programmed, eg. a coffee machine: when you pour in water and add coffee beans, press the button coffee to drink will come out.
A lotof efforts in education were and are marked by the principle of "trivialisation" of human beings or with this "input" we will "produce" the desired output. In reality all human beings process these "inputs" (information, experiences, conversations, etc.) in a very individual way determined by various factors such as prior experiences, socialisation, perceived needs, etc.

Now, I was asking myself how much also in Non-Formal Education we "trivialize" educational processes - "What have you learnt'" as the key-question of any evaluation. We choose a certain activity "because the group, the participants need this now". How many assumptions about the learning needs of participants do we make to prepare a programme?
Now dealing more with learning to learning I realize how important it is to support participants to identify real, authentic learning needs - which often is not easy at all!! It needs a certain level of self-awareness and reflection to be able to identify those; and sometimes it needs going through a whole educational activity to at the end being able to identify real learning needs. So perhaps we shall ask in evaluations at the end much more "What do you need to learn now?" But this is perhaps as an outcome not so attractive for organisers and sponsors of training courses. A dilemma, is it???

How is the path going to be?

well, who knows! I do not even want to know. But I am certainly excited about the path in front of me. Being part of the trainers team in the SALTO course "Training for Trainers for European Youth Projects" I was confronted with Learning to Learn for the first time 4 years ago - then we talked about it more indirectly when trying to design a programme and an approach which passes on more responsiblity to the learner (perhaps the main motivation was really to get out of the trap of tiring long late team meetings during seminars discussing about the sessions of the next day on the basis what we thought "the group needs now"). Anyway 4 years later Learning to Learn has become the main theme in my work - in the two training of trainers I am invovled in (apart from ToT also TALE of the Partnership) and most of all the L2L project of UNIQUE; and what it is good about this is that it motivates to me to study and read about things I practice (Otherwise I am not a big reader of work-related literature) - and vice versa; it all connects, some things make suddenly much more sense, some others less ...
Anyway, I want to use this blog to write about my questions, my search for answers, my practice, my new questions - simply me learning to learn path over the next years; and if you find something interesting or completely disagree, or funny - let me know!