Clandestine learning?

What did you learn during your studies? When asked this question, pupils and students of all ages often give conventional answers, sometimes expressing feelings of disillusionment, but the most insightful comments are those that tell a very different story.

The story of someone who discovered what he/she could do on their own and what he/she never thought they were capable of; an unexpected encounter with an author whose books had not been recommended; sporting or cultural activities after class; moments of sharing with other students; new places, inspiring for the future; working methods developed tentatively, amid doubts...

So many sensations, thoughts and emotions that seem detached from the context of studying. Yet without this standardised framework, this learning would not have been possible. Informal learning fits into a framework but it also slips outside of it. When it takes place in a normative setting such as education, the perspective on the followed curriculum leads to other horizons. Formal and informal learning can be connected by an invisible but real link. A taste for effort; perseverance; the support of an author who becomes a reference and a guide; life lessons learned from activities; the pleasure of letting go for a moment before getting back to work; a sense of beauty; a method that can be transposed to another activity: this informal learning shapes the individual, pushes him/her to broaden horizons, opens up to other possibilities...

A clandestine form of learning that goes unnamed, whose benefits we sometimes only discover years later: informal learning takes place in the shadows of the ‘non conscious’, but it is as vast as life itself. Discovering it in order to talk about it means presenting our uniqueness, the difference that can influence a recruitment decision.

- What did you learn during your studies?