Learners are like Pro Athletes

What do Kobe Bryant, Peyton Manning, Alex Rodriguez and the modern day learner have in common?  Here's a hint: it's not athletic ability or the enormous salaries collected.  The commonality here is that for each, what they do or know today is not nearly as important as their ability or need to know for tomorrow.  Let me explain a bit more.

Professional sports are a huge part of society, especially in the United States.  While athletes in many of these professional associations are paid handsomely and showered with fame and fortune, they're career fields can often be extremely grueling work.  The average length of a pro athletes career is 4 years and very few perform at a level where they become household names.  One phrase that is commonly used to characterize the volatile nature of these leagues is "What have you done for me lately?"  No matter what accolades or achievements you've had, professional team management only care about what you can do for them tomorrow.  This is something that very famous pro athletes such as Kobe, Peyton and Rodriguez are experiencing now: though they've long been considered the best in their respective sports, they no longer hold that title and are treated as such.

I find this to be very similar to the modern day learner's level of knowledge as expressed in the Connectivism theory developed by George Siemens.  In short, this theory sets forth that learning is now a combination of a number of theories and practices that hinge heavily on the learners connections to various knowledge sources.  It also states that "...the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing".  Examples of these connections are not just within the classroom, but especially outside the classroom, including on social media, colleagues and community.  

To reiterate this point of the need for knowledge tomorrow is more important that what is known today is this video called "The Network is The Learning".  In it, the host of the video says it best: "What we know today is not as important as our ability to stay current".  The modern day learner must always remain committed to learning more; just like the modern day Athlete must remain committed to keeping their talents current.