Nobody sets the syllabus now

Every September, a teacher somewhere asks a class what they did over the summer, and most of the answers are about the sea. It always felt like an odd question. School was where you learned what you were told to learn. The summer was for finding out what you actually cared about.

Adult life turns that around without announcing it. There is no more school to take a break from. No syllabus, no exam in June, no certificate at the end. Just a long run of open days and an enormous menu of things one could pay attention to.

That sounds like freedom, and it is. It also means learning has become entirely optional. Nobody will check. Nobody will fail you for spending a year getting no better at anything.

Meanwhile the ground keeps moving. The way people find a shop, choose a brand, look for a job or decide whom to trust changes every few years, whether or not we would like it to slow down. The skill that matters most in that kind of world is not any particular skill. It is the habit of picking up the next one.

It is also the one we neglect first, because nothing forces it. Work forces us to deliver. Family forces us to show up. Learning waits politely to be chosen, and most of the time it is not.

So the old classroom question deserves to come back, asked of grown-ups this time, and not only in September. Not where did you go. What did you learn?