The Future of Adult Education in the Military

Overview & Synopsis

The future of adult education in the military is in many ways tied to the future of adult education. If adult educators limit their vision of what adult education is to adult learning principles, to facilitated learning, to adult basic education, and to training and education, they limit the potential of what they can do and how they do it. Adult educators need to learn from the past and re-create the future, exploring new partnerships and experimenting with new approaches to adult learning and adult education. This article begins with the development of an inclusive picture of adult education and then focuses on how adult education can be expanded within the military. As just one example of what the future might look like, this article concludes with an examination of how adult education can be used to develop critical thinking related to leader development and organizational learning.