Can a Self-Directed Learner Be Independent, Autonomous and Interdependent?: Implications for Practice.

One of the most popular beliefs in adult education is the value placed on self-directed learning. Self-direction is assumed to be a desirable characteristic of adult learners and adult educators are encouraged to promote self-direction in their teaching. Self-directed learning usually implies that learners take responsibility for their learning processes, such as command of goal-setting, instructional design or evaluative procedures. Thus, on the teachers' part, the objective of conducting self-directed learning is to help learners become skillful in those processes independent of teachers. On the learners' part, in addition to attaining their learning goals, the objective of self-directed learning is to gain a sense of autonomy during and after their learning processes. Thus, the eventual goal of self-directed learning is the learner becomes a teacher of herself or himself. While scholars, such as Brookfield (1985), expand the technician-oriented process of self-directed learning as including changes in learners' consciousness (transforming perspectives on their experiences), at the core of self-directed learning are independence and autonomy of learners in their learning processes. Given that these two virtues, independence and autonomy, are valued as those idealized adults are expected to achieve -- along with rationality -- in North American culture, self-directed learning as an instructional design for adult learners seems to be a valid strategy for adult educators to perform with American adult learners. However, the essence of self-directed learning is not as highly valued in other cultures as in America: Not every culture promotes independence and autonomy as virtues. The learning processes of Korean women leaders suggest another perspective on self-directed learning, a perspective that gives more attention to interdependence as well as independence as a part of a self-directed learning process. Personally, I am a Korean woman and my own cultural background also informs my perspective. I interviewed five Korean women leaders in male-dominated professions such as the financial industry, governmental administration, architecture and the press. The purpose of the interviews was to understand these women's learning processes by which they became leaders, overcoming gender discrimination at work and to utilize the findings in leadership education for women. I analyzed their learning experiences in terms of self-directed learning theory. Above all, it is necessary to provide some background information about Korean society and culture. Korean people have survived wars throughout their history and are still facing a communist country In North Korea, collectivism and collaboration are taught from one's childhood as one of the most important survival skills and moral virtues. Independence and autonomy are not attributes one has to attain as she or he reaches adulthood. Rather, a person becoming independent of his or her parents, teachers or other people, tends to be considered threatening the stability of a community he or she belongs to. The virtue of independence and autonomy is not an indication of a person reaching an idealized adulthood in Korean culture. Instead, becoming independent and having others become dependent on her or him is one of the appropriate signs for a sound adulthood in Korean culture. Becoming independent without being interdependent passes for immaturity or self-centeredness. Thus, my Korean research participants' self-directed learning processes in becoming leaders illuminate different features of self-directed learners from those of American self-directed learners. These Korean self-directed learners articulated their awareness of others' well-being. Some might want to say these women's awareness of others' well-being is attributable to their so-called womanness that cherishes relationships with others. However, I think the following remarks are culturally-based rather than gender-based: I realized that I had to take my junior women into account . …