When new adult students in college classrooms are asked about their primary barriers to academic success, the response that often surprises me is: "My family." Other common answers include "balancing school with work" and "juggling work, school, and family."
These responses reflect individual struggles against broader counter-productive cultural narratives universities and society push. A billboard from a major university states: "Work, Life, MBA, Balance it All." Various institutions host workshops on Work-Life Balance or offer guides on "Juggling Work, School, & Life."
Yet, these approaches coincide with rising dropout rates, increasing divorce rates, and a stark realization among adult students that attempting to balance and juggle school against life can damage family and career.
The Flaws of Balancing and Juggling
Why do these metaphors fail so many when they try to manage school alongside work and family obligations?
Balancing: Either or
Balancing suggests that life can be segmented into compartments, where school, family, and work compete for time and energy. This compartmentalization often leads to difficult choices that diminish the quality of each area. School versus family. School versus work. Career after diploma.
Research by the National Center for Education Statistics indicates that students who work more than 20 hours per week are 50% more likely to drop out than those who work less or not at all, highlighting the strain of balancing (NCES, 2020).
Juggling: Drop one ball, drop them all
Juggling acknowledges the multiplicity of life's demands but implies a precarious state where focusing on one area means neglecting others. You can only momentarily touch each compartment while the others hang in the air. Drop one "ball," and you will drop all.
A study from the American Psychological Association shows that multitasking, akin to juggling, can increase stress and reduce productivity by up to 40% (APA, 2018).
Strengthening career and family through Synthegration®
The value of higher education is not in the diploma. It's in the knowledge, skills, relationships, career advancements, and personal growth one cultivates while pursuing the diploma. Without these. the diploma is worthless. In other words, adult learners who don't advance their careers and strengthen their families fail even if they get the diploma.
Synthegration® offers a new perspective through which higher education acts as a catalyst for personal and professional growth that enhances rather than competes with one's family, career, and life. It means integrating various life components rather than merely balancing or juggling them.
Integration Over Isolation
Synthegration® encourages the convergence of different life compartments, promoting a holistic development where education informs and is informed by work and family life. This method aligns with the principles of adult learning theory, which emphasizes integrating education with life experience (Knowles, 1984).
Solving Complex Problems
Learners can tackle real-world challenges in dynamic environments by synthesizing different disciplines and perspectives, fostering personal and professional development. This is supported by research in interdisciplinary education, which shows that integrated approaches lead to higher engagement and retention rates (Lattuca, 2001).
Mind Shift
Moving away from "balance" and "juggle," Synthegration® fosters a mindset where education is not a separate task but a part of a larger life mosaic, enhancing all areas simultaneously.
Conclusion: Elevate work and life through higher education
It's time to rethink how we approach higher education for working adults. Synthegration® promises a more harmonious integration of life's various domains and positions education as a tool for personal transformation and societal benefit. By adopting this approach, adult learners can leverage the challenges of higher learning to thrive in all areas of life, setting a new standard for how education should function in the modern world.
In short, stop balancing and juggling. Start integrating and synthesizing. You might need to balance work against life, but through Synthegration®, you can elevate work and life.
References
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2020). The Condition of Education.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2018). Multitasking: Switching costs.
Knowles, M. S. (1984). The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species.
Lattuca, L. R. (2001). Creating Interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching Among College and University Faculty.
World Association for Cooperative Education (WACE). (2019). Impact of Work-Integrated Learning on Student Outcomes.