When does one become a ‘lifelong’ learner?

I faced a demon today and gave a presentation on public speaking to a symposium (what’s wrong with ‘conference’ I ask?) of college captains, which was hosted by my school. It went okay, considering that I put in about 10 hours of preparation for a 20 minute speech, the data projector was broken and I had to spend a further hour printing my PowerPoint slides onto Overhead Transparency sheets, the speaker before me ran 20 minutes overtime into my 20 minutes, and the whiteboard that I had use to as a screen had earlier been written on in permanent ink. My bit wasn’t that entertaining although, even though I say so myself, it was certainly useful (for me at least and perhaps the three students who bothered to take notes - all from other schools, did I need to add?)

Here’s my question: one of our briefs as teachers is that we are supposed to encourage students to be ‘life-long learners.’ Is this something that they can achieve while they are still at school, or do you need to have moved beyond school before you can appreciate that there’s more to life than work weeks, weekends, and holidays (if you’re lucky)? I don’t believe that my interest in ‘learning’ as such, was ignited at school, nor even at university, although the glimmerings were there.