Establishing a Learning Community - Coursework Example

Running Head: ESTABLISHING A LEARNING COMMUNITY Establishing a Learning Community of the of the Establishing a Learning Community For centuries that year has symbolized the future and has led many of us to speculate about what one can and should do with that future. One must agree that, the most challenging task before a society is to participate in the building and rebuilding of communities to the ultimate end of building learning communities that empower people to participate in continuous individual and community renewal. Certainly, the world as we have known it is coming rapidly to an end. Everywhere men and women are beginning to sense that the world in which they live is no longer the world they have known; that the nation, and indeed the world, is undergoing deep and ever-accelerating changes; and that even the community or neighborhood in which they live no longer offers the comfort of continuity. One need only meet disadvantaged minority individuals, without the skills or abilities to participate in a society that does not recognize them, or elderly citizens, attempting to live in an environment they do not understand, to find people who have already lost most meaningful relationships with society. (Barge, 2003) They and many others in our communities are in such precarious positions because they are no longer able to cope with a changing environment. Change, accelerated by technological development, is affecting individuals and organizations at a rate never before experienced in the history of mankind. When life was simpler, one generation could pass along to the next what it needed to know to get along in the world; tomorrow was simply a repeat of yesterday. Individuals must now live in several different worlds during their lifetimes. (Kress, 2006) A new civilization is upon us, and it will reshape the whole nations character. A variety of forces quickens the pace of change. Americans will have to greatly increase the occupational mobility; a rise in the knowledge industries has to take place; computerized wireless hookups will be used by businesses, industries, and government agencies; people will have more leisure time, and jobs will be more customized. While some of the forces will be quite disruptive, others will offer opportunities to strengthen social and economic fabrics. (Sivers, 2003) Who would have believed that the doomsayers of the 1950s and 1960s were right about the rapid decline of natural resources and the explosion of population? America is truly and surely a country in crisis. America is convulsed by urban violence, illiteracy, homelessness, high deficits, unemployment, an increasing disparity between the haves and have-nots, and a burgeoning underclass. The challenges are massive and the figures are ominous: 1,000,000 young people drop out of high school each year. Dropout rates at many urban schools are 50% or more. One of every eight 17-year olds is functionally illiterate. By 2010, 14 million Americans will be unprepared for jobs that are available Americas economy, society, institutions, and even lifestyles are in the midst of profound restructuring. These major forces of change, together with related global trends, societal problems and issues, and social and political forces, can be grouped into three key change drivers: the change from a melting pot to a mosaic society, the shift from an industry-based to an information-based economy, and the need for a society that continuously learns rather than one that is merely educated. (Kadlubowski, 2003) Nowhere will these change drivers have a greater impact than in the realm of education. Men and women are beginning to realize that the education they received in the past cannot sustain them for long in a time of rapid change. The nation is starting to recognize that the world of change predicted by most futurists will require extensive and ongoing continuous education at all levels. It is possible that a golden age of education is just beginning! If community colleges are to participate in and further this new golden age of education, they must take seriously, and give high priority to, their responsibilities for: Programs that not only provide lifelong learning opportunities but also develop lifelong learning capabilities and desires in their citizens, Programs that build community by addressing real and pressing community problems, and Programs that empower citizens to participate effectively in the democratic process and community development. Probably no nation in history has been more aware of education as a necessity for effective participation in society but, historically, American education has focused on youth. By age 22, most individuals are assumed to have completed their formal education and expected to spend the next 40 years or so at work, looking forward to retirement and the expected "good life" While this paradigm still exists in the minds of many, it is clearly outdated and increasingly counterproductive. (Marsha Speck, 1999) Recognizing that tyranny can survive only where ignorance prevails, democracy requires that each individual have the opportunity to be educated to the level of his or her highest potential. If the golden age of learning is to happen, a nation must reinvent education. Dramatic changes in demography, in the structure of society, and in technology have rendered traditional concepts of education obsolete and promise to shape a vastly different educational environment in the 21st century. Within the next decades, education will change more than it has changed since the modern school was created by the printed book over 300 years ago. Learning beyond the high school is already moving from a full-time commitment over four years to a part-time commitment for 40 years. Before the end of the decade, part-time learners will be in the majority in all of higher education as they are now in community colleges, an inevitable phenomenon of the learning society. Cross sees the tremendous increase in part-time students, the demand for part-time jobs, and the interest of older Americans in educational programs offered by senior citizen centers and colleges and universities as evidence of both a re-evaluation of the linear life plan and the transformation of the United States into a learning society While the most important skill of the Information Age is "learning how to learn," the major element will be the learning community. According to Tyree: We must build communities for lifelong learning. As is the way of things, our nation and our [community] colleges are just now beginning to truly internalize what lifelong learning is all about. We are just beginning to understand how much sense it makes, given the complexity of our world, the variety of the needs among our citizenry, and our real hunger for education and high quality of life. (Tyree, 2004) The concept of the learning community was foreshadowed by Mead in 1959 when, in the face of traditional educational systems, she discussed the survival needs of societies in rapid transition: Is not the break between past and present-and so the whole problem of outdating in our educational system - related to a change in the rate of change? For change has become so rapid that adjustments cannot be left to the next generation. What we call the lateral transmission of knowledge is not an outpouring of knowledge from the "wise old teacher" into the minds of young pupils, as in vertical transmission: Rather it is a sharing of knowledge by the informed with the uninformed, whatever their ages. The primary requisite for the learner is the desire to know. A coordination of efforts is required to build such a learning community--a confluence of forces in which the self-interest of individuals, the needs of businesses and industries, the responsibilities of governmental agencies, and the purposes and resources of educational institutions come together to develop a unified program. While many organizations in the community must participate, the responsibility for leading the movement forward and for coordinating the efforts of all is likely to fall to the community college. The most effective community colleges are the educational nerve centers of their communities. They function as educational maintenance organizations (EMOs) in the same manner as HMOs or health maintenance organizations, a concept already being pioneered in some colleges. Motivating the community to use its facilities and resources as vehicles for educational improvement is an important challenge for the institution, its staff and faculty, and its programs. The community college is the best equipped institution in this nation to make the learning community a reality for all of our people. It will require, however, creative responses to the challenges posed by the mosaic society, the information-based economy, and the learning society. (Conner, 2003) If community colleges are to build community both on and off campus, they must become in every respect colleges of the community. In pragmatic terms, this means that community colleges must deliver the kinds of education community members want and need, not merely what pedagogues think is good for them. They must do so at locations where the learners are, not where conventional educators think they should be. Community-based programming must be guided by open participation between the community and the college in defining comprehensive learning needs, suggesting solutions, and facilitating delivery, not by the decision of professional educators and governing boards alone. (Higgs, 2007) Community colleges should reaffirm, with pride and conviction, their determination to serve all ages and racial and ethnic groups. They must not, however, merely enroll students from different social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds; they must also ensure student success in relevant courses of study and programs. Building learning communities implies, more than anything else, a relationship between the educational institutes and the community in which the institution derives its objectives and resulting programs from the community, rather than one in which the educational institute simply provides programs it thinks would be good for the community. This requires the college to relate to its community in a new and different way. A college whose goal is to build community must be linked to the community in such a manner that it determines its direction and develops its strategic goals through college-community interaction, uses the total community as a learning laboratory and resource, serves as a catalyst to create in the community a desire for empowerment and renewal, provides a vehicle through which the community educates itself, and evaluates its successes by citizen successes that are recognized as significant by the community itself. Traditionally, the mission of education has been the emancipation of the young. The community educational institutions must likewise seek to provide emancipation, but not for the young alone. It should be concerned with the emancipation of all people within its community from the restrictions of ignorance, socioeconomic disadvantage, unemployment, substandard housing, inadequate schooling, and poverty and emancipation from environmental stagnation and pollution. What is needed now is a mission that includes not just responsiveness to needs but leadership to build true learning communities. References Barge, Richard, Harris, Debbie, Building learning communities in Norfolk, Adults Learning, 09552308, Dec2003, Vol. 15, Issue 4 Conner, M. L., Andragogy and Pedagogy, Ageless Learner, 1997 - 2003, http://agelesslearner.com/intros/andragogy.html, retrieved on 19 November 2003. Kadlubowski, M. G., (2001), Web Based Instruction: A Paradox and An Enigma of Instructional Paradigms, Pedagogy and design Principles, Northern Illinois University, USA, http://naweb.unb.ca/proceedings/2001/P6Kadlubowski.htm, retrieved on 20 November 2003. Kress, Jeffrey S., Elias, Maurice J., Building Learning Communities Through Social and Emotional Learning, Professional School Counseling, 10962409, Oct2006, Vol. 10, Issue 1 Marsha Speck, The Principalship: Building a. Learning community, http://www.latech.edu/oiesp/assets/vitae.1999 Melissa Higgs-Horwell and Jennifer Schwelik, Building a Professional Learning Community, Library Media Connection, November/December 2007 Sivers, Chris, McNulty, David, Adults Learning, Building learning communities, 09552308, Jun2003, Vol. 14, Issue 10 Tyree, Larry W. (2004). The final litmus test. Community Services Catalyst, 20, 3-5. Read More