Schools and the Learning Community: Laying the Basis for Learning Across the Lifespan

Abstract

In this Chapter we propose a set of agenda for schools in the 21^st Century, arising from the notion of the learning community and acknowledging the importance of schools as having a key function in the provision of an enduring basis for learning throughout people’s lives. Drawing on our analyses of policy documents emerging from the work of inter-governmental agencies and national authorities, our study of the application of new thinking in social and political theory to the development of educational policy, and our analysis of data collected in the course of an investigation of “best practice” in schooling, we identify new directions in educational policy and practice and propose a set of agenda for schools committed to the idea of lifelong learning. We argue that the aims of this undertaking may be realised through the implementation of such important objectives as:

• The provision of educational opportunities throughout life that adhere to such principles and policy objectives as: economic efficiency and advance; social justice, social inclusion, and democratic participation; and personal growth and fulfilment.

• The re-assessment of traditional school curricula and pedagogies in response to the educational challenges posed by key economic and social changes and trends associated with and arising from the emergence of those developments coming to be known as the “knowledge economy” and “learning society” of the new “global age” of the 21st century.

• The re-appraisal and re-definition of places in which learning can take place and the creation of flexible learning environments that are positive, stimulating and motivating for a far more extensive range of learners and which overcome the constraints of standardised curricula, age- and subject-divisions, narrow timetables and rigid approaches to pedagogy.

• The acceptance of the importance of the idea of “value-added” learning consisting of increased emphasis on individualised instruction, the development and monitoring of personal development plans, assessment of success in achieving personal learning targets, and the development of cross-curricular competencies integrating cognitive growth and the emergence and the cultivation of moral awareness and the capacity for moral judgement and action.

• The awareness that, whilst schools may be starting to be seen as less important as primary authorities for and sites of the acquisition of knowledge, they are becoming more important in the socialisation of young people and the nurturing of young people towards the development of a sense of moral understanding and a movement towards an acceptance of civic responsibility and the need for community involvement and service.

• The evolution of inter-connected learning pathways among and between schools, further and higher education institutions, employers and other education providers, impacting on the formation of relationships between schools and a wide range of constituencies and stake-holders in the community having and interest in and a concern for the education of citizens for tomorrow.

• Promoting schools as learning communities and functioning as centres of lifelong learning catering for the widest possible range of needs and interests among all members of the community.