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Family-Centered Learning Communities (in progress)
Transcript
...It's neither "home" nor "schooling!"
For decades, a growing number of families and communities have been conducting a series of
- loving
- long-term
- unrestrained
qualitative experiments commonly known as homeschooling.
There do exist exceptional experimental classrooms and institutions.
But...
Now that more communities are ready to listen...
...Family educators are ready to report on what it takes to succeed
...And what it takes is:
Family-Centered
Learning Communities
Loving care
of
decision-makers
- Family love motivates highest possible care for educational well-being and success of children
- Teachers and group activity leaders love the content passionately
- Learners expect to find deep personal meaning and significance in their activities
Economies
of
commons
- Barter of books and tutoring, carpooling, shared workspaces
- Gift economies with classes, childcare, pass-me-down materials
- Long-running coops of 5-50 families co-producing materials, exchanging services, and pooling resources
- Free crowdsourced online materials and communities of practice
- Monetary exchanges based on supporting livelyhood of community members, rather than profit-making
Rapid prototyping
of
everything
- Learning groups come together for 2-12 weeks
- Every family and group remixes, chooses, compares, designs curricular materials daily or weekly
- Families and groups hold "planning parties" for events, classes, curricula
- Online think tanks solve day-to-day pedagogical problems within hours
- Ease of joining and leaving, no entry and exit barriers for group activities, conscious avoidance of formal gatekeeping (tests)
- Disintermediated administration and logistics leads to fast and agile decision-making
Global networking
by
values
- Strong flavors and styles in learning philosophies and worldviews
- "Named" approaches with high level of passion and loyalty among followers
- Learning materials tagged not only by topic and level, but by multiple value-based variables
- Complex vocabularies for sharing personal educational values within networks
- Relations among members of small classes: relatives, friends, or friends-of-friends
- Tight groups: 1 or 2 degrees of separation within coops and local groups
- Invitations to activities either through friends or through tight groups
- New participants' first task is to make these close ties
- Groups form by topics of interest, location, desired workload, and existing friendships, rather than age or ability
- Internships, apprenticeships and events with local professionals who have community ties
Local grouping
by
social ties
Homeschooling does not lose success rate when the practice spreads.
Researcher point of view
Image by Clover 1 on Flickr
Meaningful learning experiences:
- Autonomy
- Complexity
- Fruitful effort
Rather than reducing the complexity of the environment by filtering, breaking down into pieces, and otherwise simplifying information for the individual... Amplify the knowledge of the individual to where it can meaningfully
connect to the complex environment.
"Focus on dreams of each child."
Key components
"Loving one another in the context of Perl" - Clay Shirky
"Named approaches"
- Montessori
- Reggio Emilia
- Charlotte Mason
- Waldorf
- Thomas Jefferson
Economies of:
- Reputation
- Permission
- Care
- Trust