LEARNING COMMUNITIES: Webs of Life, Literacy Learning

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LEARNING COMMUNITIES: Webs of Life, Literacy & Learning Ron Faris Oct. 4, 2007 Truro http://members.shaw.ca/rfaris

THIS WE KNOW, ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED LIKE THE BLOOD WHICH UNITES ONE FAMILY . WHATEVER BEFALLS THE EARTH, BEFALLS THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE EARTH. MAN DID NOT WEAVE THE WEB OF LIFE; HE IS MERELY A STRAND IN IT. WHATEVER HE DOES TO THE WEB, HE DOES TO HIMSELF. Ted Perry, propelled by Chief Seattle

KEY GLOBAL TRENDS Three between related drivers of progress Globalization – showcase philosophy Technological change New information and gaining From asset based to learning based economy Human & social capital New skill levels Learning advances

KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY Constant change = Continuous learning Investment in training/learning brings about critical comes back to associations, people & society Human & social capital are "immaterial resources" Human capital: Formal instructive fulfillment Social capital: Trust, organizing & shared qualities Social/human capital cooperative energy: Social capital the support of human capital

LEARNING COMMUNITY INITIATIVES EUROPE OECD Learning Regions - Spain, France, Denmark-Sweden & UK Learning Communities Network & Test-beds - UK Learning Villages - Finland, Portugal & Italy AUSTRALIA Learning Communities Network Victoria State Learning Towns CANADA Community Learning Network extends in B.C. South Island Learning Community (SILC) extend

A LEARNING REGION MODEL INDIVIDUAL LEARNING ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS SOCIAL CAPITAL ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING SOCIAL INCLUSION Source: OECD, 2001

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: AN OPERATIONAL DEFINITION Neighbourhoods, towns, towns, urban areas or locales that unequivocally utilize long lasting learning as an arranging guideline and social/social objective with a specific end goal to advance coordinated effort of their metro, monetary, open, deliberate and instruction segments to upgrade social, financial and ecological conditions on a feasible, comprehensive premise "groups of place"

R.Faris 2006

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: A NESTED CONCEPT LEARNING COMMUNITIES OF PLACE Learning Organizations Peter Senge Academic Learning Communities Alexander Meiklejohn Communities of Practice Etienne Wenger Learning Circles Miles Horton & Kurt Lewin

PURPOSES SUSTAINABLE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE Economic Environmental Social/SOCIAL INCLUSION Building First Nation & non-First Nation spans COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING Human capital - Individual fulfillment Social capital - Trust, Networks, Shared Values Built capital - Infrastructure Natural capital - Ecology

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Community Partners city financial government funded training willful Inter-related Strategies grown-up proficiency group econ improvement extended IT use at-hazard youth activities Outcomes financial recovery social incorporation expanded group limit deep rooted learning Input

LEARNING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS CIVIC Municipal - Band Shire - Prov-Fed ECONOMIC Private - Social PARTNERSHIPS PUBLIC Libraries - Museums Social - Health Agencies EDUCATION K - 20 COMMUNITY/VOLUNTARY

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: SUCCESS DETERMINANTS 3 P's of accomplishment P artnership - figuring out how to construct joins among all segments and activate their mutual assets P articipation - figuring out how to cultivate cooperation of all learners and include general society in the strategy procedure P erformance - figuring out how to survey advance and benchmark great practice

LEARNING COMMUNITIES: THE 3 P'S Performance Assessment & Benchmarking Civic, Economic, Public (e.g. libraries, wellbeing & social administrations), Education, & Voluntary/Community Partnership Info Tech Learners, Organizations, Ethnic & Aboriginal people group Media, Public gatherings, Website/Listservs & E-portfolios Participation

ADULT LITERACY: AN INVESTMENT A one percent ascend in grown-up proficiency scores is connected with an inevitable 2.5 percent relative ascent in labor efficiency and a 1.5 percent ascend in GDP per head (C$18 billion) Three times more noteworthy impact than interest in physical capital "… more critical to monetary development than creating exceptionally gifted graduates" C. D. HOWE INSTITUTE (2005) Coulombe & Tremblay

SUSTAINABLE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IKEA SUSTAINABILITY ECO-JUSTICE

SOUTH ISLAND LEARNING COMMUNITY (SILC) PROJECT GOALS Bridging First Nation & non-FN Communities Building Community & Organizational Capacity Testing Innovative Literacy Approaches: Open Source Technologies Learner E-Portfolio & Learning Plans Developing Service-Learning Opportunities

SILC: FORMATIVE EVALUATION From Awareness to Involvement From Involvement to Understanding From Understanding to Commitment

COMMUNITY VALUES Balance resident rights & obligations Devolve assets and energy to groups with expanded limit of learning and data & correspondences advances Mobilize human/social cash-flow to encourage reasonable neighborhood monetary improvement, social incorporation & group limit

Men and ladies have inside themselves and their groups the profound and scholarly assets satisfactory to the arrangement of their own issues. Canadian Association for Adult Education Statement of Purposes , 1946

THE WEB OF LEARNING: LEARNING COMMUNITIES Private & Social Enterprise Local Government Economic Sector Community Colleges Universities LEARNERS Civic Sector Education Sector Service Clubs Institutes Schools Libraries Museums Public Sector Voluntary Sector Community Associations Health Agencies Social Service Agencies Faith Communities

SENGE : Creating Quality Communities "Building learning associations is not an individual errand. It requests a move that goes the distance to the center of our way of life. We have floated into a culture that pieces our contemplations, that separates the world from the self and the self from the group. We are so centered around our security that we don't see the value we pay: living in bureaucratic associations where the ponder and delight of learning have no place. Consequently, we are losing the spaces to hit the dance floor with the regularly changing examples of life. We have to design another learning model for business, instruction, medicinal services, government and the family. This innovation will originate from the patient, purposeful endeavors of groups of individuals conjuring desire and ponder. As these groups figure out how to create principal transforms, we will recover our memory – the memory of the group way of the self and the graceful way of dialect and the world – the memory of the entirety."

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: EARLY LEARNING Keating, D. & C. Hertzman, 1999, Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations: Social, Biological and Educational Dynamics, The Guilford Press, New York. L. Irwin et al, 2007, Early Child Development: A Powerful Equalizer, WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, Geneva. Schweinhart, L., 2006, The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40: Summary, Conclusions, and Frequently Asked Questions, High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, Ypsilanti, Michigan.

ADULT LITERACY ROI Coulombe, S. & J. Tremblay, 2005, Public Investment in Skills: Are Canadian Governments Doing Enough?, C. D. Howe Institute Commentary, No.217, Toronto. Hartley, R., & J. Horne, 2006, Social and financial advantages of enhanced grown-up proficiency, National Center for Vocational Education Research, Adelaide. Sticht, T., 1999, Adult Basic Education: Strategies to Increase Returns on Investment (ROI), Applied Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences, Inc.

A PERMANENT UNDERCLASS? Butterwick, S. & C. White, 2006, A Path Out of Poverty: Helping BC Income Assistance Recipients Upgrade Their Education, CCPA, Vancouver. Organization for COMPETITIVENESS & PROSPERITY, 2007, Prosperity, disparity, and destitution, Working Paper 10, (September 2007), Toronto. - Morisette, R., & Zhang, X., 2006, "Returning to riches disparity", PERSPECTIVES (Dec. 2006), Statistics Canada, Ottawa. - Myers, K., & Lebroucker, P., 2006, Too Many Left Behind: Canada's Adult Education and Training System, Research Report W/34 Work Network, CPRN, Ottawa.

HUMAN & SOCIAL CAPITAL - Duke,C. et al, 2006, Making information work: Sustaining learning groups and districts, NIACE, Leicester. - Mowbray, M., 2005, "Group, the State and social capital effect appraisal", Rebalancing the social and financial: Learning, organization and place, NIACE, Leicester. Pp. 47-61. - OECD, 2001, The Wellbeing of Nations: the Role of Human and Social Capital, Center for Educational Research and Innovation, Paris.

NORDIC versus N. AMERICAN MODELS - Brooks, J. & Hwong, T., 2006, The Social Benefits and Economic Costs of Taxation: A Comparison of High-and Low-Tax Countries, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, Ottawa. - Rubenson, K., 2006, "The Nordic Model of Lifelong Learning", Compare: A diary of relative training, Vol. 36, Issue 3 (Sept. 2006), pp. 327-341. - Veeman, A. N., 2004, Adult Learning in Canada and Sweden: A Comparative Study of Four Sites, unpublished doctoral exposition, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

PAN-CANADIAN LITERACY STRATEGY Alexander, C., 2007, Literacy Matters: A Call for Action, T D Bank Financial Group, Toronto. Faris, R., & Blunt, A., 2007, Report on the CMEC Forum on Adult Literacy, Prince George, British Columbia (June 19-20, 2006), Council of Ministers of Education Canada, Toronto. HRDC, 2005, Towards A Fully Literate Canada, National Advisory C