Are Communities of Learning a brand-new concept?
It is an long-existing phenomenon. But now we can bring it increased coherence and development further its legitimacy as a viable approach to education. The work on building Communities of Learning began decades ago, and is already in full swing in every corner of the nation. In every local area, citizens have long been developing enrichment programs for both adults and young people. For young people, these enrichment activities are both additions to their formal schooling, or – – for independent-study students – – often their major source of learning resources. So we can see that learning communities are an already-existing phenomenon, one that needs to be developed further.
