Economic and political uncertainty top global news headlines these days. Yet, in the midst of the turbulence, David Holtzman, senior knowledge exchange specialist at the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), reminds us that “learning is the most important investment we can make for ourselves, and certainly living in a community that is a learning community is the best investment any community can make. Learning is the only sustainable thing we have. When times are hard, as they seem to be right now, we can’t know what the future holds so it is important to know how to learn and know how to find information.”
Learning goes on all around us, so what exactly is this “learning community” that Holtzman refers to? The definition used by the CCL identifies learning communities as:
“Neighbourhoods, villages, towns, cities or regions that explicitly use lifelong learning as an organizing principle and social/cultural goal in order to promote collaboration of their civic, economic, public, voluntary, and education sectors to enhance social, economic and environmental conditions on a sustainable, inclusive basis.” – Ron Faris, Learning Communities: Webs of Life, Literacy and Learning, presentation: delivered in Halifax at the Symposium on Learning Communities, October 2007
A deliberate approach
Ron Faris is a consultant who researches learning communities. In addition, he teaches courses on the topic at the University of Victoria. Faris points out that learning goes on everywhere, but that doesn’t make every community a learning community. The distinguishing factor is that a learning community explicitly – or deliberately – fosters and sustains learning. Another distinguishing factor is the involvement of all sectors of the community:
- Economic (from private sector through to social enterprise)
- Voluntary (including faith communities and a wide array of voluntary/nonprofit organizations)
- Education (from kindergarten to graduate schools)
- Public (including libraries, museums, social and health agencies, etc.)
- Civic (local governance)
There is no cookie cutter approach to establishing a learning community because it’s all about an asset-based approach and working with local people to identify the assets within their own community. Assets include not just the physical resources (like church basements or school rooms where learning can happen), but the human assets (the people in that community with knowledge and skills worth sharing).
When communities identify their assets and all the sectors come together to deliberately use lifelong learning as an organizing principle within a community, the goals and outcomes can include:
- increased library membership;
- the development of learning plans for workers;
- more seniors attending community college continuing education courses;
- increased cross-sector initiatives related to the arts and learning;
- increased parental involvement in schools; and
- higher literacy rates.
Estimates suggest there are now more than 300 learning communities around the world, the majority of them in Europe and Australia. In Canada, the idea of developing learning communities has spread eastward from western Canada since the late 1990s. CCL currently works with the following learning communities to help them measure progress in achieving their goals and objectives as officially designated learning communities: Victoria, BC; Vancouver, BC; Edmonton, AB; Fort Erie, ON; and St. John’s, NF.
Fort Erie: A Learning Community – Experience it!
In June 2005, the Town of Fort Erie developed a learning community committee and has since become one of the most advanced learning communities in Canada. The work actually began in early 2004 when the Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators approached Fort Erie (a town of 30,000 people located in the Niagara region of southern Ontario) to be the site of a national pilot for its “Blueprint for a Learning Community” project.
Russ Wilson heads up the learning community work in Fort Erie and regularly gets asked to explain what a “learning community” is all about. He puts a practical spin on the CCL definition by explaining that a learning community provides learning opportunities throughout all sectors of the community for the whole range of members of the community – from those with literacy concerns through to the person with a Ph.D.
Learning is central to success in the emerging knowledge-based economy. Wilson points to successes in the international community and forward-thinking countries that understand the importance of learning. The longer-term benefit for his community is all about positioning Fort Erie for the future. In the short term, the benefit is an increase in capacity building as the learning community concept engages all aspects of the Fort Erie community.
It started with the YMCA and the Adult Literacy Council of Fort Erie – both a natural fit with the learning communities concept. Now, the focus is on the business community. The connection may not seem obvious at first, but as soon as Wilson explains what a learning community is all about, he finds that the business community gets excited about expanding the learning opportunities within the business sector. This includes learning about business in general, but also about helping employees be more involved in the community. Once the concept is out in the business community, the focus will shift to promoting the concept to the community as a whole, Wilson says.
What is the role of the voluntary/nonprofit sector in a learning community?
In Fort Erie’s case, as with other learning communities, the voluntary/nonprofit sector is a logical starting point for the development of a learning community. To explain why this is, Faris points to UNESCO’s notion of the three types of learning:
- Formal learning (the learning that happens in schools, universities, colleges).
- Non-formal (the learning that takes place in families, faith communities, voluntary associations).
- Informal (the unsystematic and uncredentialized learning that happens around us, like when your neighbour tells you about growing roses after you admire how good their roses look).
Formal learning is important, but all types of learning have value – especially when you consider that 80% of the learning we do is non-formal, which means that the voluntary/nonprofit sector makes a crucial contribution to learning and often delivers the learning.
“Part of the genius of human beings is the facility or gift of learning,” remarks Faris. “Very often the learning happens because of the voluntary and social sector. Whether it’s the trade union movement, the cooperative movement, the women’s movement, the peace movement, I can’t think of a successful or sustainable social movement that doesn’t have learning at its core.” What the learning communities concept provides is a model for networking and collaborating that draws out the strengths in a community and its people and in doing so, highlights the importance of the voluntary/nonprofit sector.
Lessons in Learning: The future of learning cities
As more cities adopt their own learning cities strategies, they can benefit from the lessons learned in other communities. Researchers have identified three key areas that require attention in creating optimal conditions for the success of a new learning city.
1. Partnership. It is crucial to build real partnerships between all sectors (civic, economic, educational, public and voluntary) and to mobilize their shared resources.
2. Participation. A successful learning city must foster conditions in which citizens increase their participation in lifelong learning, but learning cities must first ensure that their citizens participate in the process of policy development for learning city initiatives.
3. Performance. Learning cities must learn to assess their progress, document good practice, and measure impact.
Louise Chatterton Luchuk is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the local, provincial and national levels of volunteer-involving organizations. For more information, visit www.luchuk.com.
Please note: While we ensure that all links and email addresses are accurate at their publishing date, the quick-changing nature of the web means that some links to other websites and email addresses may no longer be accurate.
