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Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 2003, Vol 48(6), 839-841. The community of learners (COL) concept stemmed from a reaction against what the editors of Learning Together: Children and Adults in a School Community (see record 2001-06242-000) describe as a restrictive educational tradition–a tradition noted for a number of practices (e.g., the arbitrary isolation of children in groups according to birth date, the presence of a single adult in charge of the classroom, the isolation of instruction skills from their integrated use in productive activities, and attempts to motivate children by grading their performance) that, in the editors' view, have little or nothing to do with the facilitation of children's learning. COL proponents hold that children learn more and better when instruction “builds on children's interests in a collaborative way, where learning activities are planned by children as well as adults, and where parents and teachers not only foster children's learning but also learn from their involvement with the children”. Although Learning Together is offered as a testament to the power of COL in promoting teacher and student feelings of well-being, the account serves more as a record of a fond memory of the participants' experiences than as a rigorously researched case for the tenability of COL as an alternative to more traditional approaches to education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved) |
