What I propose is the formation of Learner's Guilds, groups of individuals including students and teachers who pursue the craft of learning. Perhaps craft is not an adequate term, considering its present social connotation, but it will suffice for now. For craftsmanship to me denotes both the science and art of learning. Moreover, it indicates skilfulness and competence.

Perhaps, the greatest single shift inherent in this idea is the role of the teacher. If the teacher is to be seen as a master learner then the teacher should be engaged in enterprises that produce masterpieces of learning rather than masterpieces of teaching. Here, the concept of mutuality comes into play. The enterprise of each guild and of the school itself is a mutual one for all involved. As Goodman (1964 ) argued:

it is impossible to do creative work of any kind when the goals are pre-determined by outsiders and cannot be ctiticized and altered by the minds that have to do the work, even if they are youngsters. p.44

Gone, therefore, is the belief that teaching is something that is done to learners and that learners are in school to receive teaching. Everyone in the schoolhouse is a participant in the enterprise of learning.

Organizing into multi-age guilds should dramatically change the process of school. This is essential, for the process of school is far more pervasive than its program. One might adopt the maxim of community school educators and state that process is the school's most important product. Although, the process in schools has undergone many changes over the last fifty years, there has not been a fundamental change. Schools remain authoritarian environments that control and normalize. Teachers are those that see that this process is applied universally. For a considerable time the process of school reflected the wants of society. Parents prepared their children for entry into this institution and supported the school in the application of the normalizing process.

Society has changed. So have its needs. Schools undergo stress because they seem unable to meet the needs of a changing society. How then might the process inherent in organizing school into Learners' Guilds relieve the dissonance within schools and assist them in meeting the needs of children as we approach the twenty-first century?

It should be understood that Learner's Guilds are not based on institutional authority. What authority exists within such groups will probably be based upon competence and achievement. This most certainly will lead to a fundamental change in the process of school aiming it directly at producing, as a colleague of mine is wont to say, insightful, thoughtful, and resourceful individuals. If this goal can even partially be reached we might then have the citizens who will be able to ensure, the future; who will question doctrines and dogmas and in a very complex world be able to make reasonable decisions. Surely, schools have always had this as an aim. However, the normalizing process always took precedence. It need not any more.

Guilds will seek to educate for both independence and interdependence. Dealing with this seeming paradox will be a major task of the endeavour. For as Laing (1965) asserts:

Freud insisted that our civilization is a repressive one. There is a conflict between the demands of conformity and the demands of our instinctive energies... Our civilization represses not only 'the instincts'... but all forms of transcendence. p.11

How is it possible, then, to maximize the independence of each individual while creating a functional mutually inclusive interdependent group? Schools have traditionally operated on the belief that the welfare of the group comes before the individual. Suppose the welfare of the group and the individual was one and the same. Then a basic conflict that is usually resolved in favour of the group would cease to exist.

Educators might look once again at the work of Froebel and Piaget. In essence we should observe children. We need to know about them if we are to nurture their individuality while assisting them to be functional members of an interdependent group. Possibly we should start by carrying on a conversation with youngsters; a conversation that seeks rather than tells; that explores rather than ritualizes. Above all we must listen or children will fail to talk to us and we will continue to believe our own misconceptions . In short children must be full partners in the form, function, and endeavour of each Guild. Rather than complying, children should be encouraged to question their existence and that of the group and therefore have a real part in shaping and reshaping their world. We must begin to educate them to this role from the moment they enter school. "Darstellung" must be preserved and nurtured.

The foundation of the process inherent in the Guild organization is a notion I like to call "Mutual Inclusion". It refers to being included in a group by mutual consent. This agreement is reached because the individual has something to offer the group and the group has something to offer the individual. Being part of the whole fosters the independence of the individual and improves the interdependence of the group.

Descriptors like unique, skilful, and competent spring to mind to describe group members both children and adults. Before I am accused of focussing on an exclusive elite it would be prudent to affirm that all humans are unique, skilful, and competent in many ways. The task of each Guild and each of its members then, is to encourage the uniqueness, foster the skilfulness, and recognize the competence of all individuals. In short, it is to empower everyone. As McGregor (1960) pointed out:

Once interdependence is accepted; reliance is placed on the know-how, the ingenuity, the innovativeness of all the human resources of the organization. The mechanics of participation are relatively unimportant; the underlying assumptions about human beings which are reflected are crucial p.115

Most likely, we have all experienced the power of being accepted into a mutually inclusive group at some time in our lives. Being included in a musical group, for instance, where the enjoyment was great and the criticism gentle and supportive. Everyone in the group was allowed to contribute. Here, people were recognized for their particular talents and skills. We could learn from these people. In fact we wanted to learn from them for they could show us how to do something we wanted to learn. Children will always seek emergent teachers like these.

Unfortunately, human groups are often based on exclusion and are therefore, exclusive. Individuals are evaluated and judged and for any number of criteria are excluded from the group. The more criteria that are applied the more exclusive the group becomes. School systems are organized like this. All children go to school. Not all children finish secondary school. Fewer go to university. Those who form the group that possess doctorates are indeed an exclusive group. The purpose of such group dynamics is to categorize people; to separate them; to sort them; "to separate the wheat from the chaff!" Our Christian heritage continues to hang over us. How ready we still are "to be judged and found wanting"

The first task of educators involved with Learners' Guilds is to foster a spirit of mutual inclusion. If this can be accomplished and maintained then all may learn and all may teach. Groups are dynamic they are never static. Educators must be skilful observers and effective group facilitators if they are to nurture the power of cooperation and the strength that comes to groups and individuals as they learn to control their own destinies.

Regarding Curriculum.

The curriculum of Learning Centres that are organized into Learners' Guilds will by necessity be a process curriculum. Cole (1972) in his treatise on Process Education affirmed:

"the first and foremost objective of curriculum and instruction should be the facilitation of those skills which are needed by the learner if he is to acquire, organize, generate, and utilize information and knowledge in a satisfying manner"p.26

The skills developed and utilized within Learners' Guilds will be far more diversified than those taught in schools today. Here is an immediate challenge to public education. Perhaps much of what is contained in its curriculum is not universally useful. Perhaps all students need not acquire similar skills or take the same subjects. Perhaps, a student could leave school as a brilliant musician or welder without being able to solve quadratic equations or do as T. S. Eliott's, Macavity did, "complicated long division sums." After all the so-called liberal arts curriculum was designed, centuries ago to produce well-rounded gentlemen of the European aristocracy. It was used to prepare them for a life of pleasant educated idleness.

With the exception of the 3 Rs this curriculum was never very useful to industrial society. It is most certainly useless, as an entity, to learners in an Information Age. For as Toffler (1972) contends:

Anyone who thinks the present curriculum makes sense is invited to explain to an intelligent fourteen - year - old why algebra or French or any other subject is essential for him. Adult answers are always evasive. The reason is simple; the present curriculum is a mindless holdover from the past. p.410

This curriculum has always had major shortcomings. To start with, it purports to contain an overview of all that is worth knowing. Then it purports to develop the skills that all individuals need to possess. Reflection might allow us to observe that many of the skills acquired in school are useful only in school. The same observation might be made about the curriculum's content.

I have argued that the process of school has always had more effect on children than its program. In the future this will still hold true. So if the process becomes the central consideration in the curriculum and this process is designed to nurture and liberate rather than control and normalize then we begin to empower everyone involved with the enterprise. Process curriculum must seek to design and conduct learning activities that are cooperative ventures. They must be ventures that allow all individuals to contribute to the whole while flourishing themselves. Educators must be mindful that how the learning activity is conducted is almost certainly more important than the activity itself. For as Postman and Weingartner (1970) contend:

The critical content of any learning experience is the method or process through which the learning occurs (p.19)

I am firmly convinced that the process of public education rather than stimulating learning frequently does much to inhibit it. The following is an observation of mine:

I discovered something tonight as I read. I had gone to school; to university simply to pass courses....Rarely, before Graduate School had I gone to learn anything! I was good at passing courses and so I did and became an 'educated man.' It is only now as I reread some of what was put before me many years ago that I realize what I missed in the successful pursuit of my education Feb 20/ 91

After a recent presentation, I was roundly criticized by a colleague for "biting the hand that feeds me." "After all," he observed, public education had served me well. Well, I'm not sure it has. Don't misunderstand, I'm grateful for what has been provided me and what I have been allowed to do. Still, I wonder what would have occurred had I more often encountered encouraging rather than constraining forces. Others have had similar thoughts. Commenting on the process of school Albert Einstein once observed:

"one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year... It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiousity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry - especially if the food handed out under coercion, were to be selected accordingly." quoted in Examining in Harvard College

Key to changing this process and vital to the process curriculum of guilds is the notion of ownership. Who owns the enterprise? Presently, the work of school is controlled by educators.The learners have little if any ownership. Most comply but as they proceed through the system their personal investment in school frequently diminishes and we discover that they have little or no interest in school. It bores them. They are poorly motivated. Indeed it is hard to motivate anyone if they do not have any part in shaping the enterprise. They are simply drones doing what they are told; doing what is expected of them.

Those who advocate returning to an externally disciplined formally structured school sometimes point to the example provided in William Golding's, "Lord Of The Flies", believing that without structure and control young people will quickly descend to the primal state. I believe they miss Golding's point. The boys stranded on the island without adults had been exposed to a repressive system of externally controlled behaviour, the British public school system. This system did not teach them to be civilized. It taught them to behave in a civilized manner because it was required externally. Once the external controls were removed the semblence of civilization disappeared. This argues for Learners' Guilds and Learning Centres to focus on processes that foster the cooperative development of functional structures and acceptable appropriate behaviours. Everyone must own the enterprise.

In short, the curriculum of Learners' Guilds is essentially process itself, those behaviours and activities that allow each individual to maximize their own existence while being a supportive functional member of the group. This idea bears examination. Surely, if any individual were to maximize their own existence and was also able to maximize their contribution to the group then they would quite obviously need to acquire all or most of the skills now taught in schools. They would likely gain more. Of course these would be gained in a more random fashion and everyone would not acquire the same set or the same skill to the same degree at the same time. Acceptance of this notion renders the present organization of schools obsolete.

Process has always been a part of public school curriculum. However, this process was designed to form and shape individuals in a manner that made them much more similar than different. Yes, students were, and are, rated on their performance on "achievement" tests in various "subject" areas. Still the most pervasive judgement of all is "good child" or "bad child". The labels are culturally still there.

What concerns me most is that the activities of schools, today and into the future, may well have more to do with the validation of the institution than the welfare of children. If this is so, then, Learning Centres that house Learners' Guilds must allow learning activities that go far beyond what we understand as schoolhouse learning. Moreover, they must be places where much of the structure of learning comes from the learning itself.

Traditionally children have been given the metaphoric book to fill, a book designed by educators. The book is the imposed structure. The subject, and the task are the contents. Evaluation is based on how well individuals function within such an imposed structure. In Learners' Guilds children need to develop the skill of designing and imposing their own structures on their learning. Again they must be part of the design. They must have ownership. Surely, they will often utilize imposed culturally understood structures and certainly they will need to be skilful with them. However, they will come to use them because they enhance their learning not because it is required of them.

Community Learning Centres.

I am inclined to remove the label school from places of learning. School has such a restrictive conotation in our society. We all know what's "supposed to go on in school." Learners' Guilds will deal with many things that are "not supposed to go on in schools." I first battled the traditional rather rigid view of school when I was deeply involved in the Community School (Community Education) movement nearly twenty years ago. I discovered that school was indeed an island apart as Carr so eloquently observed:

Many schools are like little islands set apart from the mainland of life by a deep moat of convention and tradition...Why do these young people go out to the island? They go there to learn how to live on the mainland...when these graduates cross ...to the mainland for the last time...Many of them will literally never set foot on it again...will regard it not as a place to learn... William Carr from "Community Life In A Democracy"

In trying to bridge the gap between school and community many community educators became aware of the withdrawal of school from its community and the growing suspicion of communities regarding school. Many stereotypes abounded. Educators had control of the school. It was theirs. The community surrendered its children to these experts. The experts reported their work with the children to the parent community only. When the community came into the school they were guests in someone else's house and were required to act accordingly.

From the communities standpoint, they were reluctant to associate too closely with the school because, when involved, it seemed to engulf, direct, control and evaluate community endeavours. Joint building ventures failed because, the community saw the school owning and controlling community space. Changes over the past few years have seen communities become much more closely involved with schools. However, the issue both sides struggle with is not one of partnership. Instead it is one of governance and control.

So let's drop the term schools and working in full partnership with communities redesign and reorganize them into Community Learning Centres; places that belong to people; places that are heterarchically arranged rather than hierarchically organized. Within this environment would exist the Learners' Guilds with membership, from time to time, ranging from children to the elderly.

Teachers and administrators in this setting would need to be the acknowledged mastercraftsmen of learning. Mentors of all ages would be sought to support the learning. They would come from all walks of life. They would not need to be professional educators. Learning would be for everyone. Perhaps , with such Centres we might even be able to recreate village life in the 21st century. For as Roszak (1972) asserts:

The need of community persists stubbornly - stubble of living grass beneath snow. We are communal beings. The communion of friends, the experience of honest citizenship are as necessary to us as air and water (p.193)

Of Technology and The Global Village.

I began this dissertation by indicating that we might be emerging into a New Renaissance, driven by new technologies, particularly information technologies. My understanding of technology is that the term refers to tools and weapons. I would prefer to believe that weapons really have no place in Learning Centres but tools most definitely do. Books and paper and pencils and pens have been the tools of public education for hundreds of years. Electronic technologies have rendered these tools obsolete. Electronic technologies have provided us with exponentially more powerful tools for learning. Moreover, the technologies of today are as crude as the first airplane. We have just begun.

So it is essential that Learning Centres avail themselves of the best technology available. Such technology must be the central tool in the activities of Learners' Guilds. MacLuhan's "Global Village" is upon us. Through technology we already have access to the greatest of living data bases, the world itself.

Communities have frequently simply been viewed as geographic entities. More and more we have come to understand the multitudes of layered and interwoven communities that make up any place where people dwell. Still, we tend to believe that all these communities need some geographic sameness to be considered one. Technology allows us to conceive of the world as one community. It allows us to interact with an almost infinite number of communities over great distances in real time or as the broadcast industry says "live"

Young people, above all, must then acquire the skills that allow them to access and deal with a multitude of information before it is censored and sanitized. We can no longer predicate our learning solely on bodies of knowledge that reside in books and in print. Reality changes too quickly.

Community Learning Centres require the best technologies in order to have free and ready access to vast amounts of conflicting current information. In essence, the key industry of the Infomation Age may well be information itself. Useful information must be readily available if any community is to prosper. Moreover, the nurturing of free thinking empowered citizens is essential if the global community is to survive. Hence, we can no longer afford to have school do what it has always done. Let us then move forward together and explore the future while treading lightly on people's dreams. BIBLIOGRAPHY