scholarly journals Learning for Life: The People’s Free University and the Civil Commons

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Woodhouse
Keyword(s):  
Early Years ◽  
University Education ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Education ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organic Life ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
Founding Principle ◽  
Civil Commons

This article stems from the author’s experience as one of the organizers of an alternative form of higher education, which drew its inspiration from the civil commons.  In the early years of the new millennium, the People’s Free University of Saskatchewan (PFU) offered a wide variety of courses to members of the public without charge, adopting as its founding principle the belief that “Everyone can learn, Everyone can teach.”  As a form of community-based education, the PFU accommodated the needs and aspirations of a diversity of individuals and groups too often denied by “research-intensive” universities.  The civil commons itself is a web of interlocking institutions based on the life-code of value, which strengthens the public interest and enhances the growth of organic life.  Unlike the money-code of value, whose goods are only available to those who can pay, the goods of the civil commons are accessible to all.  This inner logic enables a full realization of life value as exemplified in the living tradition of popular university education.

How to Pay for it

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Willetts
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Early Years ◽  
University Education ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vice Chancellor ◽  
Younger Generation

Paying for university education has been one of the most acute and politically fraught challenges in public policy. Both the Blair government and the Coalition had some of their smallest Parliamentary majorities for votes on this issue, such are the emotions it arouses. It sparked violent protests in November 2010 and was seen as one of the issues boosting support for Jeremy Corbyn in the General Election of June 2017. It touches such a raw nerve because people worry that we are imposing costs on the younger generation which previous generations of young people did not have to bear. Having written a book myself about the importance of fairness between the generations I well understand why this matters so much. One can only tackle this anxiety if the new way of funding higher education is better for the younger generation than any likely alternative. When I was Opposition spokesman before 2010 I said that the test of any changes we brought in would be if they were in the interests of students and that is the test I tried to apply throughout my time as minister. Through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s higher education faced persistent financial crises. Higher education was one of the public services facing particularly rapid growth of demand. For the amount of public spending per student to be maintained there would have to be very large increases in total public spending on higher education. Expecting such big increases in spending for any programme was difficult enough. But at the same time higher education was not a political priority. Indeed this view was reinforced by universities. I would encounter protesters on university campuses demanding free higher education whilst inside the university’s own social scientists repeated the conventional wisdom that it was the early years that really mattered and the Vice Chancellor told me he could not do any better on access for disadvantaged students unless schools improved and that should be the priority. Moreover, as it is usually the quality of its research that makes a university’s reputation, pressures to maintain research funding were greater than for teaching.

1. The Neoliberal Logic of Service-Learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Snider Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Community Based ◽  
University Partnerships ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship

<?page nr="1"?>Abstract This article investigates the ways in which service-learning manifests within our neoliberal clime, suggesting that service-learning amounts to a foil for neoliberalism, allowing neoliberal political and economic changes while masking their damaging effects. Neoliberalism shifts the relationship between the public and the private, structures higher education, and promotes a façade of community-based university partnerships while facilitating a pervasive regime of control. This article demonstrates that service-learning amounts to an enigma of neoliberalism, making possible the privatization of the public and the individualizing of social problems while masking evidence of market-based societal control. Neoliberal service-learning distances service from teaching and learning, allows market forces to shape university-community partnerships, and privatizes the public through dispossession by accumulation.

Educational Principles of Community-based Education

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 98 (6) ◽  
pp. 1259-1263
Author(s):  
Kenneth B. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Adult Learning ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Needs Assessment ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Educational Experiences ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Education ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
School Curricula

Much of medical education remains teacher centered, as exemplified by the continued emphasis on lectures. Increasingly, however, the importance of the learner is being recognized and acknowledged in medical school curricula. The distinction between teaching and learning is also an issue for graduate medical education; accreditation bodies focus on programs and teaching, and credentialing bodies determine whether individuals have accomplished sufficient learning. The true mission of teaching is to facilitate learning, and adult learning is enhanced by four elements: respect, building on previous experiences, immediacy of application, and the opportunity to practice. These elements should be considered when designing educational experiences in the community. Educational planning includes five steps, represented by the mnemonic GNOME: goals, needs assessment, objectives, methods, and evaluation. Goals are broad aspirations, which are refined by the learners' needs to specific, measurable objectives. Methods are selected to match the objective, and evaluation determines whether the objectives were achieved. The results of the evaluation serve as another needs assessment, and the process continues until the goals are achieved. Throughout the process, the primary focus should be on the resident, with the program in a supporting role.

scholarly journals Active Citizens: Evaluation of a Community-Based Education Program

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Simonova ◽  
Jan Cincera ◽  
Roman Kroufek ◽  
Sarka Krepelkova ◽  
Andreas Hadjichambis
Keyword(s):  
School Environment ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Mixed Design ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Education ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
The Impact

This study analyses the Active Citizens program conducted in seven Czech elementary schools in 2017/2018. The data were obtained in a mixed-design research study containing pre/post experimental/control groups (N = 114), eight focus groups with selected students (N = 56), and group interviews with teachers (N = 14). The mean age of the students was 13.8 years. The study focuses on the students’ and the teachers’ perception of the process, the program’s barriers and benefits, and on the impact of the program on the students’ self-efficacy and on perceived democratic school culture. The analysis revealed that while the participants felt empowered because of their experience, they started to perceive their school environment as less democratic than before the program. The program also likely influenced girls more than boys as the latter seem to have been unaffected. Finally, the implications of the findings for the practice are discussed.

The Church and the Development of Doctrine

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Chan
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Healthy Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Square ◽  
Living Body ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Church

AbstractDoctrines are the authoritative teachings of the Church, yet the modern church is hampered by its inability to speak authoritatively even to its own members on matters of doctrine. One reason is that doctrines are widely perceived as archaic and fixed formulations with little significance for the present day. True doctrines, in fact, are constantly developing as the Church moves towards eschatological fulfillment. Yet for doctrines to develop properly there needs to be a proper ecclesiology. The Church is not an entity that God brought into being to return creation to its original purpose after the Fall; rather, the Church is prior to creation, chosen in Christ before the creation of the world (Eph. 1.4). It is a divine-humanity, ontologically linked to Christ the Head. It is the living Body of Christ, the totus Christus.Within the continuing life of prayer and worship, the Church’s doctrines are re-enacted, renewed and developed. These acts constitute the ecclesial experience or the living tradition. The living tradition is the transmission and development of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the on-going practices of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Spirit upon the Church at Pentecost is not just to enable the Church to preach the gospel but to constitute the Church as part of the gospel itself. That is to say, the gospel story includes the story of the Spirit in the Church. The third person of the Godhead is revealed as such in his special relation to the Church. The Church, therefore, could be called the ‘polity of the Spirit’, that is, the public square in which the Spirit is especially at work to bring God’s ultimate purpose to fulfillment. There is, therefore, no separation between ecclesiology and pneumatology. They are necessary for maintaining the living tradition and ensuring the healthy development of doctrine until the Church attains unity of the faith. Pentecostals who see the Pentecost event as the distinctive mark of their identity have a special role to play: by becoming more truly catholic in their ecclesiology, they become more truly Pentecostal. This accords well with their early ecumenical instinct.

National Foresight in Korea: History of Futures Studies and Foresight in Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-244
Author(s):  
Kyungmoo Heo ◽  
Yongseok Seo
Keyword(s):  
National Development ◽  
Futures Studies ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Public Interests ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of

Public interests in coming futures of Korea continue to be increasing. Fears on uncertainties and pending challenges as well as demands on a new but Korea-own development model trigger a quantitative increase of futures research and relevant organizations in both public and private. The objective of this paper is to review history of futures studies and national development plan and strategy linked with foresight along with its challenges and recommendations. This paper identifies drawbacks and limits of Korea foresight such as misapplication of foresight as a strategic planning tool for modernization and economic development and its heavy reliance on government-led mid- and long-term planning. As a recommendation, an implementation of participatory and community-based foresight is introduced as a foundation for futures studies in Korea. A newly established research institute, the National Assembly Futures Institute, has to be an institutional passage to deliver opinions of the public, a capacity-building platform to increase the citizen’s futures literacy, and a cooperative venue for facilitating a participation and dialogue between politicians, government officials, and researchers.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document