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Article: Building a learning community: students and adults as inquirers.
- Article from:
- Childhood Education
- Article date:
- December 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Association for Childhood Education International. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Graves (1992) defines a learning community as "an inherently cooperative, cohesive, and self reflective group entity whose members work ... toward common goals while respecting a variety of perspectives, values and life styles" (p. 94). Over the last decade, education reform movements have emphasized the importance of establishing such communities of learners (Collier, 2002; Kohn, 1999; Oberg, 1999).
While such communities are student-centered, they also benefit the adult members in many ways (Sergiovanni, 1994). Just as important, they challenge conventional notions of schooling in society. In traditional models, curriculum frequently comes from textbooks and ...