The draft of FixGov.

This chapter will focus on our capacity to use learning to empower ourselves. There are many reasons that call for a radically different learning system as the foundation for a radically different society.

Among them are:

- Cultural transformation
Since almost the beginning of human history the EuroAmerican society has been developing from a Dominator Paradigm. That is, humans have considered themselves the dominators of nature. The Earth and all living things were created for the use of man. Science is now developing what we may call the Gaian Paradigm. It holds that the Earth and all life co-evolved together and that everything is interdependent with everything else. This Gaian Paradigm suggests a new form of social organization of links among the Earth and all its living parts.
- Alienation in the schools
Schools have almost always had a negative aspect in which students resented their time in school. In the past few decades this "blackboard jungle" attribute has taken on a virulent characteristic too often bubbling forth in deadly school violence.
- The demand for life-long learning
In this new millennium it will become impossible for a student to "graduate" with the skills and knowledge needed to last him or her a lifetime of participation in society. The intellectual needs for life and jobs is changing too rapidly to be served by traditional schools. A new life-long learning system is required.
- New Knowledge of Learning
Brain research has shown that knowledge and ideas are not learned and stored in separate linear neuron linkages in one part of the brain. Rather they are added to a holonistic neural network distributed throughout the brain. Efficient learning cannot be forced on multiple brains at the same time, in the same place, by the same method. Rather each brain, that is each student, must learn by adding to his or her own neural network in his or her own way in his or her own time. Learning is unique and nonlinear, new information is added to the brain in a random fashion. the brain sorts this nonlinear information into useable holons.
- New Tools for learning
Along with a new understanding of how the brain learns new techniques and technologies to help us learn have been developing. Computers and the Internet are only some of the tools that will change the way people learn in the future. In concert with the brain they provide the capacity for nonlinear learning. A careful exploration of these tools could take much of the burden off teachers and give students and mentors the opportunity to develop individual curricula for each learner.
- Community Solidarity
The past few decades have seen an erosion of the traditional nuclear family (if it ever was). But, the need for "belonging" to an extended family is still a basic need for all humans. A new form of intentional community is emerging that, with nurturing, can become the soul of society. Cooperative Community Life-Long Learning Centers (CCL-LLCs) can provide that critical social need.
- Democracy
The phenomenal growth of Grassroots Organizastions (GROs a subset of NGOs) is already proving its power to let every person participate in every decision that affects his or her life. This new grassroots participatory democracy, linked to tools for instant communication, suggests that future citizens can participate from their earliest years in the communitarian society that is now emerging. The good news is that without leaders, without design, without planning and without being noticed, new modes of self-learning are spontaneously self-organizing. From neighborhood day care centers to homeschooling cooperatives, to senior hostels, new clubs and centers are creating the learning opportunies that could grow into a more human and humane learning system. It is only for we-the-people to seize the opportunity.

the complete draft of Bill Ellis >>>