The 21st Century Learning Initiative:
Promoting a Vision, Knowledge, Experience and a Network

For our recent activities, visit our What's New Section.

The 21st Century Learning Initiative's essential purpose is to facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning that draw upon a range of insights into the human brain, the functioning of human societies, and learning as a community-wide activity. We believe this will release human potential in ways that nurture and form local democratic communities worldwide, and will help reclaim and sustain a world supportive of human endeavor.

The 21st Century Learning Initiative was established in 1995 by a group of English and American businessmen and organizations to make sense of research on learning and learning processes that were fragmented in many different disciplines, and embedded in many different universities, research institutions and businesses around the world. It has now reached the stage where it is offering training programs to organizations and groups in the United Kingdom and Canada.

The Initiative believes that the more that is discovered about how the brain works and the various motives which drive human behaviour , the more we are convinced that education has to be about much more than intellectual development, and that learning and schooling are certainly not necessarily synonymous. What politicians and commentators in many lands describe as being "a crisis in schools" is, we believe, better understood as a crisis in society's commitment to young people. All this is aggravated by a materialistic agenda that degrades the spiritual needs of individuals and nations to the single minded drive towards economic profitability.

The Initiative grew out of the work of the Education 2000 trust established in the UK in 1983. For four years the Initiative was based in Washington DC, and its work focused on conferences held at Wingspread in Wisconsin which involved some 60 researchers, policy makers, and practitioners from 14 countries. The Initiative established one of the first major web sites on learning to be set up on the internet. This enabled it to grow rapidly as a "virtual" organisation, frequently being quoted as source material on University degree courses, in PhD theses, in policy papers issued by government agencies, and in speeches made by educational and community leaders.

The message of the Initiative's has been encapsulated in the titles of three of the presentations, which have been widely adopted by many other organisations and interest groups. These are; "Battery Hens, or Free Range Chickens: What Kind of Education for What Kind of World?", "Reversing an Upside Down and Inside Out System of Education", and "Over schooled and Undereducated - getting the balance right."
The Initiative is constantly adding to its knowledge base by synthesising the emerging findings from a variety of disciplines and social programmes concerned with human learning, and the building of sustainable community as a support for human endeavour. This synthesis is published from time to time in various articles, books, and broadcasts.

Most obvious are the numerous speeches, workshops, and training programmes that are delivered each year in various parts of the world. Plans are being made to establish an Initiative for the Study of Human Learning, Values, Ethics, and Community Development.
This web site is the reference source for all this activity, as well as the network which holds together the interests and enthusiasm of many thousands of people in many different countries. The web site has been designed so as to be useful to those unfamiliar with these ideas (or unfamiliar with the best ways of using web sites), as well as for those who are anxious to cut straight to some of the primary research on which all this is based.

New understandings about the brain; about how people learn; about the potential of information and communication technologies;about radical changes in patterns of work as well as deep fears about social divisions in society, necessitate a profound rethinking of the structures of education.

The Initiative initially comprised some 60 academics, researchers, practitioners and policy makers from 14 countries. This group met for six conferences, between 1995 and 1997. In 1997 a Synthesis of their discussions was formulated and it has been disseminated widely for peer review and discussion. Since 1997 a number of articles, speeches, books have been written including: The Child is Father of the Man (1999) by John Abbott; and The Unfinished Revolution (2000) by John Abbott and Terry Ryan.

The Synthesis document triggered a number of books and articles in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States including:

The 21st Century Learning Initiative has more than 15 years of experience working directly with community leaders and educators at the grassroots level on issues of educational reform. This experience goes back to the efforts of Education 2000 which was established in 1983 and worked in nine communities around the United Kingdom on "mobilizing the full resources of the community, the power of new technology, and the most recent research on effective learning strategies." In an effort to "Think Globally, and Act Locally" the Trust became the 21st Century Learning Initiative and, since 1995, has worked with communities and organizations in countries around the world.

Since 1999 alone, the Initiative has worked in partnership with the following:

  • The North Of England Education Conference
  • Some 40 Local Education Authorities across the United Kingdom
  • The OECD in Paris
  • The Millennium Group in Quebec Canada
  • The Israeli Ministry of Education
  • The Saskatoon Education Association in Canada
  • The Dudley, Hammersmith and Fulham, Ealing, Harrow and Cheshire LEAs in the UK
  • The Canadian Head Teachers Association
  • The Canadian Association of School Administrators
  • The Institute of Economic Affairs in London
  • The State of the World/United Nations Millennium Celebration in New York
  • NAFSA: Association of International Educators in San Diego
  • The East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools in Jakarta, Indonesia
  • The Commonwealth Ministers of Education Conference in Canada
  • The Independent Head Teachers Association of South Africa

We invite you to explore these issues, and many more, by visiting this web site again and again. Please do not hesitate to share any thoughts, comments or insights you may discover along the way.

For those who can possibly spare the time we recommend the following:

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21st Century Learning Initiative

http://www.21learn.org

mail@21learn.org
 
 
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