Keywords for this Core Element include: “Membrane”, “Social Learning Construct”, “Shared Needs Pool”, “Dynamic Leadership Flow”.

All of the above are still valid, but the context of “Learning Communities” has greatly evolved, especially during the pandemic years.

The model for student community previously was to have a physical structure for the kids to spend the day away from home. Such was given the responsibility to provide learning/ education, but also some level of security and adult supervision, along with various services like meals, and healthcare, and “after hours” programs.

Many schools have an “team” identity/ mascot/ sports/ bands/ cheerleaders …programs that create an additional form of community,. Though it may have little to do with academics, it may still “support the school as a community/ learning community”. Do we know how important that “team” identity is to student’s learning? If it’s important, it would seemingly be a lot harder to do virtually online, but that’s TBD. There’s certainly various forms of community and teams in the gaming world, for one example.

The assumption about “schools and school buildings” was that they were necessary to provide learning, as few imagined learned taking place in some other ed tech based environment.. The importance of schools as warehouses for children was little noted until the pandemic, but we’ve since been made strongly aware of how the warehousing function of schools enables the US economy.

All through the pandemic years the concerns over the health of the children, and of course the teachers, has been in conflict with the need to get the children out of the home so that parents can go to their workplace for 8 hrs/ 40 hrs. Some have more or less stated we simply can’t afford not to get the children out of the house. Others have said we must come up  with ways to keep the children pandemic safe, even if it means they stay at home.

So in that discussion,  the function of schools as the only place for teaching comes to the fore, and the desperate needs for alternatives through innovation are highlighted.

What happens at home if the children stay there, and need care within the home, rather than daycare/ education outside the home? Generally that’s only possible if parents or at least grandparents/ aunts/ uncles etc are at home with the kids. Community Schools were conceived as a way to involve parental and extended family resources in  providing social services in the neighborhood,  but also to support learning through support and supervision of the children…an extended community of learning, if you will.

How do Community Schools handle the pandemic needs for “offsite” communities of learning? We know there is a great push for online access and connectivity for those students lacking it, often because of cost.

And what of schools where parents are newly working from home? What forms of learning communities are appropriate and practical within a neighborhood group of similar lifestyles? IF WFH is a big part of the economy, how does that affect the warehousing needs for children/ students? Should school buildings be re-designed to be physical meeting places for more virtual learning communities, or for something useful as yet unimagined?

And how might that evolve along the “Community Schools” model? Would it still apply, when social services like meals, healthcare and after hour supervision aren’t real needs?

A lot of unknowns, and it can appear at times that we will simply return to the old school status quo. At other times, it seems clear that we are in the middle of great changes in how we “do education and learning” in the US. The keyword “Community” is certainly getting a full workout as to what that might mean for education going forward.