Communities must create learning networks that allow people of all ages access to any learning resource at any time. Subjects and methods should be organized around learners so they can forge their personal curricula in interaction with others doing the same across a whole spectrum of learning sites, situations and technologies. The main learning sites that are employed in these learning networks are community learning centers. They not only help individuals with self-actualization via personalized education, but they also foster a sense of community by calling for every community member to participate in the ecological and economic sustainability of the community.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

When we discuss generational sustainability it is also important to discuss education because education is a vital means toward sustainability. But what is education and how does it help to create a sustainable world? If we try to find the answers within our current educational model, we will only become discouraged because the current educational model cannot help to create a sustainable world. The current educational model is riddled with false assumptions about the purposes of education. In fact, the current educational model works to deter human self-actualization and hasten the destruction of our eco-system.

So what is the answer? How does education play a role in sustainability? To answer these questions we first have to address the issue of personhood. In other words, in order to have a better understanding of education, its purposes, and how it is related to sustainability we need to answer the question, "What is a person?"

In this chapter I will refer to David Norton's self-actualization ethics and Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences to consider aspects of personhood. Next, I will discuss the origins of public education in modern American culture, the factors that influenced the development of the public school in modern America, and why public education today is not a pathway to sustainability. Third, I will discuss a new kind of educational structure, known as the community learning center, which is designed to nurture persons. Finally, I will discuss the relationship between community learning centers and sustainability.

In Personal Destinies, David Norton (1976) states that every person has within him an innate potential (excellence) or true identity that is referred to as daimon. In pre-Hellenic Greece, Greek sculptors made busts of the demi-god Silenus with a surprise inside, a golden figurine. If the bust were broken, it would reveal the figurine; thus revealing the true identity of Silenus. The Greeks believed that like the demi-god Silenus, every individual has within himself "a golden idol" or daimon, the individual's true potential.

Like the Greeks, the Romans too believed in the concept of innate excellences, but they referred to it as geni or genius. Thus, Norton asserts, every individual is a genius. Every individual has inclinations toward some human activities that are appreciated or deemed worthy by one or more cultures. The ancient philosophy of innate excellences has been confirmed by modern research and scholarship, including Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In Frames of Mind, Gardner defines intelligence as "the ability to solve problems, or to create products, that are valued within one or more cultural settings" (1983, x). Gardner, in Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, has identified eight kinds of intelligences: musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence. He goes on to say that we find these intelligences working in combination throughout the spectrum of human vocations and avocations.

Figure 1. Illustration of Daimon

Assisting each person to identify his or her personal excellence and fostering it is the key role of education. The Greeks and Romans understood this quite well, as can be ascertained from the Latin definition of educere, to bring forth that which is within. In other words, educere means identifying those intelligences or combination of intelligences that an individual has strengths in and fostering them.

Gardner and Joseph Walters, co-author of Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, suggest assessment of these intelligences in order to assist adult guides and caretakers in becoming aware of an individual's inner potential so they can then more knowledgeably seek appropriate environments that are conducive to drawing out the particular potential.

Though Gardner and Walters suggest assessment, they do not, however, favor standard pencil-and-paper short-answer tests as the assessment tool. They state that assessment should holistically search "for genuine problem-solving or product-fashioning skills in individuals across a range of materials" (1993, 31). If one's mathematical intelligence were to be tested, it would have to occur within a mathematical setting. Secondly, assessment would have to correspond to the cognitive abilities of the individual. A child's mathematical intelligence would only be assessed using children's materials. Assessing a child with adolescent or adult materials would be a fallacy of anachronism—"the imposition of a set of principles, truths, and/or moral terms of one stage upon another incommensurable stage" (Norton 1976, 161). Finally, assessment must determine which intelligence is favored when the individual is given a choice. This can occur by either exposing the individual to a situation that stimulates a multitude of intelligences or providing the individual with a set of intelligences materials that assess which intelligences the individual tends to lean toward.

The key point to remember about Multiple Intelligences assessment is that it assists educators with creating learning environments that are conducive to drawing out an individual's particular potential. Recognizing the innermost qualities of individuals helps them live in accordance with who they are. Therefore, tools like Multiple Intelligences assessment are essential for educere.

Living in accordance with one's true identity is what the Greeks refer to as eudaimonia. The prefix eu- is Greek for "living well." Thus, eudaimonia means living well with one's daimon. Norton elaborates this meaning and states

In other words, it is that feeling that says to the individual, "I am where I want to be! I am doing what I want to do!"

Figure 2. Illustration of Eudaimonia

Figure 2 illustrates eudaimonia as an internal compass that guides an individual toward his true identity. When the compass points toward "you", the individual is in a state of eudaimonia. He feels that he is living his life the way he wants to live it, and he is living it toward rightful living. If his compass is off, then he is living a life that is incommensurate with his true self, which is referred to as dysdaimonia (Norton 1976).

Another aspect of self-actualization ethics is the stages of life: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and old age. Every life proceeds through these stages and each stage is incommensurable with other stages. In other words, each stage is its own world and operates under its own principles. Thus, a parent who forces a child to live a life according to another stage's principles is committing a fallacy of anachronism. Figure 3 illustrates the stages of life.

Figure 3. Stages of Life

When an individual is within a particular stage, he is operating according to its principles. Changes do occur within the stage, but these are evolutionary changes, that is, the changes which are occurring are the "continuous explication of implications of the stage's principles by means of progressive clarification, extrapolation, and refinement" (Norton 1976, 159). On the other hand, when an individual moves from one stage to another he experiences a revolutionary change, the "exchange of incommensurable sets of principles" (ibid.).

These changes that occur in an individual are also implicit in the Napa Tetrahedron. As explained in Prasad Kaipa’s chapter, transformation is one of the cornerstones of the Tetrahedron. Transformation again refers to the alteration of assumptions, paradigms, and worldviews; so one could argue that transformation is a revolutionary change. An example of a revolutionary change would be a shift from the worldview that education is a tool for serving the state to the alternative worldview that education is a means for helping individuals with self-actualization.

The evolutionary changes, changes within a new worldview, are the changes discussed in this book. The authors of this book are thinking within an alternative paradigm, that paradigm being generational sustainability. Thus, in order to truly understand and appreciate the works of those within this paradigm, one must already be within the same paradigm; otherwise evolutionary change has no meaning. An example of evolutionary change within the generational sustainability paradigm would be a change in commuting practices or housing. Instead of driving to our jobs, we design cities that provide jobs that are near people's homes. Or we begin to design one-hundred percent self-sufficient homes, such as Michael Reynold's Earthship homes which rely upon sunlight, wind power, old tires, cement, and water. It should also be made clear that these evolutionary changes cannot occur without revolutionary changes first. A further elaboration needs to be offered here.

Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, discusses paradigm shifts (revolutionary changes) and states that

Thus, even if we discuss sustainability, the word and idea itself will have different meanings for an executive of a multinational corporation and an executive of an environmental organization. The multinational corporation executive will argue that sustainability implies development and growth. He views technology as the panacea to all our environmental problems. David Orr refers to this as technological sustainability, "stabilizing planetary vital signs" (1992, 24). Whereas the executive from the environmental organization will define sustainability as ecological sustainability, finding alternatives to the current situation, i.e., rethinking our daily habits and activities (ibid.). The multinational corporation's executive's definition of sustainability is an evolutionary change. He believes that just improving technology will improve our lives. However, the environmental organization's executive's definition is a revolutionary change. He believes that changes in technology are just the tip of the iceberg; we need to completely change our way of thinking and living.

Norton's stages of life are not merely a matter of philosophical discussion, but are confirmed by cognitive science. In Comparative Psychology of Mental Development, Heinz Werner (1948) discusses several cognitive areas in regards to childhood: perceptual organization, perceptual-motor organization, notion of space, notion of time, causal reasoning and its development, logical inference, child magic, and the general character of the child's world. In sum, he cites several studies that confirm the thesis that a child's world is distinctly different from that of an adolescent or adult's world and that such cognitive differences should be taken into consideration when dealing with learning.

In addition, the stage of childhood is a "nature subsisting for the most part in the mode of a potentiality whose time for actualization is not yet" (Norton 1976, 172). This means that the child must learn about himself by interacting with the world around him. In this stage the individual is highly receptive and open to learning. His learning is a dependent-autonomous relationship between his parents and teachers. He is dependent upon his parents and teachers for some guidance but requires some autonomy for experiencing the world.

The stage of adolescence is a time for self-discovery. It asks the question, "Who am I?" Thus, an adolescent education requires opportunities to experience life and to partake in "participatory enactment," the experiencing of what it is like to live another's life. In addition, adolescents cannot be held to their promises because of the very fact that they are still in an experimental mode (Norton 1976). Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences can contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. If an individual's intelligences has been diagnosed at an early age, then his early childhood education will have provided a wealth of information about his strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Working with this information, the adolescent can path-out the different kinds of experiences he would like to pursue.

After some time of contemplating who one is, the individual will decide what it is he wants to do with his life; thus entering the stage of maturity. He decides if he will live the life that is his to live. In addition, he realizes that he will not live forever and that whatever it is he wants to do he had better do. Finally, he will be aware that the decision he does make will be one to which he, and he alone, is responsible (Norton 1976).

This doing to which an individual is held responsible is called work. Work is the activity that is done to assist oneself with self-actualization (Norton 1976). Work, as it is perceived in self-actualization ethics, is not something to satisfy abstract economic goals or something people hate to do because they have to do it to make a living. It is viewed as an essential mechanism that fosters self-actualization. Though an individual will never reach his ultimate possibility through the work that is his to do, it is the journey to achieve that possibility which defines an individual. The journey is the purpose and meaning of one's life.

The discussion about self-actualization ethics thus far is related to the Tetrahedron in an interesting way. Previously I mentioned that childhood is a stage of receptivity, that the child explores both his world and himself. Adolescence is a time for self-discovery, it is answering the question, "Who am I?" Maturity is a time for living out one's personal destiny. Finally, there is the stage of Old Age, a time of reflection and synthesis. Though each stage is an incommensurable stage of life, they all have one thing in common; they all require Individual Opportunity and Common Good, two components that are identified by the Tetrahedron as vital elements.

Individual opportunity is an essential component for self-actualization. It requires freedom from despotism in order to have freedom for exploring both one’s world and oneself (Miller 1996). If such freedoms are stifled, then people will not learn to love and will not learn to share. They will only become disillusioned and fill their empty souls with things that only serve to satisfy them momentarily. They will want more and more only because they feel they don't have enough. This condition is referred to as the maximizing principle of material benefits (Norton 1976, 315-16); and mass media, commercialized television, commercialization, and modern economic and political policies foster this condition.

However, individual opportunity cannot occur in isolation, it requires a social framework that supports the opportunities available for people. This social framework is the condition of complementarity of excellences that is governed by the principles of love, justice, and work, and they may be perceived as the Tetrahedron component of Common Good.

A single self-actualizing individual cannot exist in isolation. He requires other self-actualizing individuals to help with his self-actualization and to create a harmonious society, i.e. the Principle of Complementarity of Excellences (Norton 1976, 10-13). For example, in order for Mozart to have become a great composer, he required an expert musician (that individual happened to be his father) to identify his talents and teach and coach him. Figure 4 illustrates a self-actualizing individual.

Figure 4. Self Actualization

Love, justice, and work are three elements that help create a harmonious society of self-actualizing individuals, and what is considered to be the "common good." The various aspects of love may be understood as constituting a hierarchy as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Hierarchy of Love

At the bottom of the hierarchy is eros, the Greek word for self-love or respect for oneself. Self-actualization can only begin with an individual respecting himself for whom he is. Eros gives rise to reciprocal love between two persons of which there are two forms: romantic love and friendship. Montaigne wrote that romantic love is "more precipitant, fickle, moving and inconstant; a fever subject to intermissions and paroxysms, that has seized upon but one part of us" (in Norton, 1976, 295). Friendship, on the other hand, is a "general and universal fire, but temperate and equal, a constant established heat, all gentle and smooth, without poignancy or toughness" (ibid.). Thus, romantic love follows eros because it is an exclusive love that takes place between two people and no more than two. This genetic priority is confirmed "by the recognition that, while romantic love requires more of the individual in the way of developed capacities than comradeship, it requires less of him than does friendship" (ibid., 296).

Even though romantic love can assist with "breaking the bonds of egoism," it is unfit to lead a person toward universal love. Romantic love is a love of another person for that person's distinctive possibility as their possibility, and by loving an individual for whom he or she is we are willing the fulfillment of that individual's own possibility. Therefore, because of its exclusivism, an exclusivism that allows romantic love to achieve its purpose, it is unfit "for the recognition upon which the further development of consequent sociality depends, namely the universality of preciousness in persons as unique individuals" (Norton 1976,303). Thus, another kind of love is required, that being friendship.

Friendship is not exclusive like romantic love; so it leads an individual toward universal love. !4 It lacks the passion that romantic love has, but it does require the individual to "suspend voluntarily his own perspective with its attendant needs and interests" in order to discover the true identity of another (Norton 1976, 304).

The achievement of a universal love also requires antecedent sociality, that sociality which

This is in alignment with John E. Walsh's discussion about a universal culture in Intercultural Education in the Community of Man. He argues that a universal culture places emphasis on commonalties more than on differences. As a result, the common good is achieved because common understandings are voluntarily and democratically mediated through the different cultures and communities.

In addition to antecedent sociality, The Principle of Congeniality of Excellences can be applied to love and the common good. The Principle of Congeniality of Excellences holds that

In other words, in order for complementarity of excellences to work, it must be based upon a principle that calls for people to respect their differences and to live together congenially.

In order to resolve human conflict people must look toward the good that resides in their enemies instead of the bad:

By acknowledging the worth of one's enemy and recognizing that this person's worth may contribute to the self-actualization of other individuals, one will not have any enemies and conflict will be resolved.

Another element that contributes to the common good is justice:

In other words, justice is defined in terms of the individual, not in terms of the state or any other group. If an individual is living a life that commensurates with his true being, then he will only make claim to those things that commensurate with that being. He will not engage in excess, and by doing so, he will respect other self-actualizing individuals for the worth that they possess and may contribute to the society of self-actualizing individuals. Thus, by living in truth to that which we really are, we in effect make explicit the principles that underlie justice. However, for those individuals who are living dysdaimonic lives, the state should be expected to implement measures to assist them with self-actualization.

Work is the final element that helps in defining the common good. It was said earlier that work enables a person to actualize his potential. As Norton states,

The relationship work has with justice and the common good is that justice arises only if people are allowed to do the work that commensurates with who they truly are. Work, in the sense that Norton is discussing, is the vehicle that makes explicit a person's true self. Thus, the only work that a person should do is the kind that helps him to actualize his potential worth so he can contribute to the common good of humankind.

Public education was established in early American culture as a means by which an enlightened citizenry could be developed. Thomas Jefferson's work in establishing the University of Virginia as the first public institution of higher education was a good example of creating a social structure that would assist people with the mission of enlightenment. However, Jefferson's model has never truly come into being in American culture. In fact, the public school in modern America has become nothing more than a "factory" to produce workers for a corporate labor force. The many unpredicted events that followed Jefferson's model of public education derailed all efforts to create public educational institutions that would work toward creating an enlightened society.

Public education in early modern America was influenced by several social factors before it became what it is today. In What Are Schools For?, Ron Miller (1992) discusses the history of public schools from the 1830s through the 1870s. He states that industrialization, immigration, institutionalization of family roles, popular politics, and crusades for social reform were the main influential forces in the development of public schools. These forces in turn served as the catalyst for what Miller calls the Goals of the "Common" School Movement: moral training, responsible citizenship, cultural uniformity, the achievement of industrialism, and enhanced economic opportunities.

It was not until the early part of the twentieth century that these goals were stringently applied to all public schools. Many of the same factors that influenced public education in early modern America also influenced public education in early twentieth century America. Raymond Callahan in Education and the Cult of Efficiency cites the following factors that influenced public education in early twentieth century America:

1. The dominance of businessmen and the acceptance of business values;
2. The creation of a critical, cost-conscious, reform-minded public, led by profit seeking journalists;
3. The alleged mismanagement of all American institutions;
4. The increased cost of living (1962, 18).

In addition to these four factors, immigration had greatly increased and had become a greater problem by the time of President Andrew Jackson. Callahan states that between 1865 and 1900 fourteen million immigrants came to America, but after 1900 one million immigrants a year arrived; thus the public called for furthering the Goals of the "Common" School Movement (1962, 14).

With the industrial revolution at its height, calls for standardization and business practices in school management increased. Competition from Germany influenced American industrialists to pressure school boards to run schools according to scientific management methods, something that earlier educators did not have to deal with because America was still an agrarian nation. American industrialists in 1905 attributed Germany's economic success over the US to their vocational education; thus, they argued, "we should adopt Germany's system of industrial education" in order to compete with them (Callahan 1962, 12). Bowing to the industrialists' pressure, the US Commissioner of Education stated to the National Education Association in 1909 that "there can be no doubt that industrial education is needed to perpetuate the prosperity of our industries" (in Callahan 1962, 13).

Between the years 1911 to 1915 the industrialists won the battle over standardizing education and providing American industry with the workers they needed. The tool they used to implement their reforms was Frederick W. Taylor's Scientific Management, which was introduced not only to American education but all facets of American culture (Callahan 1962).

Scientific Management is "a system for getting greater productivity from human labor" (Callahan 1962, 25). The four principles of scientific management state that management (in this case management means teachers and administrators) should

The mechanisms that drive these principles are time and motion study, standardization, task idea, functional foremanship, and the planning department. Time and motion study is the basic element that achieves the first principle. The tools used to implement this element are a stopwatch and record card. Callahan states that in early management practices the manager would

Standardization is an interrelated element in time and motion study. Based upon the analysis, certain steps and motions are standardized (Callahan 1962, 30). Time and motion study and standardization are the key elements for the creation of standardized curriculum, classroom sizes, teaching methods, and textbooks.

Functional foremanship is the teaching of new methods to workers, observing how they work, and correcting them if the work is done incorrectly (Callahan 1962, 32). Daily in-school tasks administered by the teacher are functional foremanship. Students are acquainted with problems, are asked to solve the problems via a timed standardized test, and then corrected if the problems have been answered incorrectly. Those who can solve the problems the fastest are rewarded with a grade and moved to the top of the class to serve as models for other students.

The final element is the planning department. This department is responsible for developing "the science of the job, which involved the establishment of many rules, laws, and formulae to replace the judgment of the individual workman" (Callahan 1962, 33). The planning department in the school is the school board and its administrators. Being accepted for management or scientific studies at university rewards those students who conform to the rules set down by them in applying their logical/mathematical intelligence best. Those who cannot conform become the workers. Thus, intelligence qualification examinations and other standardized tests are created to determine who will manage and plan in the nation's corporations and who will work on the factory floors.

1. Education is primarily a political matter.
2. Education should serve the economic interests of the nation.
3. Education should serve the employment needs of American corporations.
4. State schooling is an appropriate means of promoting democratic values.
5. Teachers are professionals; students are their clients.
6. The only valid knowledge is empirical, analytical, intellectual, and utilitarian. (1995, 28-37)

These false assumptions were reflected in the early twentieth century version of Goals of the "Common" School Movement and today in the Goals 2000 law (Miller 1992). As a result, we have created a cultural institution that does more to deter self-actualization than it does to foster it. As Ivan Illich states, "Schools select those who are bound to succeed and send them on their way with a badge marking them fit" (1971, 10).

Perhaps the most terrifying statement ever made about education comes from Taylor himself in his second principle of scientific management. Taylor states that managers or in this case teachers and administrators should "scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman [or student], whereas in the past he [the worker or student] chose his own work and trained himself as best he could" (in Callahan, 1962, 27). Callahan quotes Taylor as stating further that

This view about education and work turns self-actualization ethics on its head. Taylor has obliterated 5,000 years of accumulated knowledge about personhood. First, he states that society selects those individuals it deems worthy via paper-and-pen tests. In contrast, the Principle of Complementarity of Excellences of self-actualization ethics determines an individual's value within his own cultural context.

Second, Taylor's selection tools are not founded upon research in cognitive psychology, but management principles. Third, he defines work as something someone else does for someone or something else. It is not something that is done to help an individual with actualizing his true worth. Finally, and perhaps worse of all, he even acknowledges that work was once deemed as an integral part of an individual's worth, but now in the "industrialized era" people do not count, corporations do; so we better get on with the "business" at hand.

The placing of Scientific Management on a pedestal has caused educators like James Moffett to state, "The public has just the awful schools it 'wants'" (1994, 93) because we have seceded all power to a minority of people who determine what should and should not be learned. The modern school is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a place that rewards people for who they are. It is a place that brands and banishes them for who they are not. And this is a significant contributing reason to the problems that we have today and why the modern school is not a pathway to sustainability. In order to create an educational pathway toward sustainability, we should look toward an ethical foundation that identifies and honors individuals’ innate potential, such as self-actualization ethics. As well, we should create social structures that honor individuals for who they are and support the self-actualization that must occur for good of both the individual and humankind.

In order to make possible a more nurturing eudaimonistic approach to human learning in the twenty-first century, it is imperative for us to create social structures that help people to actualize their potential worth. In the field of education, one structure that has been proposed is the community learning center (CLC). Unlike the current "factory" style school that is established by the upper echelons of society and is practically disconnected from the outside world, the CLC is established by the community members within the community learning network. In The Universal Schoolhouse, James Moffett describes a community learning network as

In addition, community learning network architects assist in designing the structure of a network. Community learning network architects are individuals who survey the resources available for learners within a community; categorize the resources; develop computer software and guidance materials to assist learners and educators with developing individualized curricular programs and assist resource managers with creating additional resource materials; and create computer assisted learning systems for learners and educators.

The main learning sites that are employed in these learning networks are community learning centers (CLCs). They are staffed with people who counsel, teach, and assist learners with developing individualized curricula, learning, and using the facilities. If a CLC doesn't have the resources individuals need, then it will put them in contact with those individuals or institutions that do have them. In addition, CLCs foster a sense of community by calling for every community member to participate in the ecological and economic sustainability of the community. They serve as nerve centers for activities such as community farming, workshops, seminars, research and development, and volunteer clubs that all help to create a sustainable community.

An overriding distinction between the school and the community learning center is philosophical. 4 The school is designed as a factory to produce skilled labor; whereas a community learning center is designed as a garden for the growing of true individuals. The growing of true individuals requires an educational environment that supports self-actualization and commensurates with each stage of life. This educational environment can best be created if its philosophy is based upon educational principles that recognize the uniqueness of each individual for who she is and how she is connected to the world around her. The educational principles that have been developed over the centuries that make this recognition are referred to as holistic principles of education. The holistic educational principles that have been developed by holistic educators thus far are

1. education for human development;
2. honoring students as individuals;
3. learning through experience;
4. emphasis on the wholeness of human experience;
5. teacher as educator, coach, advisor, and friend;
6. freedom of choice;
7. education for participatory democracy;
8. education for cultural diversity and global citizenship;
9. education for earth literacy; and
10. a spiritual worldview (Flake 1993; Miller 1992).

One of the benefits of a holistic education is that it allows student and educator to realistically set goals for each stage of life. Instead of creating artificial and unrealistic goals like those stated in the early twentieth century Goals of the "Common" School Movement (Miller 1992) or today’s Goals 2000, educational goals for an individualized curricular program could be something like the following.

1. Acquaint the child with her immediate environment and the world.
2. Foster in her a sense of wonder and awe about the world.
3. Help her to learn cooperation and sharing.
4. Help her to understand how things are related to one another.

1. Help the adolescent to answer the question "Who am I?"
2. Provide for her a multitude of learning/living experiences.

1. Help the mature individual to "become who she is."
2. Help her to determine what work is hers to do in her life.
3. Assist her with doing that work.

1. Help the senior reflect upon her life journey.
2. Provide for her opportunities and resources to share her life experiences with others so those experiences may assist others with their self-actualization.

In addition, the learning that occurs in a CLC is cyclical. It is representative of the natural cycles that occur in physics, biology, and all other aspects of life. Figure 6 illustrates the CLC Learning Cycle.

Figure 6. CLC Learning Cycle

In Figure 6 four kinds of "educators" are involved with the student's learning experiences: advisors, individualized program developers, professional educators, and non-professional educators. The advisor helps the student to determine her educational needs based upon a needs analysis. Factors involved in the needs analysis are

1. Stage of life
2. Kinds of self-actualization experiences
3. Multiple Intelligences (MI)
4. Identification of possible personal inclinations
5. Other learning experiences

After the advisor helps the student complete the needs analysis, a report is sent to an individualized program developer. The student then visits with the individualized program developer who helps her create an individualized curriculum. The breadth of the curriculum will depend upon the following factors:

1. Results of needs analysis
2. Disciplines of knowledge
3. Types of learning (MI)
4. Learning locations
5. Kinds of professional and non-professional educators
6. Scope of learning experiences

The student and the program developer brainstorm various learning situations. After the brainstorming session, the program developer and the student will complete a schedule sheet, similar to that of Figure 7. Computer software will be used to develop this educational program. The student and the program developer will decide which kinds of learning experiences would be beneficial for her. Next, they will browse through a catalog that has categories of learning activities with descriptions. They will complete the worksheet by filling out the columns for the learning activity, preferred time, and preferred location. After completing the worksheet, the program developer then inputs the information into a matching database. The student's schedule is matched with other individuals who have similar schedules. A printout like Figure 8 results.

Figure 7. Individualized Curricular Program Worksheet

Figure 8. Printout of Matching Results

The group number corresponds to the group for each learning activity. The group sizes are small, up to ten people per group. In addition, the computer will only be programmed to place the student in a group with people who have the same interests. The student may be with a twelve or twenty-year-old; however, this does not mean they will be doing the same things at the same cognitive levels. The twenty-year-old may be an intern who wants to work with younger or older people. Also, because the student's cognitive abilities will be different from other group members, the group will have more than one professional educator to assist learners. So, if there happens to be another student of the same age, the educator may work with both students using a variety of methods to teach and assist with the learning process. Finally, because the student has been matched with people who have similar schedules, the student may be in more than one learning activity with the same people.

The location of the learning activities is also made explicit in the schedule. All activities take place in several areas throughout the community learning network. For example, if the student's neighborhood CLC doesn't have the facilities to support her learning about graphic arts, she will go to the local graphic arts institute via a CLC shuttle bus route.

When the student actually attends her activities at the various locations, she will be assigned to different professional and non-professional educators who will then help her to develop learning contracts (Anderson 1996; Boak 1998; Knowles 1986). For example, the professional educator at Kanazawa Graphic Arts Institute will help her to develop a learning contract that will specify what she will do, when she will do it, and how this learning will be evaluated. The student is not locked into any artificial time frame involving the learning activities in her schedule. Time frames may vary and change as some learning activities finish earlier than other activities.

In addition, the student will be assigned to people who are not professional educators. They may not have formally studied about human development or holistic education, but they can be called mentors or non-professional educators because they are able to do something so well that they are able to teach it to others (Moffett 1994, 174). For example, a Japanese landscape gardener may take on a student as an apprentice and teach him the art of Japanese landscaping.

Because the CLC learning cycle focuses on the individual, one appropriate assessment tool is the portfolio. A portfolio is a record of all work completed for a learning activity. Since a student will be involved with numerous learning activities, several portfolios will be required. Portfolios can be both electronic and/or physical. These portfolios are very important for future consultations with advisors and program developers in order to help students meet their educational needs. In addition, they are a more accurate measure of learning than sit-down paper-and-pen tests.

The educators with whom the student is working are quite unique in that they are specialists in their disciplines of study and human development. Unlike the schoolteacher who is not required to or able to know or care personally about all students in his class, the CLC educator is required to know his students very well. The educator must be well acquainted with the needs of his students in order to know the learning methods required for helping the students learn. This is the art of educating, knowing which learning methods to employ for each individual student. Therefore, assessment tools like Gardner's Multiple Intelligences assessments are very important when trying to develop individualized curricular programs and learning contracts. Educating is an art and a science that requires considerable commitment on the part of educators and advisors.

1. A CLC serves as a nerve center for the universal learning network and provides for the people of its community individualized learning networks in order to give all people of all ages access to any learning resource at any time.
2. A CLC is a laboratory for learning. Even the structure of the facility should help with learning about systems, holism, and the fragility and wonder of life, the earth, and the universe.
3. A CLC has a welcoming and warm atmosphere.
4. Every community should have a central CLC and satellite CLCs located within walking distance of people's homes.
5. A CLC is developed using organic architectural principles, such as Solar Survival Architecture.
6. A community board of directors who in turn hire the administrators govern a CLC.
7. A CLC supports the research, design, and development of organic technology in order to help better facilitate learning and communication throughout the universal learning network.
8. A CLC has ICLCAA accredited professional and non-professional educators, resource managers, and administrators.
9. A CLC supports the training of its professional and non-professional educators, resource managers, and administrators.
10. A CLC helps its community research, design, and develop sustainable energy resources and a sustainable local economy.
11. A CLC provides facilities and learning environments that are safe and efficient for all members of the community, including those members with physical disabilities.
12. A CLC provides community programming that fosters both local and international community.
13. A CLC provides adequate public transportation to and from satellite CLCs within the local community.
14. A CLC is free to all members of the community; however, reasonable fees may be assessed for some services.

The above summary on community learning centers makes explicit the ways that CLCs contribute to sustainability. In this section I will provide a brief overview of three approaches employed by CLCs to assist with fostering sustainability: organic architecture and technology, community education and activism, and community research and development.

In Education for Transformation: Implications in Lewis Mumford's Ecohumanism, David Conrad devotes two chapters to organic architecture and organic technology. In these two chapters he asserts that architectural structures should reflect the community within which they exist and that technology should be democratic, that is, it should "fulfill the criterion for the positive, life-promoting, constructive side of technology...and not hamper human values, but...contribute to them, in some cases even make them possible" (1976, 47). Should not community learning centers adhere to these principles in order to help create the best possible learning environment for a community?

Organic Architecture is architecture that

Architecture that is organic requires that those who will use the facility participate in the planning and construction of it, guided by experts. For example, students at the Technical Institute in Otaniemi, Finland participated in the planning and construction of a large student-center-cafeteria-auditorium called the Dipolia (ibid., 58).

In addition, organic architecture is in itself organic; it is a self-sustaining system like any other living system. A good example of this is Michael Reynold's Earthship homes that are constructed using "solar survival architecture". Earthship homes are self-sustaining homes that are constructed from concrete and recycled building materials, such as old automobile tires. They generate their own electricity via solar and wind energy technologies as well as store their own water from rain or snow which is cleaned through a filtering system. The homes heat themselves using what Reynolds calls "passive solar design with thermal mass storage". The water that is collected is used for all domestic water needs. The toilet water is flushed into outside gardens around the home (Solar Survival Architecture, www.earthship.org, 1).

The development of CLCs should incorporate such architectural approaches as those of the Dipolia and Michael Reynold's "solar survival architecture". Even if construction companies develop CLCs, it is still important for the communities themselves to participate in order for CLCs to reflect the environments within which they exist.

Besides employing organic architecture during the developmental phase of CLCs, it is equally critical for CLCs to use organic technology after they are constructed. Conrad makes an important point when he states,

The unexplored area of organic technology is perhaps one field in which technical institutions can make a significant contribution. At Kanazawa Institute of Technology, with the assistance of my colleague Kaname Kobayashi and his lab, I am developing a learning system called Multimedia Interactive Information Learning System or MIIL System. MIIL System is separate computerized information systems specifically designed for learning within a holistic context. Each system is a specialized learning database that provides information and learning activities for a specific knowledge discipline, such as English, sociology, biology, or physics. These independent MIIL Systems are linked to one another through a computerized network in order to provide for learners an open-ended information system, in the same way that the world-wide-web is linked.

MIIL System has four benefits. First, it can keep pace with new information that is continuously being generated because curricula specialists at CLCs around the globe are recomposing that information and developing learning activities specifically with reference to it. Second, because MIIL System is timely, learning has meaning for learners. A third benefit of MIIL System is that it is self-sustaining. A person using one of the systems can upload information and learning activities and another person can download them as-soon-as they are uploaded. Finally, MIIL System can help with curriculum planning by maintaining an electronic portfolio for each learner. Every time a learner accesses an activity or project on a system, a record is maintained. This electronic portfolio assists the learner and his advisor in developing his curriculum. It also enables parents to participate more actively in the child's learning.

The creation of organic technology like MIIL System will not occur overnight. It will require many people to cooperate with one another on a global scale. The best minds and resources will need to be pooled. In addition, a struggle to see who can develop the best technology or develop it first should not occur because the creation of CLCs is a transformation enterprise, not a corporate enterprise, and this transformation can best occur if we can cooperate with a global perspective.

Community education and activism is another way the community learning center contributes to sustainability. Individualized curricular development fosters community education and is fostered by community education. Through community education people take stock in their community and are motivated to care for it. I refer to this phenomenon as activism—the active participation in one's community by learning about it and caring for its sustainability.

Though the word "community" is invoked here, it does not mean that community education is compulsory education. Community education is entirely voluntary and employs methods of learning that are already inherent in the community learning network. The CLC serves as one vehicle for helping individuals to take advantage of these methods by plugging them into the network and guiding them through it.

James Moffett has categorized the following learning methods that are inherent in the community learning network.

I. Universal Learning Activities

A. Spontaneous Ways of Learning

1. Witnessing: Directly registering realities whether intentionally or unintentionally.
2. Attuning: Empathizing with or tuning to a person, place, or thing.
3. Imitating
4. Helping
5. Collaborating
6. Interacting

B. Deliberate Learning Methods

1. Experimenting: Manipulating the environment in order to cause something to happen so we can witness the results.
2. Transmitting: Transferring language through knowledge or symbols.
3. Investigating: Utilizes witnessing, experimenting, interviewing, and researching the symbolized information that is transmitted from the past.
4. Apprenticing: Brings together all the spontaneous ways of learning. (1994, 160-161)

2. rippling: An informal, continuous tutorial of some knowledge or skill that everybody is at once receiving from the more experienced and transmitted in turn to the less experienced. (ibid., 168)
3. !4 Tutoring and Coaching
4. Apprenticing and Interning
5. Visiting: Actually visiting new places and people. Three sources of visiting are

1. What the environment shows
2. What other people know
3. What public databases store (ibid., 176)

6. Community Service: This could be volunteering to help the elderly.
7. !4 Playing Games: Two kinds of games are classification and seriation games. (ibid., 180)
8. Therapy
9. Practicing the Arts: This would include arts like dancing, photography, and pottery.
10. Spiritual Disciplines: Moffett categorizes five kinds of spiritual disciplines

1. Devotion and Discipleship
2. Taking Stock: It is reviewing one's life from time to time.
3. Sacrifice and Asceticism: Sacrifice is the breaking of an attachment from something.
4. Service to Others
5. Contemplation and Attunement: This would include gazing, visualizing, topical meditation, self-witnessing, and suspending inner speech. (ibid., 189-194)

11. Home-schooling

The CLC recognizes that each of the above learning methods is valuable and works to help individuals utilize those methods that are necessary for their community education. Thus, whenever an individual partakes of one or more of the following learning methods, she is at the same time fostering her own community education and the education of others, i.e., she is involved in community activism.

Community Research & Development (R&D) is a third component in helping to create a sustainable community. R&D would be concentrated in such areas as community farming, cognitive psychology and human development, consensus democracy, and the effects CLCs have on community. One area in which a CLC can make an important contribution to its community is that of community farming R&D. The University of Massachusetts' Community Supported Agriculture Department highlights several benefits of community supported farming (CSA):

1. CSA's direct marketing gives farmers and growers the fairest return on their products.
2. CSA keeps food dollars in the local community and contributes to the maintenance and establishment of regional food production.
3. CSA encourages communication among farmers.
4. With a "guaranteed market" for their produce, farmers can invest their time in doing the best job they can rather than looking for buyers.
5. CSA supports the biodiversity of a given area and the diversity of agriculture through the preservation of small farms producing a wide variety of crops.
6. CSA creates opportunity for dialogue between farmers and consumers.
7. CSA creates a sense of social responsibility and stewardship of local land.
8. CSA puts "the farmers' face on food" and increases understanding of how, where, and by whom our food is grown. (www.umass.edu/umext/CSA/aboutcsa.html, 2-3)

CSA R&D benefits everyone because the community knows more about its food supply and how it can improve it. CSA R&D could be conducted by all sorts of people in the community via the CLC, such as children, adolescents, and educators. In addition, those doing research could share the results with other community members through a CLC CSA R&D Information Board that is maintained on the Internet. The possibilities are endless.

In addition to CSA, a CLC can contribute to R&D in the following ways:

1. Consensus Democracy
2. Community Design and Development (Exploring new ways to create communities that are more sustainable)
3. Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) (Exploring new ways to apply organic technology for individualized curricula)
4. Community Economics (Exploring new ways to create a sustainable economy)
5. Organic Transportation & Development (Exploring new ways to create transportation systems that are pollution "free" and cause less damage to the environment)

The exploration into self-actualization ethics helps us in answering the question, "How does education play a role in sustainability?" By acknowledging that every individual is unique and that uniqueness contributes to the self-actualization of other individuals, we are in effect creating for ourselves an environment that fosters generational sustainability.

Self-actualization ethics when perceived within the context of the Napa Tetrahedron contains all the elements of the Tetrahedron. Individual opportunity exists because under self-actualization ethics every unique individual is free to become who he is. This freedom to become what one is concomitantly transforms individuals and the world around them as well as fosters the common good. The Principle of Complementarity of Excellences and the Principle of Congeniality of Excellences are Norton's attempt at explaining this phenomena in self-actualizing societies.

Because education is grounded in self-actualization ethics, the CLC is a far better candidate as a social institution for supporting sustainable societies than is the school. Whereas the school recognizes individuals as state capital, the CLC recognizes people as innate potential. Thus, as a social institution it fully supports the community; within the context of the Tetrahedron, the CLC provides the individual opportunity to transform both self and community so they may create and maintain a sustainable world for future generations.

Organic Architectural Principles: Principles that are concerned with the building, the community the building is set in, and the architect, builder, and patron's vision about the facility (Conrad 1976, 56). In addition, architect, builder, and patron search for techniques that create a 100% self-sufficient facility that employs renewable resources (Solar Survival Architecture, www.earthship.org).