What is Community Education

The basic components of Community Education:

• Lifelong Learning and enrichment: services and programs for all ages;

•The promotion of civic involvement and leadership;

•Using community facilities for public purposes; and •Establishing collaboration among the many physical, financial, and human resources to address a community's learning needs.

“It is a process designed to enrich the lives of individuals, groups, and their communities by engaging with people who share common interests, goals, traditions, or geography, to

develop a range of learning, action and reflection opportunities, determined by personal, social, economic and political needs.”

“Community Education is all about advocating for the creation of multiple educational and learning services and programs to support community members and strengthen their communities.

It is through the development and implementation of a comprehensive and wide range of innovative strategies that use knowledge, community building and sustainability as central drivers that we can create true linkages and drivers of change.”

“Community Education offers a menu

of philosophy and practice that in

partnership with others concerned

about community life, we can

transform people’s lives.

There is so much potential if we were

able to share our skills and

knowledge to focus on the humane,

economic, environmental and social

development of society at all levels.”

“Community Education is a process of personal and

community transformation, empowerment, challenge,

social change and collective responsiveness. It is

community-led, reflecting and valuing the lived experiences of

individuals and their community. Community Education is grounded in

principles of justice, equality and inclusiveness.”

“ Education must be about strengthening communities, and

focusing on the humane, economic and social development of society at all levels. It must provide the

knowledge and skills for people to not only be self-sufficient and

independent, but to create and utilize the interdependencies that must also exist in civil society.

Community Education is about creating a participatory learning

culture that incorporates principles and practices of respect, mutual

aid, inclusiveness, lifelong learning, skill building, self

appreciation, entrepreneurship, and leadership development.”

“We often hear the phrase ‘parents are children’s first teachers,’ but do we truly engage them as partners in education?

We need to engage all family members in this role and recognize the importance of cultural and familial traditions and knowledge that persist throughout a person’s life.

In addition, partnerships need to extend to all institutions in a community. Schools, government, businesses, service organizations, neighborhoods, philanthropy and civic associations are the potential collaborators that community educators work with to make learning a lifelong practice.”

“Community Education will always be (AND needs to be) closely linked to public education.

However, it is time to accept that schools alone are not entirely responsible for, nor able to educate the public.

The issues that enter the school building from the community are too complex and beyond the capacity of schools to handle alone. Many do not provide lifelong learning opportunities and others are removed from the community’s life and challenges.

It is therefore the Community Educators who are there to create the linkages and provide the services to reinforce education and community progress.”

“Community Education:

– Promotes the understanding that for “education” to truly succeed, the socio-emotional and other “non-academic” needs of students and those who impact their lives must be addressed;

– Works with and establishes new centers of community life and learning beyond the schools; and

– Recognizes that if our communities are truly to survive and thrive, we must create a mobilization of people and resources to identify common goals and processes of collaboration.”

Community Education:

•Engages and supports those population groups who are disenfranchised within their own communities;

•Develops lifelong learning opportunities; connecting learning to workforce development and other intersections whereby through an educational process, people are able to succeed in their communities; and

•Understands and acts on the reality that most schools cannot respond to the complexities of community life and address the multiple needs of their students.”

“Community Education:– Is part of the development of strong and sustained communities;– Includes in its set of values the need to respond to the economic and social needs of individuals

and their communities;– Acknowledges that “informal learning” is occurring through cultural and family traditions and that it

is a crucial part of the educational process;– Recognizes that education and learning are major tools and strategies for transformation; and– Designs systemic structures and processes that nurture relationships with others involved in

community education locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, and with those resources with similar missions.”

“Collaboration remains for the most part an unchartered area for many people, especially when competing for scarce resources. However it may very well be due to the dwindling financial supports that will move us to a more collaborative culture of service provision

and community change.

By bringing together these educational and community resources to work on common goals, we strengthen our potential for making significant impacts.”

“COMMUNITY EDUCATORS provide the strands of a community’s learning fabric.

We are the adult basic education counselors and teachers, some of whom work in prisons, some in museums, and others in family resource centers and other community-based agencies.

We are the youth workers and the youth leaders. We are the preschool and out-of-school time instructors and supporters who work with children and their parents. We provide GED and career preparation services.

We are those who train in workplaces, continuing education programs and senior centers. We are those who inform the public about the risks to the environment and its beauties, and what we need to do to sustain healthy lifestyles. We are the muralists and local media producers that educate and engage people about local issues.

Community Educators are change agents adept at working with community members to identify needs and resources, and then to meet those needs through educational services.”

“Community Educators need to be a part of the process of change and revitalization. We need to inform the public of what we do and can potentially provide. We need to show:

• how Community Education responds to the needs and concerns of the community;

• how we connect academics, social-emotional, economic and other realities of students and their families; and

• that Community Educators must be at all policy making tables.”

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