ABSTRACT
Thoughtful pedagogues have long taken approaches to school reform that foreground an emphasis on learning that will matter in the lives of the students while taking into account the varying special interests and capabilities of learners. Some of these approaches prioritize the social and emotional needs of children, rethinking school discipline and the whole child, while others focus on curriculum units that target global problems and a strengthening of twenty-first-century skills. Allan Collins, in his book What’s Worth Teaching: Rethinking Curriculum in the Age of Technology, speaks to many of the issues that need to be addressed to make education more engaging and focused on what will be important for our youth to thrive as adults. In this Prospectives piece, we take a step towards continuing that conversation. We summarize Collins’ suggestions and reframe them in the context of the inequalities present in our school systems and societies. We propose important aspects of school culture that, we believe, will be essential if we are to support youth in identifying and working with others to create societal change. After an overview of Collins’ organizing framework, we point out what we believe must be addressed to allow successful design of educational systems that will help all youth develop their potential and sense of place and purpose in wider society.
ABSTRACT
This article presents conceptual and empirical advances relating to Learning by Observing and Pitching In to family and community endeavours (LOPI). The opening article offers a new version of the LOPI model and a focused analysis of the key role of community. The other nine articles provide evidence of the social organization of LOPI, based on an axiology of relationality, respect, reciprocity and pitching in, in many Indigenous communities of the Americas. They discuss Indigenous theory and axiologies, as well as ethical attunements in LOPI; the importance of observation, respect, autonomy and laughter for learning; and the opportunities that LOPI brings to the revitalization of Indigenous languages, in learning at school and in online gaming communities. This issue shows how the LOPI paradigm is based in relationality and respect in communion among people, other beings and the land that we inhabit.