The mission of the Learning Cooperatives Quarterly (LCQ) is to utilize the format of a newsletter as a means to inform and network between individuals, groups, and organizations seeking to create transformation and change in education and learning.
The basic premise of this change lies in the perception that we are progressing towards an eco-society, an evolutionarily new social order or Gaian culture, in which all members of that society have a voice in the formation and maintenance thereof. Through this developing social order, members seek to live in harmony with the world around them, decisions are made on local levels with the consensus of local individuals, and every individual has the right and responsibility to determine his/her own learning processes and vocations.
Learning in such a society occurs at all ages with students accepting responsibilities of a higher order, being problem solvers, participating in democratic discussions and cooperative processes, and initiating their own learning. In order to support this transformation and maintain such a social order, learning techniques that have successfully explored and developed new models of learning and new curriculum need to be encouraged and authors of yet unknown forms need to be given a voice.
As with all societies, parents, mentors, facilitators, and so forth, play a role in passing on the ethical, moral, and social foundations of the society. These may at times be unique to one group or another. LCQ does not promote or endorse any of these. In a free and open learning system, all options for learning and all information are available by choice of the learner. This also applies to articles and news briefs contained herein.
It is the foundation of Cooperative Community Life-Long Learning Centers and the Coalition for Self-Learning that the control of education needs to be returned to the individual learner with support from parents and the local community, and that these processes can best happen in the context of Learning Cooperatives, Learning Communities, and Learning Centers in collaboration with the individual as a self-directed learner.
In summary, it is the intent of LCQ to provide an outlet for authors to strategize, discuss, define and share about programs of learning that promote a transformation towards an evolutionarily new social order, an eco- or Gaian society, through new contexts in education and learning.
