The November 2006 issue of the AI Practitioner is titled “Lifelong Learning and Education: On the Road to Find Out”. The issue will highlight the many possibilities for individual and educational community transformative positive change through lifelong learning and lifelong education.

Compelling multidisciplinary work is taking place through multigenerational conversations, collective dialogues, faculty development, diversity work, curriculum design, learning communities, reflective practices, integrative learning, and experiential education through service learning (combining academic classroom curriculum with community service) and recreational activities, and more.

This is a unique opportunity to share your work with a worldwide audience.

The attached Call for Articles and Cases provides background on the topic, requirements and instructions for submitting a proposal.

After reading this e-mail, we would appreciate if you would circulate widely and forward it to others that you feel may be interested in responding to the Call.

The deadline for draft proposals of your article in outline or summary form is Friday, June 23, 2006. Send materials to guest editors, Steve Pyser at steve@thedialogue.net and Marge Schiller at margeschiller@yahoo.com. A PDF version of this Call is available by contacting Steve Pyser.

ABOUT THE TOPIC OF LIFELONG LEARNING AND EDUCATION

Lifelong learning is an approach to education that encourages continuous learning and an attitude of openness to acquiring knowledge and new ideas and skills. Lifelong education is defined as “… all educational or training processes undertaken by adults, whether general or vocational, whether located in the workplace, in an educational institution, by distance education or in a community setting, and whether formal or informal. This term also implies that education is not completed at any stage of the life span and can be part or full time in presentation. Lifelong education is education for life." See, The Adult Learner at Work: The Challenges of Lifelong Education in the New Millennium. Book by Robert Burns; Allen & Unwin, 2002.

We look forward to reading your submissions!

Steve Pyser and Marge Schiller

Summary: Call For Articles and Cases (800-2000 words) on LIFELONG LEARNING AND EDUCATION: ON THE ROAD TO FIND OUT

Selected articles and cases to appear in the November 2006 Issue of the AI Practitioner

Guest Editors: Steven N. Pyser, JD and Marjorie Schiller, PhD

Draft proposals of article in outline or summary form with your contact information (email and telephone contact). Pictures and diagrams are encouraged. Due June 23, 2006.
Article selection made by July 7, 2006.
Draft articles 800-2000 words in length, double-spaced due August 18, 2006.
Edits completed by September 1, 2006.
100-word article abstract, 50-word bio, photos, diagrams (if any) to be sent separately in jpg format by September 1, 2006.

Send to Steve Pyser at steve@thedialogue.net and Marge Schiller at margeschiller@yahoo.com
Potential contributors are asked to submit to the editors an outline or summary of the article of approximately 500 words in Word format setting out briefly:
brief bio, interest (and/or passion) about the topic you selected
the focus of the article (type of client such as school, community, corporate or other setting)
- any working title
- brief description of the work
- key message of the article to a wider audience
- anticipated length of final article

Guest Editors: Steven N. Pyser and Marjorie Schiller

Truth is an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline.” -- Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Ten years ago, the Delors Report identified four 'pillars' of education for the future: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be. (http://www.unesco.org/delors/fourpil.htm) Traditional routes of gaining knowledge and skills are evolving to allow students opportunities for new understanding and foundations for growth in their personal and civic lives. It is well settled that learning is a social and integrated process. Education had in early life cannot sustain a whole career in today’s competitive business climate. In this new millennium, educators and administrators need effective and innovative tools to teach and facilitate learning with our students. Best practices and strategies for learning and building community in education need to be freely shared with those that teach and everyone that wishes to learn.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a collaborative strength based approach to change that engages the “whole system”. One end goal is co-constructing a positive future by bringing out the best in people leading to breakthrough educational strategies. As the late Professor Donald Schön artfully stated, “We must … become adept at learning. We must become able not only to transform our institutions, in response to changing situations and requirements; we must invent and develop institutions which are ‘learning systems’, that is to say, systems capable of bringing about their own continuing transformation.”. (http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm)

Lifelong learning and lifelong education have emerged as tools of learning and knowledge to foster transformation of individuals and educational communities. These two philosophies of learning are the focus of this Call for Articles and Cases. Each lends itself to AI and other approaches to positive change.

Lifelong learning is an approach to education that encourages continuous learning and an attitude of openness to acquiring knowledge and new ideas and skills.

Lifelong education is defined as “… all educational or training processes undertaken by adults, whether general or vocational, whether located in the workplace, in an educational institution, by distance education or in a community setting, and whether formal or informal. This term also implies that education is not completed at any stage of the life span and can be part or full time in presentation. Lifelong education is education for life." See, The Adult Learner at Work: The Challenges of Lifelong Education in the New Millennium. Book by Robert Burns; Allen & Unwin, 2002.

Learning empowers individuals to reach their potential. All social and economic segments of the global population can embrace it. You need not be an educator or have an advanced college degree to practice lifelong learning or engage in lifelong education. Indeed, this lifelong approach “umbrellas" childhood and youth to old age. Roger Von Holzen wrote in The Futurist, Volume 39, January-February 2005 that, “In today's knowledge marketplace, education is required for survival in the fast-changing workplace. So a market is being created for both corporate training and lifelong learning. While more than 25% of Americans currently seek to continue their education after college, it is expected that this percentage will increase to well over 50% in the next 20 years.” What role can AI and other positive change methodologies play under these circumstances to create educational transformation? AI practitioners are uniquely focused and positioned to respond to the needs of this expanding marketplace with methods for implementing and supporting lifelong learning and lifelong education programs.

AI encourages learning from strengths – extending and elevating that which is good and true in our lives. How can we inspire interest and action around education? How do we build learning, access to knowledge, social connections and resources in schools, universities and other places for learning? What connections exist for linking the life of people with the world in which they live? A powerful way of addressing these questions and learning lessons for growing the “good” is narrative story learning.

Multigenerational multicultural learning happens when whole communities are involved in maximum mix conversations. Social networking technologies and software are showing previously unrevealed connections among people. How do we hold these communities together? Social capital is, “The degree to which a community or society collaborates and cooperates (through such mechanisms as networks, shared trust, norms and values) to achieve mutual benefits.” (www.icfdn.org/publications/blurredborders/40definitions.htm) John Field, Professor of Lifelong Learning at the University of Stirling has written of a connection between social capital and lifelong learning. (http://www.infed.org/lifelonglearning/social_capital_and_lifelong_learning.htm)
The November 2006 issue of the AI Practitioner will highlight the many possibilities for individual and educational community transformative positive change through lifelong learning and lifelong education. It is titled “Lifelong Learning and Education: On the Road to Find Out”. This Call and title are inspired by one of Editor Steve Pyser’s favorite songs by Cat Stevens – appropriately titled “On the Road to Find Out”. One interpretation of the lyrics might be lifelong learning and education with themes of AI, storytelling, discovery and looking to the future. (http://www.mp3lyrics.org/c/cat-stevens/on-the-road-to-find-out/) Compelling multidisciplinary work is taking place through multigenerational conversations, collective dialogues, faculty development, diversity work, curriculum design, learning communities, reflective practices, integrative learning, and experiential education through service learning (combining academic classroom curriculum with community service) and recreational activities, and more.

AI and other strength based positive whole systems development practices are applied to lifelong learning and lifelong education. Students, teachers, administrators, consultants, researchers, and others are invited to submit articles about their experiences, results and findings. The editors anticipate content from the November 2006 issue will add valuable information and field experiences to a body of emerging practitioner knowledge.
Among the questions we will address in this issue of the AI Practitioner are:

What are we learning about leading AI projects in lifelong learning and lifelong education? What are the unique positive qualities of these two philosophies? Where is there opportunity for greater impact for practicing and researching AI based on what’s being done in lifelong learning and lifelong education?
Of particular interest are lessons learned in introducing AI to school systems, academies of higher education and other corporate delivery sites. What projects are being done and what positive, measurable benefits are occurring?
What role, if any, does social capital play in lifelong learning and lifelong education?

Each of us is unique. How can diversity initiatives and celebrating differences between people (e.g. race, religion, sexuality, cultural traditions, and others) facilitate an understanding and knowing of community and the world? Can this approach promote lifelong learning and lifelong education?
What does it take to navigate institutional, bureaucratic and/or hierarchical environments to introduce, fund and deliver these projects? How do you scale up and sustain the effort once a project is delivered?
Articles on a project, topic, or client experience should cover the following:

a) Description of the client organization - educational sector where the work done; size of total organization and/or size of group worked with – i.e., school district, intermediate unit, college campus, community program or corporate training group, etc. For purposes of this Call, “client organization” refers to school, community, corporate or other setting of delivery of lifelong learning and/or lifelong education program.

b) Client objectives - What were the goals or concerns of the client? What was the context? What business and professional issues was client concerned?

c) Description of the Process - What was the focus? Duration of the project/process? How many people were involved? Were there other key activities that relate to the primary focus you are describing? What were the distinguishing features of this work?
d) What were the theoretical underpinnings of this work? For example, was it the AI methodology or principles that most strongly influenced what you did or how you did it? Were there other approaches that played a key part in this work?

e) Changes and Outcomes – Please state the outcomes at the following levels:

- What changed in the organization’s strategy, structure, processes, policies or other systems and/or what changed in relationships among key groups or individuals?

- What results were reached for the organization’s stakeholders? i.e. Please specify results achieved for members of the organization, for students, for the community, or for other stakeholders?

f) Innovations/Learnings/Insights and Wishes – what worked especially well? What insights or guidance would you like to share with our readers? What wishes do you have for the next time?
g) Give the perspective from within the organization – opinion statements, quotes. Have the client viewpoint come through.

h) Implications of this experience for your own life and work.

Information about the AI Practitioner ­ ISSN 1741-8224

The AI Practitioner, formerly known as the AI Newsletter, began in May 1998. The publication is for people interested in making the world a better place using Appreciative Inquiry theory and methodology.

The publication carries articles, case studies and examples highlighting where and how Appreciative Inquiry has been used to bring about positive change. The articles highlight various aspects of the thinking and methodology of Appreciative Inquiry such as the life giving forces in a system, compelling images of the future, designs for living that future and ways to sustain the relationships and systems necessary to make the future real.

Subscribers receive four issues a year in February, May, August and November. The AI Practitioner is available as a PDF file at the secure website www.aipractitioner.com. Subscribers and purchasers of single issues have a choice of downloading a high-resolution copy for printing or a lower solution copy for screen reading.

Any questions about AI Practitioner can be directed to Anne Radford editor@aipractitioner.com

Information about the Guest Editors of November 2006 edition of AI Practitioner

Steven N. Pyser, JD, is an educator, speaker, author and consultant supporting organizations and communities through strength-based approaches, dialogue, conflict management, and synergy services. Recently named by The Philadelphia Inquirer as a dialogue expert, Mr. Pyser brings his experiences as a facilitator, dialogue practitioner and trial attorney to advance learning and citizen engagement through Appreciative Inquiry initiatives and specialized public policy dialogues. He has participated in Listening to the City - Online Dialogue (rebuilding World Trade Center site/Lower Manhattan post 9/11), Penn’s Landing Public Forum (revitalizing Philadelphia waterfront), Fly into the Future (San Diego airport site selection) and Let’s Talk America (bringing Americans from the political spectrum together). He holds appointments as Managing Editor of The Journal of Public Deliberation and Associate Editor for Group Facilitation: Research and Applications Journal, serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Cognitive Affective Learning, Conflict Resolution Quarterly and Journal of Legal Studies Education. Mr. Pyser is a faculty member and faculty mentor at the University of Phoenix, Greater Philadelphia Campuses.

Marjorie Schiller, PhD, is an organizational consultant, teacher, speaker and writer. She is a fifteen-year practitioner of Appreciative Inquiry, has written several articles and book chapters about Appreciative Inquiry, and has presented numerous seminars and workshops. Her latest book is "Appreciative Leaders: In the Eye of the Beholder". She is an associate of the Taos institute and a founding partner of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting. She is founder of the Positive Change Corps (http://www3.ltu.edu/~lowry/positivechangecorps/index.htm)