I’m reading a great - and short! - book called A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown that delves into some really interesting subtleties of learning cultures today.

One distinction I thought was worth sharing was their take on ideal learning environments, which they refer to as “collectives” - collections of people, skills, and talent that produce a result greater than the sum of its parts. 

A collective is very different from an ordinary community because of the attitudes and driving factors behind members’ behavior; communities derive their strength from “creating a sense of belonging”, whereas collectives derive theirs from participation.  ”Where communities can be passive, they note, “collectives cannot.”

I feel very strongly that traditional educational environments need to shift in form to better mimic the collective Companies like Lore, Quora, Skillshare and others are already offering the neccesary frameworks for these learning collectives to occur, but the attitude surrounding these types of forums needs to change as well. 

That said, I feel less confidence in the value of these networks when I study the habits of my peers, who seem content with community-centric rather than self-disciplined learning. I don’t know if this is a structural problem, a societal problem, or a generational problem, but I’m excited to see if collective learning truly crosses the chasm, or if it remains a hobby of the eternally curious.