In his book Deschooling Society (1970), Ivan Illich uses the language of �learning web� (also called �opportunity web� or �educational web�) to designate �specific ways to provide access to four sets of resources� (which ways he also calls �networks�). These four are identified by four distinct �channels� or learning exchanges which he says contain all the resources needed for real learning: (1) a world of things; (2) people who serve as models for skills and values; (3) peers who challenge to argue, compete, cooperate and understand; and (4) confrontation and criticism by an experienced elder who really cares.
These ideas guide the way the seminary approaches its calling to nourish the �continuing education of the church� just as they orient the �learning web� dimension of the seminary's M.Div. curriculum. They help interpret the various elements of learning that converge along lines such as these:
Learning Objects: Access to things, which are basic resources for learning. Some things are reserved for educational use (libraries, museums, laboratories, showrooms) and others are in daily use (airports, factories, farms) and made available to students as apprentices or on off-hours.
What are the learning objects for the learning church? Its own culture and pattern of life, companion congregations, people (inside and outside of churches), neighborhoods and unique human communities, activities or actions (such as worship), mission or ministry organizations and networks, physical structures for church life, denominational bureaucracies, publications and message systems, social organizations, flecks of culture and artifacts of the social construction of reality, newspapers, the television, the internet, etc.
Skill Exchanges: Access to persons who possess particular, discrete skills and capacities and are willing to serve as models for others who wish to learn them.
What skill exchanges are made accessible to the learning church? Persons able to transmit skills in the interpretation of texts, of histories, and of theologies; in the reading and assessing of cultures and societies; in the discernment of the calling and sending of the church. Persons using their spiritual gifts in ministries of various sorts, clergy and lay leaders of congregations, Christians engaged in witness and service in all the ranges of life, etc.
Peer Matching: A communications network that permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.
What peer matching networks are made possible for the learning church? Guided peer groups in the common pursuit of a particular aspect of ministry (e.g. parish nursing, youth ministry, catechesis); in companionship on journeys of formation (e.g. spiritual formation, congregational renewal, community formation, missional transformation); in common cause for discovery and discernment (e.g. of the culture, of a generation, of family or organizational systems, of social or economic realities, of the gospel).
Elder Mentors: Consultants regarding which skill to learn, which method to use, what company to seek at a given moment; guides to the right questions to be raised among peers and to the deficiency of the answers they arrive at.
Who are the elder mentors for the learning church? Professors of the seminary and church whose gift and calling it is to mentor the church by nurturing its continuing conversion, growing it to be a theologizing community of the Spirit, cultivating faithful ecclesial practices, and guiding its journey of faithful witness. Others with similar gifts whose mentoring is brought into association with learning churches in trust-building relationships.A POSTSCRIPT FROM ANOTHER VOICE
"The spiderweb model is one in which the curriculum designer provides the teacher with a set of heuristic projects, materials, and activities whose use will lead to diverse outcomes among the group of students. The assumption used in this model of curriculum organization is that what is needed are projects and activities that invite engagement rather than control."
-Elliot W. Eisner, The Educational Imagination, Third Edition, 1994.
