Books by Ron Miller

Miller edited this collection of writings by a group of parent and social activists who created a “coalition for self-learning.” They describe how various alternative educators and home schooling families have looked beyond the routines and structures of the conventional school classroom and developed more open-ended, community-based, collaborative programs for lifelong learning. This book features home school resource centers, democratic schools, Internet-linked distance learning programs and other pioneering efforts to redesign education for the twenty-first century. Among the contributors to the book are Linda Dobson, Mary Leue, Jerry Mintz, Pat Farenga, Don Glines, Wayne Jennings, Sandy Hurst, Wendy Priesnitz, Katharine Houk and Dayle Bethel.

Creating Learning Communities tells the stories of successful programs for lifelong learning and describes how they work. A section on "philosophical roots" (including essays by Miller) explores the differences between the industrial-age model of mass schooling and emerging models of community-based learning. The authors challenge common assumptions about curriculum, testing, grading and management, and portray a way of learning that arises naturally and organically through experience and active involvement in the world around the learner.