A Practical Theory of Lifelong Learning Assistance for Promoting Community

Community planning of lifelong learning” has been a common theme within the lifelong learning policy of Japan since the late 1980s. While community promotion has never been the main aim of activating each citizen’s learning activity, it has been reported that promoting lifelong learning activities throughout a particular region has led to the effective empowerment of community. This paper explores and proposes new practical educational theories, taking these facts into account. It suggests that we need to expand the concept of education and simultaneously reverse our way of thinking by reconsidering relationships between education and learning. Here, some recommendations are made. First, education must be redefined not only as a concept focused exclusively on the nurture of each individual, but also as a relational concept with the capacity to foster human relationships. Second, the concept of educational space must be reconfigured, not so much based on educators and teachers, but on learners. We need to adopt a learner-based theory that learners live in the world which consists of five layers, as follows: absence of learning, learning as a result of experience, learning activities, receiving education, and being taught. Third, it is necessary and effective to create a theoretical framework that can function both as an analytical guideline and a pragmatic indicator. Individual learners’ actions are simplified and categorized according to three basic types of activities-input, output,