people are included as they meet the criteria of an infrastructure. Lateral decision-making in an ad-hoc situation begins with people who are interested in knowing what others are doing and initiating synergy wherever it seems feasible. Networks slowly emerge from crude linkages. Unlike bureaucracies, which calcify information networks in hierarchical form, adhocracies pleserve and maximize options and independence of the individual. The idea that inter-disciplinary groups make better decisions also finds an antecedent in the inter-dependency of ecosystems. "Just as species in the natural environment are embedded in complex food chains, so organizations are embedded in complex formation webs," says Judge, the director of the Union of International Associations in Brussels. "The eco-system does interlink the species and contains even those species which attempt to take over the whole system. . . . We need a rich pyscho-social gene pool." Another aspect of organizational networking is apparent at any conference: networks generate other networks. At the Northwest Conference on Alternative Agriculture in November of 1974, this was illustrated by the large number of special interest group networks which developed from the large body of conferences with generalized interests. But it is relatively easy to stand in a hotel lobby and agree to meeting-in-a-few-months-to-talk-over-that-idea-further. Back home, the good intentions often disappear with all the dittoed material from those yawning hours. The purpose of people-topeople directories like that prepared by the organizers of the Northwest Conference on Alternative Agriculture is to rein' force the development of new networks. As Lee Johnson put it, "it's hard not to feel that something happened when you see your name there with five hundred other people." Would you belieae . . . a wbole city as a learning excbange. i S o m eu b ere Else, e living learning catalogue, The Center for Curriculum Design schools, community schools, schools of living, schools-for-thefuture, free schools, learning communities. The appearance of a new "learning" vocabulary directly reflects a shift from thinking about knowledge information "out there" to be ingested by the student, to thinking about knowledge as a part of the information gathered by applying skills to experience. In recent years it has become patently evident*especially to environmental educators-that people must be able to make judicious value judgments about the future of this planet, and that doing so demands knowledge of how whole systems work together, a method that employs the interaction of many of the "separate" disciplines, and an information system which helps clarify those choices by providing accurate, wellorganized information. Hence, environmental educators have sometimes taken the lead in broadening the resources of the school to include those of the community and its information accessing networks (see Centers, RD III). r One of the most influential of these experiments was publicized through a series of workshops held in 1973 known as the Total Environment-School-Community Program, an outgrowth of the Madison Man's Environment Communications Center (MEC). Dave Archbald, originator of the program, based a large part of his information package on the E1 System kits, which encouraged student involvement in all phases of school-community networking-from data gathering, researching the resources of the community, and identifying community problems and issues, to selecting and evaluating instructional materials. . Something Else (1973: the Center for Curriculum Design) is probably th y the m^st complete directory to Alternative Learning Centers and Schools. Therein find the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music, the Coast Navigation School, the Hologra School, the Institute for the study of non-violence, writing farms and spinning farms-a veritable adventure-catalogue that makes ordinary college look dull by comparison. . lnThe Self-Learning Societyby Don Stotler, there's a boy named Tom, who finds himself somewhere on our planet on a day in the future. His family is one of the millions of mobile American families which make nation-wide curriculum coordination imminent. Tom consults his Searchovision wristwatch to locate those nearby Centers which would be available for his education. He decides on one called Sensorium, where he has environmental-art experiences in optics, kinetics, and an opportunity to play a game called "Insight." Before leaving the Center, he comments that one can find out just about anything from any Center which, like the one he has just visited, III. EDUCATIONAL NETWORKING SYSTEMS Usher into the vocabulary of the little red schoolhouse: multi is part of an education network of information. versities, learning exchanges, exploration centers' alternative Far out? Well, maybe not so far. ROUGHDRAFTS are written and published by the Environmental Education Center, a U.S. Office of Education funded project located at 373 Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon 972O7 . Thanks to Don, Steve and Lee for kibbitzing on this and design.
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