When it comes to schooling, a great deal of the learning occurs outside the school grounds and in the broader community, or it draws on community facilities. In addition, members of the community frequently come to schools to share their knowledge and skills with students. Learning about the range of organisations in the community is seen as being as important as learning about the range of occupations in society. Most Maholians have many jobs, and increasingly several careers, across their working life, as is the case in other societies. But at the same time they are likely to belong, at different times, to an even larger number of community organisations, such as parents’ groups and committees, sports and recreation clubs, neighbourhood centres, ethnic associations, churches or other religious groups, cooperatives, cultural organisations, social clubs, residents’ groups, civic and political organisations, unions and professional associations, and older people’s organisations.

Much school-initiated learning occurs in the context of actually undertaking tasks and projects that have a purpose other than their educational one. Most of these are undertaken in groups, and they can take place in the school or in the broader community. Typical examples are cross-age tutoring and mentoring, recording local history, publishing a magazine or website, making a documentary, revegetating eroded land, constructing a straw-bale shed, growing food, putting on a play or concert, building a canoe, running a café, and participating in a deliberative forum. Projects like these mean that participants learn not only the knowledge and skills specific to the activity, but also about goal setting, planning, cooperation with others, conflict resolution, and reviewing performance against real-life criteria. In fact, whether they invite it or not, they’re likely to get real- world feedback on their effectiveness. As well, the whole group’s performance is usually evaluated as part of the overall assessment of such work. Maholian students are not so centrally focused – as students elsewhere are – on their own individual educational attainment. The world outside the school relies heavily on results achieved by groups and teams working cooperatively together, and Maholian schools make sure that students get to learn these cooperative skills through practice.