The biggest challenge the teaching profession faces is the question of how to overcome a system that is geared to an early 20th century view of the world community. If the 21st century communities include both the local physical neighborhood and the expanded notion of networked virtual communities, then what does that mean for learning communities, especially for younger learners? The time has come to look at participation in the multilingual community as first and foremost the responsibility of the learner. The teacher should be encouraging and guiding that participation in such a way that the responsibility of the teacher lessens over the years while the responsibility of the learner increases correspondingly. In the author's view an existing articulated long sequence program would result in high school students who receive no language instruction, but instead are using and studying the language on their own for purposes other than a grade reflecting how they have responded to the lessons of a teacher. The author contends that to get lifelong learners, teachers should help students make the transition from "responders to teaching" to independent learners.