This essay explores the concept of cultural commons and provides an illustration of a cultural commons practice from an ethnographic study of a community currency. The following section links cultural commons practices to situated and social cognitive learning theories, and then provides practical application to the higher education classroom.For many people, small-town USA is an ideological form that cannot be quantified, but that circulates in literary, cultural, and political discourses as an authentic American space. Poll (2012) suggests that this national narrative is based on a shared commons, which he believes exists in our hearts rather than mapped as a geographical location. Small towns at the end of the 19th century, however, did exist on a map, and were tightly knit social organisms built around shared cultural and social values, local food production, traditional stories and music, and respect for their sense of place (Snell, 1992). These communities provided a vital economic and social hub for the surrounding farmland.That local, social fabric of community responsibility and unity began to unravel as mid-20th-century modern Americans migrated to urban settings. Day-to-day commerce, once based on relationships and habit, shifted to the convenience of regional big-box centers, community care began to be outsourced as monetized professional services, and neighbors were isolated inside their homes watching television rather than socializing in common spaces during evening hours (Davies, 1998). In those days, a small-town economy was sustained by the continuing relationship between local buyer and seller, but the unrestricted choice of a market-driven economy has proven to be a forceful disruption of those relationships (Ehrenhalt, 1995). The historic commons, or community space, was gradually replaced with private property boundaries, consumer markets, and the primacy of satisfying individualized needs and wants.Ecojustice scholar Chet Bowers (2012) is calling for a revitalization of common, community space as means not only to challenge privatization but also to engender a way of life that is less dependent on consumerism and the NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 153, Spring 2017