Etteine Wenger theorizes
learning in a social context; coining the educational phrase "Communities
of Practice," he examines the process of knowing and learning through
human interaction. Wenger describes social interaction (overt and covert)
within the group as a living curriculum. Simply put Communities of
Practice are "formed by people who engage in a process of collective
learning in a shared domain of human endeavor:"(Wenger)
Communities of practice are common and we participate in multiple communities
of learning without deliberation because they occur naturally in the course of
living. Your family is most likely your first community of practice. These communities of practice are
manifest informally and formally in the course of our social engagement with
others. How can the study of Wenger benefit the Africentric Cohort? I assert
that Wenger can be useful to us for a number of reasons.
1. To provide us with a operational understanding of social learning which can enable us to;
a. develop a working knowledge of learning processes;
b. theorize learning in academic sectors as competitive, well-informed education practitioners;
c. provide a basis for Africentric theory examining learning processes in consideration of power, exclusion, identity, the social construction of race, theorize and write critical analysis' of our history;
2. To address the challenges to healthy identity development within the African Canadian community;
3. To optimize learning through program development;
4. To enable a productive response to the BLAC Report and the Reality Check; and bridge the gap in educational discourse and curricula by developing and applying an Africentic approach to learning;
Develop an operational knowledge of social learning
processes
Wenger's theory provides us with a social normative for
understanding the learning processes in human beings. As we better understand
the process of knowledge reproduction within communities, we are able to identify the key
factors influencing the development of current social practices, shared
values and identity development. Understanding that learning is a
social phenomenon effecting identity formation, provides us with a
basis to enable us to critically examine the historical effect of white
supremacist discourse, slavery, and segregation on African
Canadians.
Learning is something we can assume-whether we see it or not, whether we like the way it goes or not, whether what we are learning is to repeat the past or shake it off (Wenger, 1998 at 8).
The social construction and deconstruction of race
Placing a deliberate focus on habitual,
intuitive learning practices provides a baseline for educational
assessment and critical analysis with respect to current practices, their
effect on learning, interventions and change.
Ruth Frankenburg, in the Social Construction of Whiteness confirms the characteristic unconsciousness of racism and privilege, whether willful or not and affirms that racism shapes white women's lives as well as our own.
Race is a social construction that has real consequences and effects. These effects, consequences and the notion that race is ontologically subjective is epistemologically objective. We know that race is something that is real in society, and that it shapes the way we see ourselves and others (The Social Construct of Whiteness at The Social Construct of Race ).
Understanding
racial construction and the process of its perpetuation, provides a unique in
sight into its deconstruction and any possible interventions. Wengers theory
and analysis of communities of practice, shared values and membership, provides
a basis for critical Africentric analysis of social exclusion and racial
construction. Considering Wenger through a critical lens, like using Tanaki's’s
work A Different
Mirror: A history of Multicultural America, can be a powerful foundation for analysis (considering
race as a social construct, produced by the dominant group in society and the
dominant group's power to define us). In other words, the dominant
group in society imposed the boundaries of
group membership by defining race in terms of biology.
...racial discrimination, overt or covert, systemic or otherwise, has played a major part in denying African Nova Scotians equal opportunity to education. This in turn has had disastrous consequences in employment and access to other services. As a result, most African Canadian children are from birth trapped in a vicious cycle of societal rejection and isolation, poverty low expectations, and low educational achievement (BLAC Report at introduction, p. 12).
It
is imperative we understand race and racial construction as
we endeavor to deconstruct race and the social rejection of African
Canadians.
There are locations, discourses, and material relations…whiteness refers to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produce and, more over intrinsically linked to unfolding relations of domination. Naming “whiteness” displaces it from the unmarked, unnamed status that is itself an effect of dominance. Whiteness, white- race privilege and the dominance of whiteness is normative and invisible.(Frankenburg, at 6).
Identity and social status
White supremacist ideology and status placement is
historically entangled throughout our education and socialization. Research
clearly shows that children, not only recognize race from a very
young age, but also develop racial biases by ages three to five (Winkler
at p.1). Wenger offers us understanding of the social process of learning.
Used as a tool for developing early intervention, Wenger has the potential to enable
us to interrupt the social entrenchment of racial bias and
discrimination. Educational interventions can be helpful in addressing
inequities within the Canadian education system but they are not the complete
answer to the educational challenges facing African Canadians.
To break the cycle of failure and dependence, drastic measures must be taken to redress and address the inequities ( BLAC Report at 13).
Interventions
may also be helpful with the development of identity. Understanding the current
education system, and examining formal and informal learning processes,
applying Wenger, allows us to examine the similarities and differences
between diverse communities in the context of livelong learning and the effect
within communities of practice. Unearthing racism requires a strong foundation
of analytic theory and strength.
In order to uproot the causes of educational failure there must be an institutional and community commitment to naming racism and wrestling it to the ground in all those educational settings in which it is found. This review recorded numerous accounts of racism that had been experienced in school and, on the testimony of many students and parents involved, not satisfactorily addressed (Reality Check, at 10).
Optimizing
Learning
Wenger is
an established thought leader in the field of social science. This theory of
social learning has used a combination of accepted theories in anthropology and
social science to build a foundation for the development of this theory of
social learning. Wenger's theory is considered, "cutting edge"
in its practical application for organizational knowledge management and
optimizing performance in public and private sector organizations. Professional
practices groups have been formed and structured to maximize productivity,
increase learning and identify gaps and processes for organizational knowledge
management. (My office implemented knowledge management strategies and
professional communities of practice to optimize
professional performance in my office more than 5 years ago. At that
time Wenger was described as a thought guru.).
We can use
Wenger to build and maximize the educational performance within our
community. Maximizing learning within the African Canadian
community requires deliberate curriculum development and implementation
through the creation of communities of practice, created to address the issues
of identity, skill development and shared enterprise such as the Africentric
Cohort, the Summer Institute, or a Saturday School.
Address and Redress
Although, interventions strategically applied can made some
improvements to our current educational dilemma by deconstructing current
practices, they are inadequate and unable to completely eradicate the
educational deficiencies.
I think interventions are important. I think it’s useful to try to understand who is resilient, who beats the odds however you’d like to characterize that. But I also think it’s a bit dangerous. In the sense that it leads to these sort of sense that romanticized visions of you know, Horatio Aldazar of overcoming the odds and goes on to become successful. Most people don’t beat the odds. …… Gary Evans is a professor at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology (Poverty in Canada, 2010, segment 2,Child Poverty).
Although, each
of us can provide an example of someone who has beaten the odds and
excelled despite the overwhelming challenges we face, just as High school
drop out was not the end of my story, we must remember that these examples are
exceptions to the rule, not the rule. We should not be complacent and can not
accept "the Rose that has grown from the Concrete (Tupak)"
as the example of progress when the struggle for education claims failure for
the majority of our people (BLAC Report).
What about the Roses that don't grow in concrete (Verena Rizt)?
"You can't step up if your being stepped on!"(This is a great spoken
word performance).
Just as "the systemic tools of the racist include the use of violence and genocide, racial hate messages, threats, denial, economic sanctions against the victim, softening and diluting incidents and terminology (Fontaine, 2010)."We must continue to fill our tool box with valuable tools useful in the dissemblance of race and racism.
The choice of tool often varies with the class, position, or power of the oppressor. Lower- and middle-class members of the dominate group might use violence against racial minorities, while upper middle-class members of the dominate group might resort to denial, in their righteous indignation against “diversity” and “reverse discrimination.”(Fontaine, 2010).
As we strive to address and redress the realities of our
educational experiences and unearth the effect of the prohibition on education
and social exclusion for people of African descent we must create
innovative initiatives to bring about meaningful change (BLAC Report,
Reality Check). We need purposive and deliberate interventions and
creative educational initiatives. As members of this community of practice we
are a deliberate community of learning designed by ALI and Mount Saint
Vincent's University in recognition of educational challenges within the
African Nova Scotian community, for the purpose of creating change within us
and through us. Change is a choice (Verena
Rizt).
