I Believe That Change is a Choice...

Theorizing Africentric Realities in Consideration of Wenger:

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).