Week 6 - Task 1

As an example of a Community of Practice I belong to I am going to use McMaster Stage School which I attended allday every Saturday. for 10 years. It takes place from 10am until 5pm and has over 80 allday students and approx another 100 who just attend the morning or afternoon sessions. We have drama, singing, modern/jazz dancing, and tap dancing. The Stage School is split into different groups mainly determined by age but ability is taken into account and split up to attend all the activites. Each activity has a separate leader, and it could be said in comparison to the other teachers this specific teacher is an expert in their field. For example I wouldn't say any of out leaders are more talented than the others, but Vivienne (the founder and tap teacher) could not take a class in acting as she has always just been trained in dancing. And likewise her daughter, Sharon, who takes drama and singing could not take a dancing class as well as Vivienne, Jennifer or Wendy (the dance teachers) as she has not been as fully trrained in this area.

So kids from all over the province are thrown together in this club who maybe wouldn't necessarily choose to be friends outside the School. But as we all have a common interest (performing arts) it makes it easier to get along.

Our shared goal is to constantly learn and improve so when we put on performances they will be the best. So even say in dances or dialogue in a performance where there's people you're not necessarily the best of friends with because you want to do well and the company to put on an amazing performance you forget your real life relationship with the person and form a bond anyway so that the audience will recognise an onstage rappore. And sometimes by doing this you do end up becoming more friendly with certain people and realise you have learnt from eachother. I feel this is a good example of Wenger's statement....
This social process, includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills. (Lave and Wenger 1991)

We all have a uniform so when we are on outings or on dinner breaks in our uniforms we are all evry much aware that we have an image/reputation to present and this is something that is important to us so we do all respect that. When we are in public together we feel like a team and present ourselves as a team...this 'togetherness' is a characterisitic of a comms of practice.

Within each group there are those who are better than others but again because it's in our interest to make all of us look good so the overall performance is better we help eachother and learn from eachother. This in itself is a good way of bonding and forming relationships. Although as a small group of students are selected to perform constantly 2/3 shows per week throughout the year, there is a divide between these members who are perceived as more talented (and could be seen as the 'experts' within the class) than the majority who aren't put forward to be invovled in these shows. In this group for a while there was a feeling that we were more 'elite' than the rest and the divide was evident, for example, the other students always went behind us in practice and some felt shy because they weren't as good. But this wasn't a nice feeling and we wanted to help the others to learn from us but at the same time we didn't want to appear patronising. However, when we did help and all worked together as a team it helped to lessen the divide. This is an example of a good comms of practice as we work together to achieve common goals.