Identity and Learning

As I read through the book Radical Pedagogy Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation, I can’t help but conduct some soul searching with regards to my life choices.  The book is very interesting and I find myself analysing my family members, my children, my friends, the list is endless.  I feel like my brain has been jump started, maybe even high jacked, the problem is my thoughts are in so many different directions that I can’t seem to focus on one thought.  However, I found the following thought cited in  Bracker’s book extremely interesting.  James Gilligan states “People will sacrifice anything to prevent the death and disintegration of their individual or group identity “ (as cited in Bracker, 2006 P. 3)  What a powerful statement…..people will sacrifice anything?   Really?

A few years ago I was hired by the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) to adjudicate claims related to Chronic Pain benefits.  This was a challenging job given the Regulations and guidelines but it was challenging because the client needs were unique.  The definition of chronic pain as defined by the WCB Act and Regulations is somewhat different than how the medical community would define Chronic Pain. According to the WCB Regulations:  

"chronic pain" means pain

(i) continuing beyond the normal recovery time for the type of personal injury that precipitated, triggered or otherwise predated the pain; or

(ii) disproportionate to the type of personal injury that precipitated, triggered or otherwise predated the pain,

and includes chronic pain syndrome, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain syndrome, and all other like or related conditions, but does not include pain supported by significant, objective, physical findings at the site of the injury which indicate that the injury has not healed;

In the simplest of explanations chronic pain is pain that is experienced when there is no objective, physical finding to explain the pain.  For example, a person sustains an injury, the injury heals, yet they continue to experience debilitating pain to the point that a person’s daily activities of living are affected and, in some cases, they can no longer work or enjoy life.

Many of the clients I dealt with had not worked for many years.  In most cases, clients at this stage would identify themselves as “broken” and see themselves as never being able to return to work or have any kind of quality of life. It has been my experience, that some clients became so entrenched in a lifestyle of “I can’t” that they would seek out any form of feedback that would enforce “I can’t.” For example, if a client saw a doctor and the doctor recommended the client return to work, the client often would seek a second opinion.  If the second opinion was given and it was the same, the client could return to work, the client would seek a third opinion.  Very often, medical opinions would be sought until a doctor was willing to say that the client was not capable of returning to work.  The client would only endorse the doctor who stated he/she could not return to work. No matter the credentials of the other doctors, who stated the client could return to work, the client would only believe that one doctor who would enforce their identity of being “broken” and would refer to the other doctors as “quacks” or “paid off by WCB.

Some clients became so entranced with this “broken” identity that it was difficult to get them to participate in rehabilitation.  Programs were introduced by WCB to assist clients in improving their quality of life by teaching the client how to live with pain.  Clients would resist participation in these programs.  Bracker states…  “That learning, like all other behaviour, is motivated by the effort to maintain and enhance identity means, first, that for learning to occur, either the process or the anticipated result of learning must provide support for identity in some way.”  (Bracher, 2006 P.5) For me, this statement supports why attempts to provide programs to clients living with chronic pain were not well received as their identity was interfering with their ability to learn. Even if the goal of the program was to improve quality of life, the client was not open to these programs because it did not support their identity.

In referring back to James Gilligan statement cited in Bracker’s book “People will sacrifice anything to prevent the death and disintegration of their individual or group identity “(as cited in Bracker, 2006 P. 3) I would have to state, in this circumstance, I have witnessed people willing to give up the possibility of a better quality of life because it threatened their identity of being broken. In retrospect I wish I would have had this insight when I was dealing with these clients as I may have had a better understanding of their challenges.    

References

Bracher, M. (2006). Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillian

Workers’ Compensation Board, Workers Compensation Act. (2004). Chronic Pain Regulations: Retrieved from http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/regulations/regs/wocchron.htm

Communities of Practice

My morning ritual consists of a cup of coffee and watching CBC News.  During the commercials I often  switch to watch CNN.  One morning this week each news channel reported stories dealing with education.  CNN (2012, Feb. 7) reported on a school in North Carolina where they had adopted a “no fail” policy for students from grades 3 to 8.  If students wrote a test and failed they were given an “I” for incomplete then given an opportunity to re-write the test.  The theory behind the “no fail” policy was that the students would be given the opportunity to master the material the teachers taught them.  The second story reported from CBC was about a student in Newfoundland who was removed from the class room by his teacher and sprayed with air freshener because he smelled of fish. (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation [CBC], 2012)    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/02/06/nl-student-teacher-febreze-206.html

In class professor Donovan discussed the book Situated Learning Legitimate Peripheral Participant by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991).  I learned how Communities of Practice can sometimes overlap boundaries and how we may use brokering or cultural sharing between communities of practice to gain a better understanding of each other.  Lave and Wanger (1991) define a community of practice as a

Set of relations among persons, activity, and work, over time and in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice. A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage. (page 98) 

After our class discussion I began thinking of the news stories regarding the education system and the different communities of practice within these stories.  I thought about the first story reported by CNN, which was the introduction of the “no fail” policy. At first I thought the idea a bit crazy. But then I started thinking about it in terms of my son who works as an apprentice electrician.  If he makes a mistake his boss shows him his error then shows him how to complete the task correctly.  His boss does not tell him “sorry, you failed.  You didn’t do it right so you can’t continue.”  His boss gives him an opportunity to do the task again so he can master the material. Is this teaching process within my son’s community of practice the same as retesting a student if they fail a test?  There is part of me that thinks yes. My thoughts were “what a great idea” give the student an opportunity to master the material.  However, my thoughts are from my own community of practice as a parent who does not want to see a child fail. The introduction of such a policy may have long standing implications for the students and the teaching community. For example, what happens to the students once they get to grade 9 and they can only write a test once, will the students know how to fail? I thought of the educators within my University cohort and wondered what they would think of the no fail policy.

In the second news report from CBC a teacher in Newfoundland made the student leave the classroom and stand out in the hallway because he smelled of fish.  After leaving the student in the hallway for one class period the teacher sprayed the student with air freshener attempting to remove the smell of fish.  As in the first story there are several communities of practice that overlap. These communities include   students, parents, teachers and administrators.  From our discussions in class it is my understanding that in each community of practice there is a peripheral boundary. There are also boundary objects that can be projected into the communities of practice from an outside source that may or may not elicit a response.  For example, in the story about the student who was sprayed with air freshener the first boundary overlapping was the student world overlapping with the parent world (child telling his parents), second the parental world overlapping with the teachers world.  The mother reacted immediately by demanding an apology from the teacher; however, the teacher refused to apologize. As a result, the mother went to the school board and media demanding the teacher be fired. Therefore, there was a third overlapping of teacher and the administration community of practice.    

Prior to our discussion in class I did not understand the dynamics and complexities involved with communities of practice. I also understand I have a lot to learn.  I read the book Situate Learning Legitimate Peripheral Participant but felt after our discussion in class that I hadn’t read it at all. My assessment of the book at first was more one dimensional and I thought of it in terms of my son, the apprentice, and his community of practice.    

Finally, for me the CBC news story about the teacher spraying the student is a good example of a community of practice overlapping or colliding.  As a parent, I understand why the mother would be upset with the teacher for spraying her son.  However, it is harder for me to understand what took place in the classroom because I am not part of the teacher’s community of practice. A teacher looking at this story may feel more compassion and understanding because he/she belongs to this community and understands the day to day practice of the community.  Although my insight may be simplistic in its explanation of communities of practice, it is insight I never had. 

References

Lave, J., Wenger, E. (1991). SITUATED LEARNING LEGITIMATE PERIPHERAL PARTICIPATION: Cambridge, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (2012, Feb. 7). Fishing smelling student sprayed down by teacher. CBC, para 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/02/06/nl-student-teacher-febreze-206.html