Barn Raising

Blog 2

Barn Raising

Diane Lewis

This blog is in response to the book, “Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation” by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. http://www.amazon.ca/Situated-Learning-Legitimate-Peripheral-Participation/dp/0521423740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328042167&sr=1-1

  I found this book presented interesting research on learning but was very heavy going because it used too much jargon. I can appreciate the authors are presenting their research finding but for the general public, I think this book would be intimating and confusing. The concepts that were presented seemed overly complicated; I had to slow down and reread many passages to glean their content. I spend a lot of my professional life simplifying and demystify concepts for elementary aged students. I don’t tend to read this type of book. Having said that, it was a good brain workout.

            Lave and Wenger made me think about the idea of a barn raising. In rural communities, people depended on each other for survival. A natural disaster, family tragedy, sickness or death could leave a family in jeopardy of starving to death. In a barn raising, the community helped a family construct a barn, shed or house. Each neighbor pitched in to help the other. Habitat for Humanity http://www.habitat.ca/   has a similar idea requiring the person receiving the home to put in some sweat equity and help to build other people homes. The theme of learning communities in this book seems to marry with these ideas. The interdependence and sometimes vulnerability of the learner is a community experience. The interdependence is what makes the community stronger, like the barn raising. You have a group of people to count on; you are not in this alone.

            The book also raised questions for me about how we educate people and the curriculum we use to educate students. Teachers live and die by their curriculum. I always say you can use it as a jumping off point to do some exciting lessons or you can hide behind it. “I am too busy.” or “I don’t have time” can be code for; “I am not interested.”

            CHAPTER 3, Page 79-84, talked about Alcoholics Anonymous. I found their research on this organization fascinating. I have never thought of A.A. as an apprentice relationship before I read this book. I have a great deal of respect for A.A, many seemingly hopeless alcoholics are able to attain and sustain sobriety due to the support systems created by this organization. On page 80, the authors include a study by Cain that talks about how people are transformed through the A.A. process. The personal stories, told many times to more experienced story tellers who act as mentors to apprentices helps to put the alcoholic‘s life in a format that suits the organization. It seems the new person learns from the examples of more seasoned story tellers the rhythm of the addicted person’s life. “…through the process of constructing personal life stories, and with them, the meaning of the teller’s past and future action in the world.” On page 84 it states. “Stories do not just describe a life in a learned genre, but are tools for reinterpreting the past, and understanding the self in terms of the A.A. identity.” It seems they are implying that the apprentice teaches by giving examples of the types of stories that will help a person accept their addiction, join a community who understands them and puts in place safety nets to prevent a relapse.

The book talked about learning outside of a school setting. As a Teacher I am aware of the fact that a lot of learning takes place outside of the classroom. It has been my experience that unless a child connects to the lesson they don’t have meaningful learning, perhaps just some memorization or data stored in short term memory.

            I was intrigued by the types of apprentices the book talked about mainly pages 61-87.Before reading this book, I had a much narrower understanding of the master-apprentice relationship. The notion of a young man learning to carve furniture from a master carpenter was the primary image in my understanding of apprentices. Spending years practicing leg turning, joinery and wood finishes would complete the wood worker’s training. In fact, Teachers do an apprenticeship when they do their practicum. My BEd program at NSCAD lasted 2 years. We observed, studied teaching techniques, taught Saturday morning art classes at NSCAD and did a number of practicum placements with master teachers. By the time we graduated, we had a real sense of what teaching was all about, only 4 of us graduated from my NSCAD Art Education class. It was a brutal process.

            Probably the worst rendition of the apprentice relationship to the master is Donald Trump’s television show, Celebrity Apprentice. http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/   Purely for entertainment value, the meaner they are to each other the better. There is not as lot of team work, the winner must develop a strategy to eliminate everyone else. It is great for rating, but very nasty business. Last man or woman standing is the winner, perhaps that is the real world, but it is not my world. The mean spiritedness from this type of “entertainment” is permeating our society, in my opinion making us more selfish less concerned about others.

            In a recent issue of The Canadian Artist Magazine

http://www.canadianart.ca/online/  They included a supplement from the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative. http://www.rolexmentorprotege.com/en/index.jsp.

 On page 4 of the magazine, the author Charlotte Rey explains that the Rolex Company created a Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative matching master artists from varied arts backgrounds with up and coming artists.  29 of the world’s leading artists, such as Martin Scorsese work with the protégé’s for one year. The article describes on Page 4, “… the nature of the transmission between mentor and protégé and how Rolex Arts Initiative is promoting an artistic community transcending borders, generations and disciplines.”

The mentor gets as much inspiration as the protégé.”

Martine Scorsese

Mentor Protégé, Issue 3/November 2011.

The visual arts have used apprentices for hundreds of years. The apprentice stretched canvas, mixed paint, cleaned the workshop and made copies of the master works for many years before they set off on their own individual creative endeavors.

           

On page 5 of the same article artist Rebecca Irvin says the definition of the French word protégé means to protect. “…so a mentor is somebody who oversees, supports, guides and nurtures a less experienced person. She feels the mentor is a trusted advisor but the relationship goes beyond that. A mentor demonstrates how an artist lives. This seems to support Lave and Wenger research on what is being transmitted to the apprentice, not just book knowledge but a way a person behaves in this position

As an Educator I feel there is a lot of good material in this book on learning communities and apprenticing that could be adapted to the public school system.

References

Lave, Jean & Wenger, Etienne. (1991).Situated learning Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rey, Charlotte. (2011).Mentoring in the 21^st Century. Mentor Protégé, 4-9.