The Whitestone Kahui Ako is a grouping of
one high school, four contributing primaries and the Oamaru Kindergarten Association. It is a true community of learning in that
its sole purpose is learning.
It has taken time to get to the point where
the community has an agreed sense of joint enterprise. The community is at the point now of
developing its governance structures and employing teachers. Up to now, the main participants in the
learning community have been the principals of the schools. Each principal is
leader of their own community of learning in their own school. Each of these schools has their own vision,
values and sense of joint enterprise. One
of the challenges to the kahui ako has been to develop a sense of joint
enterprise which includes and enhances those of the individual school
communities.
Participation in the community can be
explained by “modes of belonging,” (Wenger, 2000). The principals engaged in
discussions over a year and have created opportunities for staff within schools
to engage with each other. Up to this
point this engagement has been peripheral for the teachers in my school. It has been secondary to our core purpose and
goals.
We have also participated in “imagination”
mode where we have reflected on who we are and our purpose and created
vision. This has been done through “mutuality”
creating both personal and professional trust (Wenger, 2000, p. 230). We are now in a phase where alignment has
been established between the leaders.
“Learning at boundaries is likely to be
maximised for individuals and for communities when experience and competence
are in close tension,” (Wenger, 2000, p.233).
Competence refers to what the community has established over time and
experience is our own interaction with the world. When there is a close tension – i.e. new or
contrasting experiences are not too far removed from the community’s competence
there is more opportunity for learning. The community came into closer alignment
through sharing understanding of the competencies and challenges of the constituent
groups and through the learning of the principals in the group with the help of
an external facilitator. This has brought
a tension between the competency of the group and experience beyond which is a
condition for learning.
Through this experience we are now building
a sense of a shared repertoire of resources.
One of these is the agreed focus on “Spirals of Inquiry” (Timperley, Kaser, & Halbert,
2014) as a
learning tool for all members. Another
is the beginning practice of cross- school moderation thus beginning a shared
understanding of resource and competence.
The next step is to engage a learning facilitator for the schools and
the lead teachers to work across and within schools and this is when the community’s
shared competence and repertoire will begin to grow.
In a sense of joint enterprise, communities
agree on their purpose. Competent
members understand the enterprise well enough to be able to contribute to it
and to access the community’s shared repertoire of resources. I now
feel a strong alignment and mutuality with the group’s vision and within the
shared competence we are building. My
role is as a competent participant and as a leader and now that the group has
got to the point of being in alignment with my own school’s goals I have a
strong sense of belonging and contribution to the group. This has been established not through
changing my school’s goals or the goals of the group but unpacking to the point
where we have established we have shared goals and hence a joint enterprise.
REFERENCES
Timperley, H., Kaser, L.,
& Halbert, J. (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools:
Innovation and the spiral of inquiry. Victoria: Centre for Strategic Education.
Wenger,
E. (2000). Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization,
7(2), 225–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840072002
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