Etienne Wenger: Knowledgeability

Today I attended a workshop on Knowledgeability in Landscapes of Practice presented by Etienne Wenger and Bev Trayner. This post is a write-up of the session.

"The seminar will explore the connection between knowledge, community, learning, and identity. The basic idea is that human knowing is fundamentally a social act. This simple observation has profound implications for the way we think of and attempt to support learning." (extract from advert for the event)

Etienne introduced us to the idea of "Knowledgeability". Knowledge is the "stuff" we know, but knowledgeability is the state we become by negotiating in a complex landscape of different practices. An example that came up later I think helps explain this, is the idea of a doctor making a decision about whether a patient gets a certain medical test or not. As the doctor you have accountabilities to the patient, to the other doctors to the hospital administration even to your own family and friends, and all of these come into play ('reconcile the landscape') as you make that choice. You need to find the balance across communities that do not see eye to eye.

The key idea seemed to be to recognise your own learning is influenced by all these accountabilities in the landscape of your own practices. And these accountabilities shape what you need to learn and where you should invest your time.

We completed an exercise in groups, thinking about our own accountabilities - and explored the tension between the places we are accountable, particularly where we are paid and where we aren't paid. We contemplated the differences between responsibility which is not the same as accountability. If you are accountable to colleagues, it means you can give an account to your colleagues to show you are a knowledgeable practitioner.

Another example - there might be only 10 people in the world understand some aspect of particle physics - and it's ok for us to not understand them, as we are not accountable to them. However if they aren't accountable outside that small group, then they will feel no need to help others understand.

We then self-formed groups around our own perceived 'primary accountabilities' (recognising, of course, that we are always juggling multiple accountabilities). The groups we came up with were:

• My children
• Community development
• Social adjustors
• (Unmet) health needs
• Enforced framework (audit culture)
• The Oppressed and marginalised
• Spirituality
• Student learning and development

Within the groups we were asked to come up with one practice that embodied that sense of accountability. My group (Primary accountability: My children) came up with "organise day to day around our children's need." We had a discussion about guilt - if you have to cancel a lecture, you feel bad and inconvenience 100 students, but if you have to miss your child's school concert you feel terrible about it forever more.

The point of this exercise was to then hear the practices from the other groups and identify boundaries where the practices touched. Sometimes a tension, sometimes a complement.

The risk is that within a community of practice you can becomes too inwardly focused, and it's on the boundaries where ideas can be pushed and moved forward. The community is both a resource and a danger. Etienne argues that social reflection is just not possible within a community, you need to travel and cross boundaries. As a 'learning citizen' we all need to try and step out of our groups and look for places to make conversations on the boundaries - for the future of the planet, he suggested.

The advertising for the seminar suggested that:

"Practically, these ideas are helping people who face all sorts of challenges, such as:
• design more effective knowledge-oriented organizations
• create learning systems across organizations
• improve education and lifelong learning
• rethink the role of professional associations
• design a world in which people can reach their full potential"

It looks like Etienne and Bev gave a similar session at the OU recently, this video gives you an idea and a chance to see them in action:



I can see that in Higher Education it is too easy to teach students within the student learning community of practice, but rarely provide opportunities for them to explore overlaps with other communities, to form their own communities or to recognise their existing communities.

[Etienne was also in Brighton to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Brighton]