What are the benefits of participating in a community of practice?
In my paper, I will discuss the benefits of an individual’s participation in a community of practice. We as human beings take part in different types of communities. Our main motivation for participating in these communities is that we are searching for a good, comfortable, and convenient way of life. Reid (2000, p. 3) indicates in his study that participation is “a condition for success” and that we achieve personal development through our interaction in the community. We seek contact with others because we hope to find success and improve our skills in different fields by participating in various communities. According to Wenger (2008) in his book “Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity”, participation is “a complex process that combines doing, talking, thinking, and belonging. It involves our whole person, including our bodies, minds, emotions, and social relations” (p. 56). Participation plays an integral part in our lives as learners, teachers, parents and so forth. Most people have different intentions and needs when looking for progress in their lives. I , as a student, would like to concentrate on the benefits of entering a community of learners and participating in this area.
Here one must ask if participation can assist in shaping our experience. According to Wenger, “participation in social communities shapes our experience” (Wenger, p. 56). Participation yields us an opportunity to improve our experience and build strong connections with different people in different places. Participation can affect the participants in different ways. Individuals experience life in many different ways. Specifically, participants in a given community learn from each other, improve their skills, knowledge, thoughts, achieve personal goals, contribute to solving problems and learn about different cultures. According to Davidson, our participation in a community enables us to learn from others how to deal with difficult situations and how to “discover both the needs and challenges facing us”. For instance, since I have started my studies at this university, I have learned a lot from my professors and my classmates. I learned how to make a blog and I learned how to tie a knot. We will remember those people who taught us something by sharing their time with us. This point is confirmed by Wenger when he states that participants will remember “the people” who have made valid contributions to a community and its participants.
A community of practice should include mutual engagement, respect and negotiation between the participants because they come from different families and have different experience, ideas, and beliefs. Reid (2000, p. 4) confirms this point by saying that there should be respect for the other participant’s idea in any community because there is no bad idea. They also “work together, see each other every day and exchange information and opinions’’(p. 75). Moreover, the relations between participants have different mixtures of
“Power and dependence, pleasure and pain, expertise and helplessness, success and failure, alliance and competition, ease and struggle, authority and collegiality, resistance and compliance, anger and tenderness, attraction and repugnance, fun and boredom, trust and suspicion , friendship and hatred” (Wenger, p. 77).
A community of practice will be a source where both negative and positive experiences and feelings will be generated. Wenger confirms that “a community of practice is neither a haven of togetherness nor an island of intimacy insulated from political and social relations...Peace, happiness, and harmony are therefore not necessary properties of a community of practice . Certainly, there are plenty of disagreements , tensions, and conflicts among claims processors (p. 77). From my own experience, participating in a community of practice was formed after being a teacher for one year in my country “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”. Teaching in my country has provided me with an interesting and unforgettable experience through interactions with different teachers and students. There were many positive outcomes for me due to participating in that particular community. For example, I learned how to be patient as a result of dealing with both the aggressive and the less interested students. In this situation, I gained the experience of working with the manager, teachers and my students. I also learned to control myself during the intense discussions that took place.
Participation in a community is not something that we can turn on or off (p. 57). It is a part of who we are. In the workplace, participation plays an important role in shaping our experience and developing our relationships with other workers which might continue even after our retirement or termination of a job. My relationships with other teachers who taught with me in the same school still continue until today. I try to call them and ask them for advice even when I am here in Canada. I am eager to go back to my country to see them again.
To conclude, community participation is a complicated concept. Community participation also plays an enormous role in our lives. Through our participation in a variety of communities, we share ideas, increase our knowledge about other people’s experiences, develop our skills, and discover our talents. According to Davidson, our participation in a community of practice has many benefits for us. We learn from others how to deal with difficult situations, face our needs and challenges, and understand our weaknesses. Our participation in any community is recorded in our memory and that of others. Although we may move to different places or leave our jobs, we leave behind impressions on those that we interact with.
Reference list:
Reid, J. N. (2000). How People Power Brings Sustainable Benefits to Communities. Community participation.
Wenger, E. (2008). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity.
Cambridge University Press: New York, New York
Cambridge University Press: New York, New York
Hi Nourah – thanks for this blog post! This is a useful summary of Wenger’s notion of communities of practice, and I focused on your comment that he suggests we remember those who have made particularly significant contributions to our communities. But I think it’s only logical, don’t you, that if Wenger claims we will remember those people who made a big difference in a positive way, that we also remember those who made an impact in a negative way, as well? As much as people who have stood out and taught us useful things live on in our memories, so, too, do those people who seemed to be actively against ours or others’ contributions. Even if we don’t want to be like those people, their actions guide ours in a way that cautions us against certain behaviours, which is also a valid form of learning. Thank you for making it a point to mention, Nourah!
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