Are Community Houses in Aotearoa New Zealand Poor Houses? Dr. Jens J. Hansen Keynote Address to Out of the Mist Conference, Waitakere, Auckland

Are Community Houses in Aotearoa New Zealand Poor Houses?Dr. Jens J. Hansen

Keynote Address to “Out of the Mist” Conference, Waitakere, Auckland

19th September, 2008 First National Hui of Community Houses in New Zealand

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My brief for today spans four areas1. I’m expected, in a flick of time, to scan the

Community House landscape internationally. I’ll try to do that.

2. I’ve posed a key question, “are community houses in Aotearoa New Zealand poor houses?” I’ll address that question.

3. And I’ve sought to explain just what it is that makes the kaleidoscope of community houses from throughout the Western world work so responsively and so very richly;

4. I’ll explain that by considering Wenger’s idea of communities of practice and I propose a need for sponsored research so that the richness and the poverty of community houses can be amplified.


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Since the beginning… Communities of interest have existed in many forms

and settings : Religious festivals, events & community games; Social situations - pubs, gentlemen’s clubs, brothels,

cockfights, pugilistic contests, etc.; Cultural & intellectual activities - theatre, musicals, learned

Lyceum and Athena clubs, Mechanics Institutes, WEAs, ACE classes, etc.;

Informal activities within informal settings - village greens, sing-along's, community dances, etc.

These represent Eurocentric concepts and are largely linked to Western traditions.


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Globally there are were and are cultural equivalents…continent-by-continent There are African rituals involving communities of

interest; There are Asian festivals involving communities of

interest; There are comparable Pasifika events and

communities of interest; And there are South American equivalents of

communities of interest; All have one thing in common – PEOPLE -

PEOPLE PRACTICING THEIR INTERESTS.


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Community (or Neighbourhood Houses) and Communities of learning… Folk high schools, inspired by Grundtvig were

an important beginning insofar as non-formal learning was concerned;

There were historical examples of neighbourhood house agencies in the USA formed by communities of interest led by Jewish women;

Community foci were sponsored by various means in Europe, the US, and Australasia.


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Sponsorship levels seem to be very varied There are examples of largess:

Wisconsin; Chicago; Australia.

And yet there are also pleas for more funding: Australia

Some pertinent questions to consider: Just how much, or how little, realistic support comes

from central government and LGA in Aotearoa New Zealand?

What are the rich and poor divides and why do they exist? How can they be removed?


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Australasian Community Houses have rich offerings: Griffith, in the Murrumbigee, NSW, has a broad

programme… …as does Thebarton Neighbourhood House in SA... …and Victoria is replete with such centres… …and this newsletter about a programme in

Tasmania is astoundingly rich in quality. It seems that Shires, the Australian equivalent to our

LGAs are very supportive of neighbourhood houses; How supportive, by comparison are our New

Zealand LGAs?


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But there can be hiccoughs…

Some are targeted at specific sectors; Some are virtual rather than centre-based.

Rich specialist services are evident…

Policies may be benign and well intentioned as this link shows;

But the apparent largess of LGAs can contain fish-hooks;


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A series of Trans-Tasman parallels We have adult learners’ week – they have

Neighbourhood House week in WA and a whole month in Victoria;

They have a national network or association of neighbourhood houses and we have a sample of community houses at this hui;

They had a conference about the non-formal education sector called “Come in Cinderella” and this hui is about “Ka puta l te kohne – Out of The Mists - Hui Tahi Tipu Tahi – Come together, grow together ”.


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So are community houses poor? It can be speculated that in Aotearoa New

Zealand, in terms of funding, they are very poor (but that has not been systematically researched and it needs to be – sooner rather than later!);

It can also be argued that in terms of diversity and their ability to be responsive, they are incredibly rich (but this also has not been researched and it needs to be investigated, like Koia Koia – now!);


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So are community houses poor? It can probably be concluded that what LGAs

and communities get is a huge treasure trove of value for minimal investment. (Evidence based research, however, is needed – now!)

Do LGA stakeholders agree? I’m not that convinced: There has been a diversity of rapport with the

Waitakere City Council – this conference was opposed by Council staff;

Control mentality has been apparent with independent thinking by those in governance belittled. And so on…


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How, then, might we investigate the value of community houses? Etienne Wenger’s notion of communities of

practice could provide a useful approach that aids understanding:

Wenger's model of communities of practice incorporates four "deeply interconnected and mutually defining" components: Community: learning as belonging; Identity: learning as becoming; Practice: learning as doing; and Meaning: learning as experience.“


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The next four slides come from a workshop Wenger facilitated in Aotearoa New Zealand two years ago. He did something very similar a few months ago at a conference I attended. I’m grateful to him for being able to use these slides.


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learningpractice

community

meaning

identityWhat are we

doing?

Where do webelong

Who are webecoming?

What is ourexperience?


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Key dimensions

PracticePracticeCommunityCommunity

DomainDomain

ParticipationParticipationParticipationParticipation

SponsorshipSponsorshipSponsorshipSponsorship

NurturingNurturingNurturingNurturing

SupportSupportSupportSupport


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activity patterns with technological implications

Community activities

oriented to …

… meetings

… context… community cultivation

… access to expertise

… projects… open-ended conversation

… content publishing

… individual participation

… relationships

In collaboration with Nancy White and John Smith


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A community is a living entity … not unlike a couple

It takes hard work and careful nurturingIt takes hard work and careful nurturing

It depends on renewed passionIt depends on renewed passion

It becomes an entity in its own rightIt becomes an entity in its own right

It takes initiativeIt takes initiative

It is voluntaryIt is voluntary

It involves responsibilitiesIt involves responsibilities

It is funIt is fun

privateprivate and public and public

commoncommongroundground

ongoingongoinglegacylegacy

recognizedrecognizedstewardshipstewardship

communalcommunalidentityidentity

long-termlong-termviabilityviability

Transforming

Sustaining

Maturing

Coalescing

Potential


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It’s all about doughnuts… Wenger likens knowledge management to a

doughnut – there’s that empty bit in the middle;

STRATEGY

PERFORMANCE

Stewarding

Sharing

Learning

Domains

Communities

Practices


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It’s all about doughnuts…

Practitioners, the people who use knowledge in their activities, are in the best position to manage this knowledge; For the Community House sector, I’d change the

word manage to facilitate and the goal is to address the empty knowledge that is the middle of the doughnut.


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It’s all about doughnuts…

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do, and who interact regularly in order to learn how to do it better; How many communities of practice are engaged

in your setting? What do you do to enable those communities of

practice to do it better and what sponsorship do you get from whom?

How well does the sponsorship match the richness of community practices/performance?


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Further moguls by Wenger… Communities of practice manage their

knowledge. If you had enough knowledge to micromanage communities of practice, you would not need them. This brings a new perspective to collaborative

practice, doesn’t it? To what extent are you micromanaged or

beholden to your sponsors? How do you make them become a member of

your community of practice so that those participating at your place will benefit too?


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Further moguls by Wenger… No community can fully manage the learning

of another, but no community can fully manage its own learning. Is this the kernel of why Community Houses exist

and if so, why do they need to come out of the mist?

What steps are needed to help them to emerge from the mist?


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Still more of Wenger’s moguls… Company-wide communities make learning

available to all concerned. They make sure that the learning from various locations within and beyond the organization is synthesized and integrated, and then remembered and distributed; If we replace the term company with

neighbourhood, does this claim then serve as a litmus test of community house effectiveness?

If it isn’t a litmus test, what should the litmus test be?


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Still more of Wenger’s moguls… Translate the strategy of the organization into

a set of domains These domains refer to the various roles that a

community house assumes which means your strategic plan should address many domains.

So just how consistent is your strategic thinking with those domains your communities of practice have deemed to be important?


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And some more tidbits… Cultivate the communities according to each

domain; This really means we need different strokes for

different folks but how do we achieve that? What systematic needs assessment do we

collaboratively undertake and with what effect? How do we make this become a collaborative

learning experience with sponsors?


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And some more tidbits… Engage practitioners in the development of

their practice; To my mind, that means we work hard at

releasing the capacities of a range of diverse leaders. How should we proceed?

Translate the learning inherent in activities into refined practices; Encouraging quality and taking step to assure

excellence is what this is all about but again, how do we do this?


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Some final morsels from Wenger… Broaden the scope of learning beyond its

source and think about knowledge strategically; If we see community development and diffusion

as functions of a community house, how best can we expand our impact as brokers of development and knowledge diffusion?


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Some final morsels from Wenger… Executive sponsorship acts as a bridge

between the hierarchical structure of the formal organization and the horizontal structure of communities. Its importance cannot be overemphasized; To what extent, then, do we need LGA

sponsorship and how important are LGA as a link? How can we help them to learn about our communities of practice so that we create win-win-win situations?


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Final words Community houses are richly varied and rich in their

variety: Their richness stems from the many communities of

interest and practice which operate from within them; Those communities of interest and practice need to be

described by undertaking quality research – not later but now!

Community houses appear to be variably supported: How much support they need to receive and how much or

little they actually receive also needs to be investigated – not later but now!

We will be the poorer until such work is completed.


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Questions and follow-up I’m going to try to put all of this onto my website

(that may be ambitious for some of the hyperlinks); My website is:

www.woodhillpark.com and my contact details are:Dr. Jens J. Hansen, Woodhill Park Research Retreat,56 Woodhill Park Road, R.D. 3 Waimauku,Auckland 1250Phone: +64 9 411 7703Mobile: +64 21172 8320Email: [email protected]

Are there any questions?

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Are Community Houses in Aotearoa New Zealand Poor Houses? Dr. Jens J. Hansen Keynote Address to Out of the Mist Conference, Waitakere, Auckland