How to Entangle - Practice
Practice is the act of doing something over time. In the realm of Entangled Learning, practice is participation in an activity over time in which there is a strong desire to develop new knowledge and skills. Individuals adopt and maintain personal practices as well as participate in practice-based group activities or projects.
Identifying, and naming one’s practice is necessary before building a community around that practice. Once the practice is identified, it is then possible to find other like-minded individuals who are engaged in the same practice and who have interest in peer-to-peer learning.
Example:
A high school youth group meets weekly to see friends and have fun, but they aren't engaged. Susan describes herself as bored because the group doesn't address anything that matters to her. Getting together weekly without a clear, defining purpose feels empty to Susan but she participates out of a sense of obligation.
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Realizing the issue, the youth group leader asks the group what they want to have as their focus. Susan says she wants to develop a faith-based approach to difficult friendship challenges. The leader works with the teenagers to develop shared understanding of their values and helps them identify strategies and dialogue to use in the difficult situations they imagine can arise. The teens keep a logbook of their friendship challenges, how they addressed them, and their reflections on how well their responses aligned with their purpose of strengthening their faith-based responses.
The teens check in with each other each week to discuss their experiences and brainstorm how they each would have responded in a similar situation. They identify questions or areas they are wrestling with and ask the support of their youth group leader to bring in supporting material to help them deepen their practice.
