“When what’s on your cell phone is more important
than what’s in the library, we’re challenged to say how do we do education differently, because if it’s about delivery of content, Google wins over teacher every day.” http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yellowknife-parents-teachers-talk-education-renewal-1.2451853
GNWT director of education renewal John Stewart addressing a December 2013 meeting of parents and educators in Yellowknife.
I’m really looking forward to Dave Cormier’s Rhisomatic Learning “joining-in-with-me” (aka “course”) at P2PU. He begins with a question about, “…how we can learn in a world of abundance?” Cormier offers the wandering rhizome as a metaphor for learning via a connectivist community, contrasting it with the tree – a metaphor for learning from monolithic authority.
The learners to whom I am responsible are not in Higher Education. They never got there because the system was unable to accommodate their different way of learning. Cormier proposes that we might be brave and decide that “important learning is more like being a parent, or a cook than (memorizing a bunch of out-0f-context facts)“.
This leaves me grappling with some pragmatic questions/issues (while questioning whether “pragmatic” contradicts or complements “rhizomatic” learning):
- How might this apply to my world of remedial adult education?
- What could Adult Literacy & Basic Education look like in a world of abundance?
- How may people who are living with brain injuries and trauma participate in the feast of information and knowledge available?
- How will they know that they are learning when it doesn’t look like “school work”?
- What venue is available for them to tell their stories of struggle, hope, and disappointment?
- Who cares about what they offer to society?
- Dare I attempt to break with the education-by-authority model that has failed my students and try drawing them into an inter-connected learning community.
- And where will I find a compatible community for them to connect to?
- Or should I be reckless enough to try helping them form a community to which others will feel comfortable joining?
- Is my use of “helping” a subconscious condescension?
These are not entirely new thoughts or questions prompted only by the upcoming course. My students have been posting their creations to YouTube, SoundCloud, StudyStack, and of course Facebook. It seems to be going in the right direction, but frustrating to measure by traditional assessments. Perhaps the rhizome will yield some satisfaction if not answers.
Yes join in discussion! Will explain how! Am wary of purists. Agree in principle, I personally hated scouts and their wretched badges. But. Wanting recognition is intrinsic to us, some of us can get over it but in the short term maybe (maybe) we need some sort of lure to autonomy.
I am exploring some similar questions at the moment with other friends around the world. I would see our task as one of returning, cajoling, connecting learners to others in the wild through a long term deschooling process. The question of open badges is popping up again in my thinking to provide bait to the students/teachers and to enable transferrability between inherently incompatible ecosystems.
Thank you for the comment Simon. I am very much on board with you about connecting learners to others in the wild. Badges as bait not so much. But that may just be a bias I picked up from the likes of Jim Groom, Dave Cormier and company. Perhaps badges as points of transfer, but for motivation I keep wanting the pure thrill of discovery and connection.
I am still searching for connection points for Adult Literacy learners. Lots for K-12 and HE, but my sense is most low-literacy adults remain locked in old-school programs. I try to demonstrate possibilities by joining some of my own live sessions in the presence of students. Have seen a glimmer of hope light in some eyes on occasion, but the content and language is seldom engaging or accessible for them.
And yes, deschooling – definitely long-term – a rhizomatic process, now that I think about it in this light. It would seem to have a multiplicity of entry and exit points but no clearly defined finish line, and more facets than Illych imagined, or at least enumerated.
Could I become a node on your network of “friends around the world” in exploring connections for learners?
Jim – thanks for these great questions, which seem to me to be very pertinent. A metaphor like rhizomatic learning will ultimately not be very useful if it only applies to one privileged education sector. For me the metaphor is mostly about ’empowering’ learners – empowering them to follow their own paths and make their own connections both socially and conceptually. For this all learners need to be able to recognise and be encouraged to use their own ‘voice’. I don’t think ‘helping’, if it is framed in these terms, is a condescension – but I have rarely had to face the pragmatic questions that you face. It sounds to me as though if your students are ‘posting their creations to YouTube, SoundCloud, StudyStack, and of course Facebook’, they must feel empowered?
Thank you for the encouraging comment, Jenny. Yes, I see glimmers of learners feeling empowered, especially when they get positive feedback from recognized leaders on the learning artifacts they post. It’s a small beginning. They have spent so many years being told they are failures that it’s a fearful risk to exercise their voice. When it comes to dismantling oppressive power practices, I feel I’m only scratching the surface of what needs to be done. I try to use language that gives power to learners. I sometimes wonder what actions of mine contradict that message. I emphasize the right of refusal by saying, “You don’t HAVE to do anything.” but quickly qualify by adding, “That’s not the same as, ‘You don’t have to DO anything.’ ” Some day I’ll get brave enough to initiate a genuine inquiry into “Who’s the boss here?” That’ll be interesting feedback provided I can receive it.