#change11 week 9 Rhizomatic Learning

Dave Cormier’s concept of Rhizomatic Learning comes from A Thousand Plateaus. However, the problem with the Rhizome is that it resists being pinned down into a form (it is counterposed in the Introduction to the Tree, which is an identifiable countable hierarchical structure.) So Cormier uses the more accessible idea of “the nomad” who is ultimately the same character as the flexible personality, the funky businessperson and the member of the precariat (mentioned in my post from May). That is to say, this is what happened to the workers in the society of control.

Cormier uses the Rhizome idea as if it was type of teaching procedure, however the philosophers meant it to be a description of a different way of saying what knowledge is. Going back again to that Sfard essay (mentioned in relation to week 4 of this mooc)…it is a lens. So any real-world teaching procedure can be analysed as being a process of “acquisition” , “participation” or perhaps a process of rhizomatic growth. The metaphor makes something different visible, however it does not in itself imply things like “life-long learning” or “organic approach”. Actually those things needed to produce nomads are procedures of control….self-assessment, students reflecting on their learning and setting their own goals, negotiating, learning to be flexible + creative rather than to carry out procedures and reproduce copies.