To make changes in education, we must embrace uncertainty in our teaching, and we must help our students understand that it is ok not to have the right answer. The quest —the leap into the unknown is the learning process.
Here is my response.
It is unnatural to leap into the total darkness of the unknown. In fact I think that by definition it is impossible. Instead I think we leap into the partly known. My analogy is the Kentucky pioneer Daniel Boone. Some might say that he worked his way into virgin, unknown territory. I would say yes and no. He did blaze trails into places no Euro-American had ever been, but the territory itself shared lots of known traits with where he had already been. For example, water flows downhill to larger streams. The sun rises in the east. And the thousand other ‘knowns’ that come from a lifetime of living close to ground. And, of course, he really did blaze the trails he made by walking. He emblazened trees with marks for others to follow. Now that must’ve been an ego trip and a half!
The other half of the analogy is that we too have general knowledge that we take with us into the knowmadic life and the rhizomatic wilderness of learning. We have theoretical knowledge. I would include the whole baggage of ed school in that. But we have to dump most of that when we move into the partly known territory of deep, rhizomatic knowmadicism. You need to travel light when you are blazing the trail. You need the practical stuff in your backpack.
All week and every week I will be bringing back news as I light out into the territories. I expect to get well and truly turned around on occasion, but I don’t plan on backtracking much except to send back reports. Boone wasn’t much good at this part, but Lewis and Clark were, but I daresay I call more on the Kentuckian than I do the Virginian. All I know is that every one who reads this could be a real guide to the undiscovered country. This week and in this post Cathleen Nardi was my Sacagewea. Amen.
If anyone is interested here is a Diigo annotation of Cathleen’s entire post: https://diigo.com/01jjko .And if anyone wants a deep dive, minicourse in what Cathleen is writing about, I pulled out all the links she mentions and put them into the Diigo link as well in a standalone sticky note.
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Terry! So honored to be your Sacagawea in this Rhizomatic Quest that we have embarked upon. In fact, it was your post that had me ‘strikeout’ Rhizomatic as an adjective for learning. Rhizomatic is just the lens, the filter, the map, or the metaphor that we are using to chart this new landscape of digital learning. I agree that it is unnatural to leap into the total darkness of the unknown. I think it is more important to have the willingness to ‘let go’ in order to move forward…’to boldly go where no man has gone before..’ Your analogy of Daniel Boone reminds me that is important to create trail markers so that not only can we find our way back, but also so that others can find their way as well. Thanks for the diigo signpost and thanks for helping to blaze the trail.
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Thanks for saying that so well. Yes, I’ve been thinking along these lines – if one of the largest factors in learning is who shows up to learn with, then how much uncertainty is there about that, really? Someone interesting always comes along and things always go in new or new-ish directions… Sacagawea or someone like her will always show up (or be created in retrospect, as many of those historical figures were? what does that mean?) So then is that about one’s own developed characteristics as a learner? Developing the viewpoint that Harold Nicholson was thinking of when he said something like, only one person in a thousand is not interesting, and that person is quite interesting because he’s one in a thousand. OR (I’ve been wondering) is it that I am only going into environments where people talk about what interests me? if the (trying to think of some group that is unlikely that won’t be an incendiary and distracting example -“the association of boring stuck in the mud people”) had a MOOC perhaps I would not meet anyone to learn with there, and perhaps I would be bored… but that I do not make those forays means their community of learners and my own are incomplete and never resolved? A thing this makes me think of is one of my first professors who taught me a lot about literature and language, but perhaps more importantly about how to enter a room of strangers, how to talk to anyone, how to stand up and how to always have a gracious response (well, taught me that was theoretically possible). Later on, when I attended a college full of rich kids, one of those took me in hand and taught me how rich people act 🙂 While neither of those learning objectives were on any syllabus they may have been the most important learnings of my life.
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Marvelous elliptical zen stuff going on here. Lots of fingers to the moon here: grace wherever, know how people are, incomplete and unresolved, whoever shows up defines whatever happens. I love it. So generous and thank you for your grace and giving me a great response (the one in a thousand) any time a student dismisses his or her own grand self. Every class is full of unknown unknowns, just like your comment here sailing in like cottonwood fluff on a fall breeze. Thanks.
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the more we learn — all kinds of different things — the more we learn how to learn and about ourselves. it’s never the same way twice…that damn river. yet one carries over to the next. the best tool to pack when traveling light. an uncompass…