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dedicated to you.
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attribution: I once read a response from some famous person, after she was once again applauded for her ideas. She wrote about how much more it would mean to her if rather than thanking her and telling her how great her ideas were, people would just live out those ideas. I like that. .
It’s so difficult to attribute people, when so many influence you daily. If you hear your words, as many of you will, know we admire your art, your vision, to set people free. Free to be, to notice, to dream, to connect, and to do work that matters. Know that we are living out your ideas.
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structure & design Just a bit of insight into our thinking of the layout. Amanda starts us off with a focus on stor y. Perhaps when you hear our story, you’ll feel it’s your story. Then Thomas, who introduced us to Ivan Illich, shares a compelling, convicting, & awakening for w ar d. The begin being provides a bit of background of some of the players. We want to point out though, that this is everyone, and happening everywhere. It’s not about just us, it’s about all of us. Then, a bit of a glossary, titled communication, hoping to paint a clearer picture of what we’re experimenting with. We believe in our findings and we’re thinking the only thing keeping it from creating a major social change already, is a misunderstanding of what it’s about, what it entails, our ability to communicate it. In the ebook, pictures, videos, are added for further understanding. We tried to write so that links are not needed, link into them only as your
Our table of contents was crying out to be non-linear, so we let it be. The rhizomatic piece, that Mary Ann describes so beautifully, is next, as a model describing the essence of each of the 5 chapters (5 elements of the quiet revolution.) Next begins the book, yes, not until slide 35 (at last edit), so jump there if you’re thinking you’ll get our lingo. At the beginning of each chapter, head shots show connections. Relationships are huge, these head shots occupy the walls of the house, and hopefully soon, the walls in the city, telling their own stories. The first few sentences are voices of younger people explaining that element. The next few sentences are parent perspectives. And then we end each chapter with yet another short summary. This plan is encompassing and obscure by design. It can be difficult to take in. The goal of the printed words in this book is to share a short, zoom out version. By doing so, we hope that it’s easier to see
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Perhaps a goal worth mentioning is that detox, chapter one, is a temporary model or tool. Once we free ourselves (our minds) to explore self-directed learning in public ed, the very natural abilities of a 5 year old, will not be held back, but encouraged and facilitated. Many of you, especially those unschooled, probably will see no reason for detox. We hope you find this as intriguing and invigorating as we have. We hope you believe, or begin to believe, with each concept that might seem ridiculous or risky, that the greater risk is an ever perpetuating false assumption, that we are playing it safe.
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story: Amanda on the importance of story, on our stor y: rhizome is what the hero brings to us. it is a way of learning that allows us to get out of our rows of chairs. the beginning middle and end is our hero's journey from disenchantment/ lo st faith to the seed of possibility that is sprouting.
the beginning is setting the scene. familiarizing us with the old story. the roots of education. the listless classroom. (we want to move from here) About four years ago we (see begin Bold dreaming happens. A four year plan beginning, slide 10) were noticing that to redefineschool is crafted by kids. She many people around us, including us, requests a resignation from teaching were stressed. We start an investigation math. District gives her morespaces of of sorts. We wondered why people permission to listen to kids talk about couldn’t wait till 3 or 5pm, why they redefining school. couldn’t wait till the weekend, or summer, or vacation, or till they graduated. We wondered why we were all letting time slip by like that. the middle is the awakening. the detoxing. passion connecting to passion. (the hero's challenge. what we overcome. our bravery. our strength.) Teacher connects to a virtual mentor. Focused collaboration on ways to alleviate stress in people, ways to redefine the 7 hours a day we call school. She starts reading books, and connecting to people online via twitter and webinars. She can’t get enough, can’t learn enough. She tries to get better at listening.
Kids start really speaking out, they quote virtual mentor and authors in books read. Mind boggling. They connect with local university professor to pursue ways to affect theresearch. They connect with unschooling parents and begin learning how theory becomes practice. Doing, prototyping begins. Incredible insight from failing surfaces.
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Click to hear more from our beginnings
the end is connecting. integrating. (bringing it from the singular to the we. the community as classroom. our inspiration. our why.) We meet up with others who share our dreams, our vision. Wehangout with them. Weare asked to share our story. We get a house. A detox booth. We craft this little book. Wecontinue to prototype. We listen closer, notice more. We learn from more mistakes. We experiment every day. The end..? We begin being.
city as floor plan
responsibility choice via video, via slideshare, the plan unfolds
Great stories agree with our world view. The best stories don’t teach people anything new. Instead, the best stories agree with what the audience already believes and makes the members of the audience feel smart and secure when reminded how right they were in the first place. -Seth Godin
forward: We are seeking the brilliance of the human mind through a new freedom for the human spirit. We’re respectfully calling into question our current blind, deaf, and mute allegiance to a system of education based on publicly prescribed learning.
This prescribed learning was not crafted with ill intent, but has undoubtedly sustained a crippling dependency, an addiction, at a global level. Social change will and can happen if we but question the existence of the prescription itself rather than continue our efforts to improve its [a q u i deliverance.
This book is a catalyst for mutative change in that system. To this end, be you is a living artifact of sorts that represents the oral histories, deep narratives, research and ongoing movement of real humans; their hopes, dreams, disruptions and unshackled praxis. Be you dares to look critically at modern education in form and function while also offering resilient working examples of resilient learning ecologies.
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A common complaint about schools, one that is reflected for example, in the recent report of the Carnegie Commission: In school, registered students submit to certified teachers in order to obtain certificates of their own; both are frustrated and both blame insufficient resources - money, time, or building - for their mutual frustration.
I believe that the contemporary crisis of education demands that we review the very idea of publ i cl y pr escr i bed l ea r ni ng rather than the methods used in its enforcement. - Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, 1972 free ebook free audio high recommend
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begin being: Students in Loveland, CO, crafted a four year plan of disruption to redefine school. We are just beginning year two. Year four has community, life, as school, with the city as the floor plan. Your School Design It. Highschool buildings become resource and meet up hubs. Spaces of learning occur wherever is natural in the city, or virtually. Who, what, when, where, how, and with whom you learn, happens per choice. The premise... nothing is for everyone. Which allows people to redefine success per individual, per community. We're respectfully questioning everything, especially what publicly pr escr ibed education deems as normal. Imagine if the seven hours a day we currently call school were reworked to awaken indispensable people.
We believe the biggest change in ed will be who’s together in a room or space, per choice. We’re thinking if you love what you’re doing, you’re good. If you don’t, well, why wouldn’t you want change? There has been plenty of theory and research invested in what we are doing, and that will be ongoing. But mostly, we have had the privilege and delight to indulge in experimentation, failure, prototyping, etc. To practice vulnerability in context.
for more history of the lab, see this video set/ documentation (reverse chronological order) or this bird’ s eye view looking forward from 2009
for current updates/ info on the lab, see labconnections Fyi: most italicized words are titles of slidedecks, found within this narrative deck:awakening indispensable people
The following is our current best attempt to capture the key elements learned from key failures. Our desire is that anyone anywhere [a q u ican e texperience r e v o lthe u texhilaration i o n] of learning in spaces of permission to be. Take a listen if you will, with no agenda.
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communication: (verbiage as we’re currently seeing and using it) The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw
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cul tur e What if transparency is the new currency? What if knowing people, being known, building a community, holds more value than what most of us end up spending most of the hours in a day doing or getting. We’re thinking school has perpetuated a corporate America long beyond it’s need to be, if it ever was a need. We’re thinking technology wants to free us up and back to a focus on people – conversation, community, sharing, and listening. We’re experimenting with a focus on a social currency, rather than a monetary currency. We’re thinking if you want to know how good someone is, take a look at how well the people around them are doing. Most of what we’re suggesting, doing, and being, will only thrive in a culture of trust. (read more about culture of trust in ch 5) …the very word cul tur e celebrates the human capacity to learn and adapt, something the rest of society should support. A senseof coherenceis almost as needful as food and drink. Trying to improve people by interfering with their own preferences often makes things worse. The question for everyone living in a world of constant contact between cultural groups, is how to becomeroutinely sensitive to patterns, even with minimal cues, suspending judgment and looking for how they fit together. - Mary Catherin Bateson, Peripheral Visions
for more see slidedeck: more resourceful
per petua l beta Never ending, never done beginning. Always fresh, mindful, and new. It's dirty and wholesome. It's the way that knowledge actually is, rather than the way we try to package it so that it can bemeasured. - Dave Cormier
One thing people have said that have visited the be you house, is that every time they come it’s different. Routine can cripple us. Doing things in order to finish them, can compromise us. We’re practicing, embracing, and modeling perpetual beta. Through our eagerness to learn from ourselves and others, we share our mistakes. We seek to hold ourselves accountable to a continual freshness and mindfulness. It is perhaps because we havenot learned to recognize and respect existing order in unfamiliar forms that we arefrightened of social change, unwilling to support and work with theforms that peoples find for themselves. - Mary Catherine Bateson
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di sr upti on (as per Clay Christensen) [a quiet revolution] By design, we are currently in the shadows at the left end of the upward exponential curve. As we begin being, those most in love with the idea, experiment, fail, and tweak, continually making and being.
We’re experimenting with *transparent shadows: o 600+ raw footage videos on youtube ( 51295monk) o facebook group (tsd innovation lab) o info and update site (labconnections) o stand alone site, (be you.) * Transparent shadows: We are still obscure to those not intentionally seeking us out, because we aren’t selling, pushing, or prescribing anything.
We believe obscur ity is k ey to selfdir ected lear ning, as imposed definition, routine, and focus on outcome, can encourage mindlessness. We welcome the shadows, as we believe you may be more inclined to be working, doing, and failing there. You may be more inclined to be you there. Publicity often nudges us toward theory and meetings and defending and talking perfect case scenarios, and following the masses, more so than doing and being. We believe in what we’re doing. And while we’re not selling or pushing, we believe we’re creating something your soul might just be craving.
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Where is this quiet revolution/ disruption headed? We are seeking mor e spaces of per mission to be, for everyone. So while the shadows have boded us well, we are emerging from them to secure more spaces, physical and mental, spaces of affinity. This is a work, a movement, a revolution, that matters to people. Legitimate hard work begs a multi-player mentality. It begs more collaboration, more insight, more of a coming together, than many of us are used to. It begs a mindset most of us are not used to. It also brings with it more benefit. The right end of the upward exponential curve. It certainly delivers more happiness. James Paul Gee, affinity spaces; death of the expert (from dmlcentral); rhizomatic models; more resourceful slidedeck books: Clay Christensen, Disrupting Class; Jane McGonigal, Reality is Broken; Ellen Langer, Mindfulness; Jason Fried, Rework; Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness; Carol Dweck, Mindset; John Hagel & John Seely Brown, Power of Pull, Seth Godin, We Are All Weird
peopl e a genda Our desire is to be green about people. To value, embrace, and delight in what it means to be human and alive. [a favorite quote from Carol Black’s beautiful film, Schooling the World] We’re experimenting with how to listen with no agenda. We believe that every actor has a reason, and that deep within, everyone has a desire to do good. We believe this space of trust awakens people, and that awakened people are indispensable. We believe the paradigm shift a people agenda begs, is that it be based on a culture of trust where community is the curriculum, non-prescriptive. (more on this in chapter 5) When we refer to youth, we intend that to mean you, to whatever degree you decide - youth.
read more about this philosophy here: people agenda or this slidedeck: respect for every voice Dave Cormier, community as curriculum books: linchpin, buccaneer scholar, significance of life, cognitive surplus, mindfulness
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connected a dja cency Many have said there will be no revolution within the system, within the institution. While that makes mental sense, we also believe that the system, the institution, is where many of our best resources are, people in particular. Today, especially in education, even though many are breaking away to charter schools, online schools, homeschooling and unschooling, the masses reside in the system. Through a connected adjacency mentality we exist both in and out of the system. We spend more of our time playing offense, than defense. Nothing is for everyone, so we seek to facilitate non-prescribed learning. We’re currently creating spaces of freedom for a very small percentage to get at authentic experimentation and innovation. Spaces to test new ideas out within a community. Spaces where failure won’t affect or offset the whole, but unexpected, unknown, and delightful success will certainly and pleasantly benefit the whole. Saul Kaplan, connected adjacency; google 20% these slidedecks: joi ito & wikipedia or as ebook; the dandelion affect or as ebook books: the mesh; the power of pull; deschooling society, child in the city, diyu, diy college credentials, we are all weird
ta ci t knowl edge Knowing more than onecan tell. Not acquired from other; it requires learning through mind, body and senses and is facilitated by experimentation and inquiry. - Mary Ann Reilly
John Hagel, Edge Perspectives
adjacent possibilities Steven Johnson’s TED The potential and serendipity created when you notice and connect the unlikely.
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sel f-di r ected l ea r ni ng Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do. - Erica McWilliams This comes about through experience and just in time learning. Self-directed learners are life-long learners. Their drive comes through listening to the curiosities from within. Their drive to dream, connect, and do is second nature. Educational delivery systems will recognizethe identity of the student making the request and will coordinate with other online applications (which may include commercial brokers, open resource repositories, or additional student records) to facilitate the student’s learning activity. -Stephen Downes from 2008
pr escr i bed l ea r ni ng The issue is with publicly prescribed learning... not with getting better at doing publicly prescribed learning. - Ivan Illich To date, much of our attention, even in the field of online learning, has been focused on a system of learning centered on the class or cohort: groups of students studying thesame curriculum pace through the same set of learning activities. (Fenning, 2004) We continueto organize classes in grades, sorted, especially in the earlier years, by age. Time continues to bethe dominant metaphor for units of learning, and learning continues to be constrained by time. As it was ten years ago, the model is that of a group of people starting at the same time, studying thesame materials at the same pace, and ending at the same time. - Stephen Downes
Mary Catherine Bateson on chocolate milk
encour aging selfdir ected lear ning w ithin public ed - or open sour ce The environment that they happen to bein, whether it be a productivity tool, hobbyist web page, or online game, constitutes (at that time) the personal learning environment. Resources from across the internet are accessed from that environment: resources that conform to the student’s needs and interests, that have been in some way pre-selected or favorably filtered, and that may have been created by production studios, teachers, other students, or thestudent him or herself. Content – interaction, media, data – flows back and forth between the learning environment and the external resources, held together by the single identity being employed by the learner in this context. . -Stephen Downes
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unschool i ng/deschool i ng Very generally speaking, homeschooling is about taking the curriculum home, as a means to do it more efficiently and perhaps more humanely. In other words, doing publicly prescribed learning in the comfort of your home. Unschooling or deschooling calls into question publicly prescribed learning itself. It is generally founded on the belief that learning is natural and that following the curiosity within each person attains a higher quality of life because it values/ fosters the genius/ gift within each person. Life at home and in the community, simply living, is learning. Deschooling perpetuates self-directed learning. Thepersonal learning environment is more of a conferencing tool than it is a content tool. The focus of a personal learning environment is more on creation and communication than it is consumption and completion. Stephen Downes
Learning is the fundamental pattern of human adaptation, but mostly it occurs before Let’s define or after or in the ourselves interstices of schooling. around Preoccupied with enquiries: in schooling, most other words, research on human by what we learning is focused on are curious learning that depends about, on teaching or is completed in a specified rather than context rather than on what we are the learning that takes authorities place spontaneously on. because it fits directly http:/ / dougald.posterous.com/ the-university-project-five-elements into life. - Mary Catherin Bateson
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the ba si cs The most common question we get is “ What about the basics?” Find a great answer to that on the site of the Brooklyn Free School. The answer is a question... “ What are the basics?” Perhaps that’s what we need to redefine per an individual, per their community. And if they are really basic, can we not trust them to show up? Shouldn’t basics be used and be useful? For those worried about basics that might not show up, these can be strewn, offered, and exposed. But our urge to mandate perceived basics, most often cripples and compromises the learner.
On the other hand, and strikingly more of a risk, yet more overlooked, denied, or accepted, too many people aren’t getting what we think are the basics now. They may be playing the school game so well that it appears they are, but legitimately getting the basics has been proven time and again to be false when they enter the job force or arrive at the university campus, and are unable to perform expected basics. Kids in the lab are thinking that as much as 75% of kids either cheat or cram the day before a test, so that a week later, they don’t remember. Even by their own measures and prescribed basics, test scores continually reveal a great disconnect. ie: It’s hard to go through a day of real life without engaging in mathematical thinking. School math, however, per the common core standards, isn’t necessarily practical, useful, or basic. Have you rationalized a denominator or conjugated an imaginary number lately? And if you have, how common do you think that is?
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From Mary Catherine Bateson’s Peripheral Visions: One conspicuous strand of contemporary debate attempts to inventory what every member of society needs to know, whether in curricula and proposed standard examinations in such more fanciful forms as E.D. Hirsch, JR.'s cultural literacy, or in so-called canon. No one, it might be argued, is a full participant in American society who is not numerate and literate in English does not know enough of the rules of baseball and civics to take sides, and so on and so forth perhaps at very great length. Depending on how we define full participant, it may beessential to have read Melville or to understand the theory of relativity. It may also be necessary to know how to program a VCRor how to fill out an application for food stamps. No one, it might be argued is a full participant in American society who does not have some basic knowledge of histories and folkways of the diverse groups that compose that society. Some knowledge of Buddhism and someof Vodun. But a r e ther e a ny competent pa r ti ci pa nts i n Amer i ca n soci ety? Young peoplemust be prepared to feel like newly arrived immigrants through much of their lives. They need to know how to observe, how to learn, how to adapt, how to draw on other people's expertise. How to improvise and cope with only partial knowledge and how to imagine alternatives.
We’re missing opportunities and brilliant minds because in our concern for covering the basics, we have become so bogged down in non-essentials to a person. And as a result, many of us have become mindless to more critical, yet natural, thinking. What we call the basics today, what we measure and label and credit, are no longer boding us well. Major universities, CEO’s, NASA, …are seeking out self-directed learners. Theproducts of our conversations areas concrete as test scores and grades. (Ryan, 2007) But, as theresult of a complex and interactive process, they are much more complex, allowing not only for the measurement of learning, but also for the recognition of learning. As it becomes easier to simply see what a student can accomplish, the idea of a coarse-grained proxy, such as grades, will fade to the background. Earning a degree will, in such a world, resemble less a series of tests and hurdles, and will cometo resemble more a process of making a name for oneself in a community. The recommendation of one person by another as a peer will, in the end, become the standard of educational value, not the grade or degree. - Downes
more here in options We’re making too many decisions based on too little information. - Anya Kamenetz
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equi ty Equity doesn’t mean equal. Equity involves personalization. It begs choice. It allows for redefinition of success per individual, per community. The achievement gap is a misnomer when we prescribe what the gap is about. None of the data we’ve been gathering, and spending most of our time, energy, money, and people on, has a statistically sound basis. Everything is variable. Everything is debatable. ie: PISA, the test most often referred to when comparing countries, has it’s main focus on math. Math, many say, is more universal because there are relatively few barriers due to language. Yet, the math on these tests are more likened to school math, than mathematical thinking. This can translate to a competition between countries on a topic that is very restrictive and not beneficial to most people. We’re suggesting a more equitable means to monitor growth, if you must. We’re suggesting we model more of a self-directed feedback loop, comparing personal bests.
Equity will come when we free people of a predetermined outcome. Equity will come when we offer resources per choice and facilitate self-directed learning. Equity fades the more we focus on a means to improve standardization. ie: We realize many more resources if we allow people to look at and use what they have. Many people have and prefer cell phone use, so why insist everyone have an ipad. Save the money for the few that don’t have anything, but again, let them choose their means of access. We’re thinking a good start for choice of connection or access involves laptops, phones, bikes, bus passes…
If one day they were to seek equal work rather than equal pay - equal inputs rather than equal outputs they could be thepivot of social reconstruction. Growth (of gaps of inequity) would stop if women obtained equally creative work for all, instead of demanding equal rights over the gigantic and expanding tools now appropriated by men. When maddening behavior becomes he standard of a society, people learn to compete for theright to engage in it. envy blinds people and makes them compete for addiction. - Ivan Illich
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art
swi mmi ng i n the compr omi se Perfection in making is an art. Perfection in acting is a virtue. Ivan Illich
Trying to get away from acting, being people that we aren’t for whatever reasons, and instead, doing what matters most to us. Art is that interesting piece inside each one of us. It’s that thing you can’t not do. In providing spaces to be, we allow people to find, grow, and create their art. If people are doing, making, and being their art, they become indispensable, rather than simply virtuous, or bored or delinquent or depressed. We get so worried about, and expended in, a means to improve or to prove. If we focus on authentic art, as opposed to prescribed learning, the proving will not longer be an issue. We’ll wonder what all the fuss was. The kids already wonder. The art, the sharing of that art, because you can’t not, is its own reward.
Schools today are filled with people, lovely people. People that have no ill intentions. People doing their best to make things, to make life, better. However, most people are bound by policy. The policies the institution of school has birthed and bred, now hold many captive. The following speaks of teacher and student. We’re thinking it addresses a captivity most all of us are in or have been in, teacher, parent, admin, etc. This is us, each one of us, swimming in the compromise: Defining children as full-time pupils permits the teacher to exercisea kind of power over their persons which is much less limited by constitutional restrictions than the over wielded by the guardians of other social enclaves. Their chronological age disqualifies children from safeguards which are routine for adults in a modern asylum - madhouse monastery or jail. Classroom attendance removes children (teachers/ admin) from the everyday world of Western culture and plunges them into an environment far moreprimitive, magical, and deadly serious. School could not create such and enclavewithin which therules of ordinary reality are suspended, unless it physically incarcerated the young during many successiveyears on sacred territory. The attendance rule makes it possiblefor the schoolroom to serve as a magic womb, from which the child is delivered periodically at the school day’s and school year’s completion until he is finally expelled into adult life. We arerather concerned to call attention to the fact that the ceremonial or ritual of schooling itself constitutes such a hidden curriculum. Even the best of teachers cannot entirely protect his pupils from it. Inevitably, this hidden curriculum of schooling adds prejudice and guilt to thediscrimination which a society practices against some for its members and compounds the privilege of others with a new title to condescend to the majority. Just as inevitably, this hidden curriculum serves as a ritual of initiation into a growth-oriented consumer society for rich and poor alike. - Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society
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for more on calling into question how we spend the hours of our day: redefining success as slidedeck as ebook
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click to hear Adam recite.. swimming in compromise
tech vs web We’re seeing quite a difference here. We see the web as connections. Connection to information and to people. These connections have really changed considerably in the last 3-5 years. We believe this change is why we are able to boldly redefine school. We believe this newly amplified access to people and info is the reason we’re able to actuate ideas and theories toward self-directed learning that have been addressed and desired for hundreds of years. These connections are allowing us to differentiate to infinity in public ed. We see tech as tools. We’re suggesting less of a focus on the tech as tool, and more focus on the web as connections. If people geek out on tech, that is fine, that is great, we need those people. We’re suggesting that a focus on the tech can cause us to get sidetracked into thinking it’s the ticket to change, ie: if we all have the same tools, or learn and use them in the same way. Great insight here in Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or Be Programmed:
detox Detox is simply what we are calling a process of learning to learn. The words we are using to pen detox are be, notice, dream, connect, do. We’re wondering if it might help many of us get back to our propensity toward curiosity. We’re wondering if it might help those of us who have become addicted to routine, to directions, to prescriptions to regain, unleash, strengthen, and awaken our natural mindfulness toward imagination and play. (more about detox in ch. 1)
modeling detox This video starts out explaining the research, explaining/ modeling detox starts about 4:40.
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the i nnova ti on l a b Year one, (2010-2011), the lab was a physical space where kids could go to learn per passion. We are hoping that in year 2, people will see that rather than a physical space, they themselves are the innovation lab, to whatever degree they choose. With this mindset dispersing into the entire district, we envision a your school design it , community as school, at the end of four years. (more on this in chapter 2) A sign of success will be that detox and an Innovation Lab will no longer be needed. Spaces of permission to be. read more about a district vision here: connect ed, and the lab here: doc, slidedeck, ebook
the be you house Year two, (2011-2012), the house is a physical space mimicking the fluidity, transparency, malleability and allure of the web. (Is the web getting us back to a more humane state perhaps, reminding us what it’s like to be alive?) A space of permission to be. A space to jump start curiosity, imagination and play, to enliven selfdirected learning. A space encouraging mindfulness. A space modeling no child left behind (NCLB) redefined: a safe space of resources, including an alongside mentor. A space within the city, using the city as floorplan, prototyping year 4’s vision. An eclectic space, like the web. A physical space to prototype and model what a city could be like, what a nation or a globe could be like, when virtual and reality play together for the good of people.
people in the house: Peter, be you house post Video tours of the house: begin being, house happenings
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Linda posts on the house googleplex; google 20%space/ modeling for everyone in the district books: Kevin Kelly, What Tech Wants; Peter Hawken, Blessed Unrest; Lisa Gansky, The Mesh; Seth Godin, We Are All Weird
table of contents:
live doc of table of contents
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essence: We ar e Pando: Rhizomatic L ear ning M ar y Ann Reilly It is an unbearably hot day as my husband, son and I slowly motor home to New Jersey from Washington D.C. From the back of the car I can hear my son talking and I turn and see him hunkered down in the seat, wearing headphones and holding his phone in one hand. Who are you talking to? Tom. Tom? Yeah, Tom from London. ‘Tom from London’ is a 13-year old who plays Minecraft on my 12year-old son's server. He and a dozen boys, ranging from 9- to 15years-old from North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, are avid Minecraft players on the server.
Their play represents a contrasting way to think about learning from what is offered as usual fare at schools. James Gee and Elizabeth Hayes (2011) might classify the boys’ play as an example of a passionate affinity space where “ people organize themselves in the real world and/ or via the Internet (or a virtual world) to learn something connected to a shared endeavor, interest, or passion” (p. 69). I think of passionate affinity spaces as rhizomatic and want to suggest that such learning offers us an alternative to schooling. A rhizome, the horizontal stem of a plant, usually found underground, sends out roots and shoots, each of which can be self-sustaining.
Margie Driscoll (2004) defines rhizome as: a tangle of tubers with no apparent beginning or end. It constantly changes shape, and every point in it appears to be connected with every other point (p. 389).
r hizome
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Now think about the boys and their play. They hail from across the globe and horizontally connect with one another in this passionate affinity space where they learn deeply. For more than a decade, I have been considering how the rhizome might function as metaphor and model for education. The traditional view of education situates schooling as a function of transference of expert-determined content from teacher to student. U.S. school systems tend to rely on hierarchy as the privileged school organization method used to distribute content and pedagogical practices, most often in the form of sanctioned programs developed by external experts and then purchased for teachers who are told to transfer the content to students. In contrast a rhizomatic learning community is a fluid collective where participants dwell in the middle of things and where learning emerges informed by a blend of explicit and tacit knowledge. In conceiving of rhizomatic learning, it helps to think of learners resembling a sea of "middles,” who are continuously formed and reformed based on alliances determined by needs, interests, directions, questions, redirections, assessments, and commitments. Unlike the design of many traditional schools, a rhizomatic learning space is based on joining and rejoining.
In rhizomatic learning, thinking resembles the tangle of roots and shoots, both broken and whole. Problem framing and decision-making rest with all learners. Again, Driscoll’s description of rhizomatic learning is important. She writes: Break the rhizome anywhere and the only effect is that new connections will be grown. The rhizome models the unlimited potential for knowledge construction, because it has no fixed points…and no particular organization (p. 389).
Historically, when confronted with student achievement concerns, there has been a tendency to tighten control in an effort to increase learning largely because what has counted as knowing has been limited to a perceived ‘set’ body of content. Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011) describe this learning : …as a series of steps to bemastered, as if students were being taught how to operate a machineor even, in some cases, as if the students themselves were machines being programmed to accomplish tasks. Theultimate endpoint of a mechanistic perspective is efficiency: thegoal is to learn as much as you can, as fast as you can (Thomas & Brown, Location 327 of 2399).
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In this mistaken schema, knowledge has been consistently situated as stable—as that which can be listed in a set of standards and given to teachers to transfer. But we know that knowledge is not stable (Schon, 1983; Thomas & Brown, 2011). Thomas and Brown state, "[m]aking knowledge stable in a changing world is an unwinnable game” (Location 503 of 2399). Knowledge actually has never been stable, but given the disruptive power of the Internet, what counts as knowledge is a shifting matter that is more easily recognized, especially by those holding power whose concept of knowing in the past was often situated as truth. One only has to think of the Great Chain of Being to understand how the sanctity of knowing was often a matter of power. In contrast to such certainty, Thomas and Brown posit that there is a new culture of learning informed by a massive information network that provides almost unlimited access and resources to learn about anything…[and] a bounded and structured environment that allows for unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within theseboundaries (Location 63 of 2399).
This new culture of learning is inherently rhizomatic as it orients itself horizontally, not vertically, requiring us to value tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge--knowing more than one can tell--requires a decidedly different type of learning environment than what is currently favored at school where knowledge transfer is the privileged method. Tacit knowledge is not acquired from other; it requires learning through mind, body and senses and is facilitated by experimentation and inquiry. For gamers, like my son, experimentation and inquiry are the methods most often employed when solving design and gamebased problems. For the last several months I have been researching the learning that takes place inside my son’s Minecraft play with his on-line friends. Five dominant learning trends have emerged out of this rhizomatic environment and one societal insight.
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1. Play matters and is a means by which learners come to know their relationship to others. The learning that happens between and among the boys is play-based and informed by their interest in experimenting and imagining. For example, my son developed a vending machine in Minecraft. Originally the buyer would place a coin in the machine and would receive however many items as s/ he wanted. This proved to be a bit impractical and over time rather dull and with the help of another player, my son modified the idea so that one coin would get a player one item. This idea was later modified again so that the player would also get his coin returned along with the item. To make these alterations required changing the wiring so that the machine reset after the item was delivered and that the delivery of the new item and the return of the coin were synchronized. Making these changes happen required playfulness, not linearity. As my son explained, “ I had to fool around a bit and test out ways to make the pressure plate work. I couldn’t see how it would be possible.” When I asked him why he would return the coin to the player, he said that he didn’t want to exclude anyone from playing. Whereas everyone on the server had some coin they could use, not all had the same. “ I wanted them to make a commitment by playing a coin, but I didn’t want to take their coins. We’re
2. Sustained conversation represents the dominant method for inquiry and is suggestive of the boys’ emerging sense of agency. My son engages in sustained conversations via Skype with the other players in order to brainstorm, innovate, find multiple solutions, complete tasks, hypothesize, and engage in play. Talk is important and in the horizontal world of game playing, it is not limited to or controlled by a teacher. John Goodlad (2004) reported in his research about schools that teachers “ outtalked the entire class of students three to one” (p. 229). Central to these learners’ Minecraft play is the sense of agency they possess. Thomas and Brown (2011) explain, "unlike traditional notions of learning which position the learner as a passive agent of reception, the aporia/ epiphany structure of play makes the player's agency central to the learning process. How one arrives at the epiphany is always a matter of the tacit. The ability to organize, connect, and make sense of things is a skill characteristic of a deep engagement with the tacit and the process of indwelling" (Location 1381 of 2399).
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3. The players participate in collaborative knowledge-making (Cormier, 2008) in which they share screens, work in tandem, continue and revise one another’s tentative ideas in an effort to solve design problems and complete tasks. Engaging in trial and error, experimenting, making use of on-line and off-line resources, and altering established models are some of the ways the boys accomplish game-based tasks. Interestingly when I ask my son how something in the game came to be he is unable to attribute it to a single player. The knowledge produced does not belong to one person, but rather is composed collectively. Dave Cormier (2008) explains, "rhizomatic model of learning…is not driven by predetermined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process" (np).
4. These rhizomatic learning spaces the boys inhabit are inherently native to their own ground even as they involve learners from across vast geographic spaces. Membership in the game shifts and changes across time and expertise is not determined by social markers such as age, race, or credentials—although gender does seem to be a condition presently. As learners work alone, in pairs, small groups, and large collectives--new alliances form and break. The boys’ game playing represents a rhizomatic map; an open possibility that is: “ detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification. It can be torn, reversed, adapted, to any kind of mounting, reworked by an individual, group, or social formation” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2002, p.12).
5. The players choose to participate in hard work each and every day. They set tasks to be completed and establish timelines to do so. As Jane McGonigal (2011) reports: “ Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves” (p. ). Choice matters and learning is fun, although sadly most of the boys do not seem to characterize their play in the games as learning. The exception to this is the boy from Canada. 6. Game play leads to developing novel products in the virtual world that could have implications in the actual world. For example, a few months after my son viewed images I had made in Camden, NJ of partially demolished and boarded buildings, he showed me a self-repairing bridge and building he had designed in Minecraft. He suggested that if infrastructures such as buildings and bridges could selfrepair, then people living in urban areas where poverty and societal neglect have dominated the landscape would be able to live in better conditions.
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When I ask my son what he has been learning he says he’s learned how to work with others; how to search, locate, and evaluate information; how to run an effective server and negotiate a contract with a company to host the server; how to barter services in exchange for money to pay for the server; how to explain an installation process of mods to others; how to create a mod; how to anticipate a partner’s play in a game; how to build a structure with someone not in the same room; how to imagine a place and build it; how to give and take ideas; how to make mistakes in order to progress in a game; how to build a design based on someone’s idea; how to script; how to model; how to resolve social problems when they arise; how to use resources, online and offline, to guide building; how to make games inside of games; how to make films and upload them to YouTube; and how to narrow the focus of a film. During this learning, the boys are also learning about one another: siblings, where they live, currency, geography, food, politics, and all things Minecraft. My son is adamant that this playing is not learning. It's not like school, he tells me repeatedly. Sadly, I think he's right.
Applying Rhizomatic Sensibilities t o ‘L ear ner ’ D esign So, if rhizomatic learning such as my son experiences in his game-playing is not like school, how do we begin to make the necessary changes so that children choose to work hard and learn deeply? Continuing the current push by federal and state governments for increased school standardization is not an answer. An important shift needs to occur in order for the tight grip of school standardization to be loosened. Thomas and Brown (2011) identify three critical dimensions of learning: knowing, making, and playing. Such learning is antithetical to standardization. We need alternatives to the traditional method of industrial schooling. As we begin to name alternative learning experiences, such as passionate affinity spaces, as viable learning-the idea of school as the de facto response to the question--“ How do we educate children?” --will be challenged. Certainly, there have been alternatives to traditional school raised and offered in the past. What makes these times different is that in the past, it was difficult, if not improbable, to connect innovators who were challenging the status quo of schooling. That is not the case today. Mass can be built by connecting those of us offering alternatives. Connecting with one another is rhizomatic.
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So it is not a single reform method that is being offered. We have been too long trying to find a single reform. Rather, to disrupt the established power of schooling requires a long tail revolution. Chris Anderson explains: The theory of theLong Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. It's not about offering the reform answer, but rather remaining in the middle where connections can be made and remade. It's about each of us doing great work, not work that needs to be replicated, but rather work that is unique, native to its own ground. The challenge is to know we are there and to connect our work. To connect great work is an antidote to mass standardization. Leveraging social media to share stories and work, to try on tentative ideas, and to establish patterns are all critical. Connecting and showcasing the small triumphs that alone may feel insubstantial, yet together represents a mass. This is the work before each of us. On my own, I am one person. Alongside you, I am Pando*, a rhizomatic triumph.
Works Cited:
Anderson, Chris. (2004). The theory of the long tail. Retrieved on July 27, 2011 from: http:/ / www.squidoo.com/ longtail . Cormier, Dave. (2008). “ Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum.” Retrieved on 2.28.11 from http:/ / davecormier.com/ edblog/ 2008/ 06/ 03/ rhizomat . Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix. (2002). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum. Driscoll, Marcy P. (2004). Psychology of Learning and Instruction, 3rd Edition. Allyn & Bacon. Goodlad, John. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill. McGonigal, Jane. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. New York: Penguin Press. Schön, Donald. (1983). The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Thomas, Doug & John Seely Brown. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Create Space: Kindle.
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*Pando: Also known as the Trembling Giant, Pando is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen located in Utah. Each genetically-identical individual tree (or “ stem” ) is connected by a single root system. Spreading across more than 100 acres, Pando is believed to be over 80,000 years old and collectively weighs over 6,600 tons, making it the heaviest organism on the planet, as well as one of the oldest." from Leaf and Limb Tree Service blog
ch. 1 detox (rhizomatic learning)
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Linda and Gage encourage each other to find new [a ways q u itoenotice, t r edream, v o l uconnect, t i o n]do, …and eat. These spaces of permission allow for more natural connections. We are working toward families tak ing back time to grow from each other.
via young people: Be: Be yourself. Find yourself. Not what others want. Your true you. Notice: Start noticing things, notice things that seem impossible. Notice what you normally don’t like in your life. Try to go to the things that everyone says not to. Dream: Dream big. You should never stop dreaming. When you dream big you’re going to do big things. Dreaming what everyone told you you couldn’t do. The sky is the limit. Connect: Connect with people. We need each other, so it helps everyone. Connecting with ones you are passionate about but also the ones right next to you that you don’t notice. Do: The doing, just start. Just go out and do things. Doing your own passion, your potential is untouchable. via par ents: Be: Who is your child? Who is your child when nobody is telling her what she should be doing? Who is your child after the boredom has been exhausted? Notice: To what kinds of things, to what experiences is your child attracted? What kinds of things are noticed when space is given to notice? Dream: When left to her own devices, to what place does her mind travel? Is she dreaming of singing? Dancing? Gardening? Baking cookies? Riding on the space shuttle? Connect: Facilitate times for her to connect with others who dream of singing. Others who dream of dancing. Or gardening. Bake cookies with her if that's her dream. Bring space to her in whatever way within your means. [a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n] Do: Give her the tools to sing, dance, garden, bake, and travel to the moon. Give her the space to do those things.
Simon Sinek’s TED talk about the importance of why, had us initially curious. Why why first? How seemed awfully huge. As did what. The more we dabbled with it, the stronger why became. We, the world, have been quite obsessed with how school is done as seen by years of study of pedagogy. Even our own research to redefine school, intensified 3 years ago, focused on the answer to how because of our presupposed what. What we’ve come to find, even from our small sample of the world, is that everyone learns differently. Nothing is for everyone in the how. Not very many challenge that these days. In fact most of our moneys and energies and resources go toward differentiation of the how. How we get those core standards into each child. What if we’re focusing on a how to a wrong what, because we haven’t taken the energy, strength, time, to ask a more critical question, why. For a very long time now we have presupposed a what. And for quite a long spell, that worked for us. Questioning the what today however, creates a new game. If we desire to facilitate school as life, we need to now personalize to the why. The why determines the what. Which determines the how. [a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n] There is no standard why. There is no normal. [for more on normality take a listen to: normal – why & what, or read Seth Godin’s We Are All Weird
We believe that the most valuable resources on this earth are the people. We believe many people are not living their potential. In order to help awaken indispensable people, we have crafted a working and experimental process of lear ning to lear n. The words aren’t magic, people are modeling this everywhere. Either on purpose with some similar process, or naturally. The process of learning is natural, at least for a 4-5 year old, before they get inundated with the directives within a school district, with prescribed learning. D etox, what we have penned this process, is a means to get back to that natural state of curiosity, where life becomes school, or where we become a deschooled society. We learn as we live. The basics as defined by school is a very limited and restrictive set of skills. The word basic is often referred to as essential. Essential translates to absolutely necessary or extremely important. This mindset calls our publicly prescribe school basics into question. If we deem something as basic should bywords, it’s nature show up as live,connect, ... no? Our vision for theseitparticular be, notice, drwe eam, do, is a means to funnel, channel, and focus, in order to gather evidence that perhaps this detox process can facilitate and heal the masses who have lost their propensity to be self-directed learners. We envision the documentation we are gathering from experimenting with detox has the potential to eradicate the standardization we perpetuate in public education. Focus on a process that is fixed, the process of learning to learn, rather than content, which society has for quite some time, consecrated as fixed. We now have means (connections to [a q u i ebeen t rafforded, e v o l via u tthe i oweb), n] and people and information and spaces that we’ve never before the acknowledgement that we have means, to move beyond a fixed content. ie: Information was doubling every two years in 2006, it was doubling every three days in 2010.
By finding creative ways to share or expose your tacit k now ledge, your thought process, your code, what you are actually doing, you open yourself up to learning, and you leave trinkets of adjacent possibilities. You help create a very robust community of learning. As you expose and share that online, you build the resume other people, like colleges or businesses, will be using, with or without your permission, to find out how legitimate you are. ie: The resume they get when they google you or they talk to the people who are connected to you. We’re experimenting with where a person’s exposure to this process [detox] might lead. We are documenting evidence in several ways. From our experience over the last three years, we believe we can gather enough evidence to show that, no matter what subject, topic, or project, a learner chooses to spend time on, this process of learning is strengthened, actually even more so the more the learner flits around. Learning becomes second nature. We believe a self-directed learner is a life-long learner, someone who knows what to do when they don’t know what to do. A big part of that, of learning, comes from selfreflection, which is really what detox and detox documentation will encourage and facilitate. With precisely that empowerment, people owning their learning, we believe education will be the vehicle to social change. for more info/ insight on the why of detox, take a listen to this video: or a look at this slidedeck: or this ebook: or read more here. for more insight on why now take a look at grab your x-d glasses
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books: deschooling society, linchpin, element, talent code, the meaning of it all, the significance of life, how we think, tools of conviviality, we are all weird
Again, the words are not magical: be, notice, dr eam, connect, do, but they have been diligently sought after and crafted in order to capture a natural process of learning if the learner is provided mental and physical spaces of permission to be. Wrapping that process in user-friendly verbiage, we hope to create as much of a legitimate means to experiment and document how people experience this process. Hoping that documentation and mapping of this process in learners provides 1) I nsight fr om r eflection for the learner in order for him/ her to become a more self-directed, life-long learner, creating legit, ongoing, and internal feedback loops and reflection. 2) pay it for w ar d shar ing - an insight repository for others seeking to be self-directed learners. ie: In our 600+ video repository alone, you could search: tsdil, notice, in order to explore the art of noticing. Or, you could pull up a certain topic to see how others connected to people and info on that topic. 3) a means to monitor gr ow th in public education, rather than our current means, standardized testing of a very restricted, and today, very prohibitinga dn limiting, content. This growth is as compared to self rather than others or some standard.
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[Evidences from some sort of detox booth could be captured, Deb Roy style, if desired, and used by teachers, facilitators, admin, district, state, colleges, businesses.. as a means of evaluating/ determining anyone’s growth, ie: what are you learning, are you becoming a better self-directing, life long learner.] for more, see the slidedeck or ebook on doing detox, the what.
A brief description of each of the five words or elements:
be. Rid your mind of chatter that has previously determined a perceived self. For some, for most even, this element of detox could take quite a while. We have become so used to pleasing others, to listening to other voices.
While it’s difficult for some to be alone, many need space to listen from within. Spaces of permission - spaces of solitude - these are parts of the culture or respect we are creating and experimenting with. It’s not about prescribing you, it’s about becoming you and about unveiling you. Its’ about asking over and over, ..what is real? begin being.
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for more on be books: buccaneer scholar, significance of life, tools of conviviatlity, mindfulness, we are all weird, linchpin
notice. Step out of the routine. Notice the unlikely. Ellen Langer writes in Mindfulness, McClain writes in At Work with Thomas Edison, and Colin Ward writes in The Child in the City, how focus on outcomes can lead to mindlessness. Many of us today are mindless. We don’t wander. We don’t embrace failure as a means to notice and learn more. We’re fearful of the unplanned, yet the unplanned, the unlikely, affords us a space to make decisions based on the newness of the moment. Mindfulness alone could change the world. for more on notice books: mindfulness, rework
dream. Imagine yourself doing, solving, becoming, creating, and making. Roger Martin encourages us in The Design of Business to question everything respectfully. Too often we quit or fold because of something as simple as the raising of an eyebrow. We need to boldly and gracefully confront reliability-thinking of the corporate world and of our traditions. We need to wonder and ponder where the greater risks lie. Too often we face a greater risk in playing it safe. for more on dream books: linchpin, art of possibility, war of art, democratic education, we are all weird
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connect. Today you really can choose what, when, where, how and with whom you want to connect. And we can start with the personalized framework of why. That choice has the potential of ultimate empowerment. That choice facilitates and enlivens a person’s curiosity, getting at a deep intellectual learning. for more on connect books: talent code, power of pull, reality is broken, diy u, diy college credentials
do. No really. Just do it. The criteria youth have determined for doing: does it matter? and is it awesome? Both beg to whom, which is exactly the mindset we believe is vital to this paradigm shift. We can now facilitate personalized definitions of success in public ed. Youth’s propensity, contrary to the belief of some, contrary to perceived activity or inactivity, is not toward laziness. Youth crave hard work. A great question for a healthy self-perpetuated feedback loop, am I doing this to finish or am I doing this to do, to be, or to make? Remaining mindful of that mindset could set you free to experience the richest of lives. Do what you can’t not do. for more on do books: at work with thomas edison, reality is broken, rework, the war of art, linchpin
[a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n] for more info/ insight on the what of detox, take a listen to this video, or a look at this slidedeck, or read more here. a visual that might help here, or tinker with the process here. books: bach, mindfulness, Kate Fridkis, esp on be - maybe list specific books under each element of detox
This year, we’re front ending a little more with multiple explanations of detox, per student suggestion. We’re crafting this book, we’re designing a physical space to model it (the be you house), and we’re encouraging more, even those not in need of much detox, to help log and reflect on their experiences with detox. More specifically, we are crafting a detox booth, where experimenters will enter at least once a week to be recorded sharing how they experienced being, what they noticed that week, what they dreamed or imagined, who, what, how and where they connected, and what they did. From those recordings we hope to determine some useful means to monitor or evidence growth. To show if this process, detox, indeed does facilitate learners to become more self-directed and life-long learners. We’re hoping some sort of activity systems mapping will grow out of varied compilations of our video logging, similar to Deb Roy’s worm mappings in his TED talk, The Birth of a Word. Roy was able to track latitudinal and longitudinal linguistic patterns asu toiwhen hist son [a q e t and r ewhere vol u i owas n] learning. We hope to trace the patterns students undergo while learning to learn, via word recognition. And through time lapsing tech allows, show obvious growth as a self-directed learner over a course of time vs what content a person knows at a point in time.
The videos themselves could become powerful insight for self-directed feedback loops. Watching and listening to yourself is a great means for reflection, rethinking, reworking. To a person, to a community, we believe this to be a more humane monitor of growth, than a standard measurement of prescribed content. Measuring against others supposes we are all the same, and thus reduces us to all the same, at best. Multi-faceted circumstances will always create statistically unsound testing fields for prescribed norms. Measures against others rather than against self can lead to artificial as well as detrimental results.
I’m guessing hand held video cameras came out in the mid 70’s. At least that is when they made a huge impact on my life. Having been a competitive swimmer for many years, nothing changed my stroke as much as watching videos my coach took of me. He could tell me till he was blue in the face what I needed to change or fix. [aButq itu wasn’t i e t until r e vI saw o l for u tmyself i o n]what I was doing, what I wasn’t doing, that I was able to improve. Self reflection and observation is key to learning and growing. Watching yourself self-reflect could be huge.
once a ga i n... why documenta ti on of detox This may be redundant for some, but it’s at the heart of our mission for the next year. We feel especially curious and responsible to gather and document people’s experiences with detox. We believe this will eradicate standardization (Carnegie unit, seat time, etc) in public ed, and free up time, money, and people to do, make, and be things that matter. We’re thankful for what we are able to do in our district and we know of others enjoying some of the same freedoms. However, rather than just becoming self-directed in our own little pools, our desire is that people anywhere can be immersed in and have such freedoms. We’re thinking two key elements of detox give great potential. One is that it models the process of learning to learn. This can be seen as an overarching curriculum, transcending and bringing together all said curricula. The other, is that its documentation is a means to monitor personal growth rather than a comparison to others or to a prescribed and fixed standard. Focus on a more natural, holistic, and humane feedback loop, modeling selfreflection. Add technology and now this data can be morphed for any person and/ or purpose (again, Deb Roy style, ie: in the same way Deb Roy accomplished this for mapping linguistic processes, we aim to map learning processes). It certainly seems to be a clearer window into who a person is, rather than what a person claims to know.
[a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n]
For many years, people like Ivan Illich have written and talked about the importance of nonprescriptive learning. They were yearning for the day that learning would be owned by the learner. Today, there are pockets of innovation everywhere, but without equitable access. Our goal, our dream, our vision, is to unleash all learners, to change how we spend the 7 hours a day we currently call public ed. This is a multi-player game. It is bigger than any of us. Today, we have the means to connect and play this game out. Today, we have the means to share one voice, in the midst of chaos, an infinite variety of possibilities. Today, this can turn on a dime. People will suddenly find obvious what is now evident to only a few: that the organization of the entire economy toward the “better” life has become themajor enemy of the good life. Like other widely shared insights, this one will havethe potential of turning public imagination insideout. - Illich
Let’s unite in voice and purpose, awakening indispensable people. We’re calling out for others, nationwide, and globally, who wish to share in this temporary data collection of sorts. for more info/ insight on the what of detox, take a listen to these videos: How we’re doing detox, or read this ebook, or a look at this slidedeck, or read more here George Siemens, connectivism books: the war of art, the design of business, the blue sweater, rework, what tech wants, diy u, democratic education, big picture, new culture of learning, blessed unrest
Affecting the research
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another work in progress: options - via Anya Kamenetz (DIY U & DIY college credential), too many career based decisions are being made on too little information books: deschooling society, at work with thomas edison,
summing it up for ch 1:
detox (rhizomatic learning): A temporary means to: 1. get people back to a natural state of learning, being, and doing. The wonder and intellectual curiosities most of us had at least until the age of 4 or 5. 2. come together as a people to eradicate the standardization of public ed as we know it.
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ch. 2 city as floorplan (rhizomatic spaces)
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Peter and monika are working on ways to[a create q uand i eshare t r more e v ospaces l u t ofi o n] permission to be. Learning from failure, learning from transparency. L oving people enough to dream big.
via young people:
I can go anywhere that I’m living and get help. The highschool, the house, soccer field. The whole community together, helping each other. It’s all connected. via par ents:
It was Toni Morrison who said, "You really need the whole village [to raise a child]." Why should a child learn about life from books, stuck behind a desk, when life is out there, waiting to be lived? Let us make this a community where the love of learning is shared by all, everywhere. A community of trust and unlimited learning opportunity.
[a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n]
How do we engender spaces where joy is more important, more salient than core content standards and an endless sea of standardized tests and the accompanying narrow pedagogy that gets enacted in order for students to get ready for such minutia? - Mary Ann Reilly’s post
The end of the four year plan has community as school, with the entire city as the floorplan. The high school buildings become resource centers and meet up spaces. There is a city-wide art hall and engineering hall. The town acts more like a university campus.. where people are walking and biking to and from buildings through the course of a day.
[a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n]
As we offer more options for learning, as we approach differentiation to infinity, we find we don’t need more resources. When we simply start talking to people in our community, we come to find out, the lady down the street has been translating Japanese for years, the man across the street is a lawyer on the board for a homeless safe house, someone else is a local university researcher of the Antarctic ozone layer. We learn to use the resources and expertise already in the community One great advantage to this is that now school becomes life. Learning is considered natural again and life-long learning is embraced. Just in time learning redirects energy, time, space, and most of all people. Who’s together in a room or space becomes a per choice proposition.
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The time, money, and people we currently spend on classroom management and policy is no longer a burden. Rather than continuing to defend a system that is wonderful in its own right, but today, only for a select few, we offer exposure over compulsion. In this book, we are heavy on the options that currently aren’t being offered, but that doesn’t mean we wish what already exists will go away. The focus here is on everyone. The people who love lectures, chemistry, school math,.. they will benefit from this freedom as well. ie: The people gathered with them in their space, will all be there per choice. Once we understand that learning can and should occur outside the classroom, it will become commonplace to see students engaged in learning activities throughout the community. - Downes ebook: http:/ / issuu.com/ monk51295/ docs/ ch_-_city_as_floorplan_for_ebook video: video describing this mesh mentality of space. http:/ / vimeo.com/ 20320782 scale free schools books: big picture, democratic ed, child in the city, the mesh; deschooling society, buccaneer scholar, tools for conviviality
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summing it up for ch 2:
city as floor plan (rhizomatic spaces): A means to finding and utilizing shared spaces, shared people, and shared resources to actualize the potential when we live, learn, and be, with no publicly pr escr ibed agenda.
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ch. 3 interdependency (rhizomatic learning)
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[a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n] qr code to this video
via young people:
We all need to interact with other humans, that’s how we were made. We plan to connect everyone with at least one person. via par ents:
This is a means to ground someone in a safe block. They are connected to someone. Like the buddy system. So in all the chaos of this freedom, they are not lost.
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The term inter dependency came as we were researching laws for homeless teens. While some states allow 14 year-olds to declare independence, often resulting in homelessness, some are trying to restate that to a declaration of interdependence, where each teen is matched up with an adult. If we want to create spaces of per mission, where learning is accomplished through living, we feel interdependency will provide stability in potential, and in fact encouraged, chaos. This connection can provide needed support, safety, accountability. The belief that you are understood by someone is one of the most liberating feelings a person can have, an incredibly vital piece to freeing your mind up to being, to becoming yourself.
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Meeting up with Alex Pappas of Hourschool beta was huge. They’re seeking to match up people to local mentors and teachers. When you arrive at their site, you are simply asked, what do you want to learn? And then they find people within your community that can help you with that topic. We share so many common threads and visions with Alex and Ruby, but the biggest, looking for those mentors in local yet unlikely places. We look forward to experimenting with them, and encourage you to do so as well. This is a great way to model that we don’t need more resources. If you take a look at the community around you, there are incredible mentors and teachers and unlikely topics, in unlikely places. That’s not even tapping into our global and vir tual r esour ces, which are a bit neglected here. We are recovering from a year where we thought virtual was all we needed. What we found was that within the school system, Skype didn’t always work, and sometimes the time zone issues kept us from meet ups we were craving. This was good that virtual didn’t always work. Going global taught us how to tap into our local community. No doubt, global and virtual connections are huge. In fact they are what is making this paradigm shift possible. They are what Illich and Dewey and so many others were hoping and waiting for. Part of the beyond for us is working with innovations such as Radmatter, at www.radmatter.com - their motto, life is rad, make [ait matter. q u i eKatherine t r e v is o working l u t i owith n] some dedicated folks on matching up projects and ideas, with companies that might facilitate and or hire.
This isn’t an either or, but rather, an incredible and. ie: Imagine, an 80 year old, who most likely takes too much medication, his family/ friends rarely visit, so he spends much of his time watching TV. Imagine a 12 year old, who most likely takes too much medication, spends a lot of time playing videos games, yet who dreams of being and doing something similar to what the 80 year old has done and been. Imagine these two connecting per passion, per choice, rather than per kindness. Soon, neither can wait to get up in the morning. And at night, well the 80 year old now has wifi, and is stretching his expertise to no end, from the curiosity and energy flowing over from the 12 year old, and vice versa.
This surpasses the issue of school, of achievement gaps, even of learning. This takes on the matter of what it means to be human and alive. A declaration of interdependence, being known by someone, could be more vital to a person than food, water, or shelter. What might happen if we were to focus on feeding the soul, rather than on our current (often unquestioned) dependencies? [a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n]
More money spent under the control of the health profession means that more people are operationally conditioned into playing the role of the sick, a role they are not allowed to interpret for themselves. Once they accept this role, their most trivial needs can be satisfied only through commodities that are scarce by professional definition. School s tr i ed to extend a r a di ca l monopol y on l ea r ni ng by r edefi ni ng i t a s educa ti on. As long as people accepted the teacher's definition of reality, those who learned outside school were officially stamped "uneducated." Radical monopoly imposes compulsory consumption and thereby restricts personal autonomy. - Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
This is a quiet revolution to overcome a dependency that most of us are hardly aware of. Many of us tend to believe that the internal issues and struggles we face daily are just something we are dealing with because perhaps, we just aren’t normal. That misunderstanding can soothe us into apathy, or it can create a resistance large enough for us to rally about our rights and declare independence. While independence seems a better space than what we may be currently experiencing, a declaration of interdependence can be, not only more liberating, but more meaningful, as it has relationship at its core. video: rhizomatic connections- how we’re showing them in the be you house you gotta believe hourschool
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summing it up for ch. 3:
interdependency (rhizomatic communities and relationships): A means to remain calm, safe, and growing in the chaos. The safety of the buddy system, amped intellectually, relationally, etc by allowing and facilitating non prescribed learning and living. Creating serendipity.
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ch. 4 mentor alongside (rhizomatic expertise)
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Gean and Sierra get together at least once a week to [acreate q u iholistic e t r lip e vbalms, o l uointments. t i o n] Sierra will soon be the youngest yoga instructor in the nation, with plans to build a local food pharmacy as well as a wellness center. Connections are feeding the hunger of her mission.
via young people:
Neither the mentor or the student is greater, they are feeding off of each other. via par ents:
Often I learn more from my child than I can take in, if I’m listening. ie: I asked my two and a half year old what came first, the chicken or the egg. He said, the nest.
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If you are lucky enough to be connected to someone per passion, or be known by some youth, one key element toward facilitating self-directed learning, is to deliberately not teach. We live in a world that is so click for live doc of the be you web used to directions, so used to being told how and what to do, it’s hard for many of us to function on our own. In most learning situations and opportunities, we seek out the perceived expert, sit in their path, and wait to be filled. This mindset disables and disengages the indispensable person from within. This pattern, tradition, training, encourages mindlessness. If the goal is self-directed learning, if the desire is youth who know what to do when they don’t know what to do, if the [athe qu i e t needs r e vtoobe l upositioned, t i o n] aim is for youth to fall in love with learning, then mentor, physically and mentally, alongside. Alongside, doing their own thing, modeling what it is to learn, what it is to be.
U seful i gnor a nce, then, becomes a space of pedagogical possibility rather than a base that needs to be covered. ‘Not knowing’ needs to be put to work without shame or bluster . - Erica McWilliams
Mentors available to the youth, and ready to learn from the youth are most beneficial. The mentor’s mindset should be that of keen interest and inquiry into what is going on in the youth’s head. No really - in the youth’s head, not the mentor’s. As good mentors, wewill listen without an agenda, demonstrating and communicating genuine patienceand caring. We will encourage the expression of ideas, even (and especially) if they are different than our own. Wewill not bealarmed by anything said, but try to honestly understand the underlying sentiment, in order to more fully understand. For an effective mentor, “I don't know” is always an okay answer. “I don't know” is an opportunity to access and use resources together. When we don't know, we brainstorm together with youth. We write down our shared ideas and reflect upon them. We do not develop an inflated view of our roles; there are mentors all around us. The key element is to deliberately not teach, as constant instruction encourages mindlessness. Do not do activities for the youth; encourage independence. Youth need time for self-discovery. Time to be. We must trust that learning will happen. No, we must know that learning is happening. As good mentors, weare available to youth, modeling what it is to learn, what it is to be, doing our own thing, exploring our passion, discovering ourselves. We need to forget the old adage “Do as I say, not as I do!” We simply support, compliment and model positivebehavior. As mentors, we should underscore the importance of learning and working for oneself and one's own self-improvement. The youth should understand that they alone assess their progress, without outside influence. We also need to recognize the effect of inappropriate praise. Praise shackles youth to a course of pleasing others, rather than themselves. - Amy Lewark
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This is why interdependency is so huge, because relationship is so huge. Mentoring alongside can be hard work. Actually it’s very simple, but the system has perpetuated a difficulty from years of practice, years of teaching. Most of us are convinced that learning only comes from teaching. That thinking can create an unhealthy dependency. Dependency on someone else teaching us and/ or someone else praising us. Educators will need to spend less time explaining through instruction and more time in experimental and errorwelcoming modes of engagement. This is supported by findings from neuro-science about the way in which the brain is ‘changed’ (see Zull, 2004) through hands on, minds on experimentation and how it is not changed by instruction-led pedagogy. - Erica McWilliams
Natural, self-induced feedback loops help encourage self-directed learning by focusing on hard work and effort as opposed to talent and/ or momentary success. The rhizomatic capacity of networks to flow around a point in a chain means that teachers may be located in a linear supply chain of pedagogical services but excluded from their students’ learning networks. - Erica McWilliams
For this, youth need people modeling how to learn, how to listen, how to live. And preferably people per choice. Rateyourprofessor, and even better yet, Hourschool are spaces that have and are experimenting with creating the serendipity to take advantage of rhizomatic networking.
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Youth, all people, need to be heard. They need to believe people or mentors want to hear them, for them. This is hard work. But then, people crave hard work. The reward is brilliant minds set free, to be. We mentors, learners, and people, will be absolutely blown away by brilliance only when we offer support and create these types of spaces. Spaces where the heart of the matter, the very heart of the matter, the only agenda, is the curiosity, the curriculum if you must, residing within each person, youth, learner. A rhizomatic space, community, learning, where there is no hierarchy. A space where everyone is both a learner and a mentor. A space where we can practice any role (learner/ mentor) that needs practice. To foster optimized self-directed learning, mentor alongside: question prescribed learning just be there being you. learn alongside listen. [a listen q u iwithout e t r an e vagenda. o l u t i o n]
Partial Freedom is no freedom. - Krishnamurti, The Significance of Life Pseudo-freedom may be worse than no freedom at all. - Steve Denning
erica mcwilliams, unlearning how to teach faber & mazlish how to talk so kids can learn nic askews alongside expert individual tutor Slideshare– how to be a mentor, books: mindset, the war of art, buccaneer scholar, significance of life, democratic education, rework, the talent code, the art of possibility, mindfulness
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summing it up for ch 4:
mentor alongside (rhizomatic expertise): A means to realize and utilize the expertise in everyone.
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ch. 5 culture of trust (rhizomatic currency)
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Hannah and Tim get together daily. They trade [aoffqteaching u i e t each r eother v o labout u t i o n] music, dance, leadership. They’re modeling the potential when the 7 hours a day is owned by a person, living out a cultur e of tr ust .
via young people:
Money isn’t as important as humans. You shouldn’t be trying to thrive from money, but trying to seek other human beings. via par ents:
This is a People Agenda. People are valuable. Treat them as such. Facilitate trust.
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Clay Shirky tells a story of ten daycare centers in Israel in his book, Cognitive Surplus. The story really gets at this culture we believe is vital to change. Here’s the short version: These ten centers had no late fee for picking up children and very few parents came late and not by very much. Then they imposed approximately a three dollar fine on 7 of the 10 centers. The number of late parents increased, and stayed elevated even after the fine was dropped. Shirky explains, the parents see the day care workers as participants in a market transaction rather than as people who’s needs should be respected. Parents viewed workers time as a commodity. They assume the fine represents full price of the inconvenience they were causing. He goes on to explain the difficulty, once a new mindset for the relationship has occurred, to go back to the culture of trust and humanity. Dealing with one another as a market can fundamentally alter relationships. Have we turned relationships into marketing transactions, that now require such a large overhead that we have lost the art of living? Are we trusting and valuing people? Or are we trusting and valuing paperwork that basically represents mistrust? And pretty much takes close to 650 billion a year to run. Same with seat time, which is the basis for [a q u i e t r e v o l u t i o n] figuring out money.
We could be educating the world, but policy keeps getting in the way. - David Wiley Cease to settle. - Ivan Illich
On the art of messy learning and the art of leaving things better than how you found them. The challenge of the school system - it teaches or trains us to account for a custodian, so of course, we need a custodian. It also tends to teach us that messes are a sign of laziness or havoc. A challenge of the be you house will be finding a balance of messy and loud learning and of respecting other’s need for solitude. It will be a challenge to not insist on orderliness and yet too, to respect others’ property and space, being mindful of others. Well over 50%(perhaps even 70-80%) of our time in all areas of life seem to be spent on policy, on management of a system created because of mistrust. While the mistrust isn’t necessarily blatant, it’s a learned art. It’s how it has always been. The system makes us dependent upon the system.
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To the right, find: our aup for tech use, our dress code, our house rules, our play and work rules, etc... all rolled into 3 culture guidelines.
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reputation: But that said, as more and moreof a person’s life becomes available online, the need for certification will diminish, as people acquirereputations of their own. A person’s standing in a community can be recognized by members of that community, and is acquired through months and years of participation in the work of that community. Where certification is granted, people presenting certification without having acquired a reputation for work in the community will beviewed with suspicion. - (Downes 2008)
If we want to awaken indispensable people, we’ve got to trust them. We’ve got to trust learning. Seat time, prescribed learning and curriculum, standardized tests, even project based learning, as we know it, compromises the genius inside us. These are all institutional efforts that represent mistrust, fear, and dependency. Innovation is great. It’s natural. Fitting new ideas into old mandates; old policy, structure is wasting people. Let’s be green about people. Let’s shhh on all the policy and take a listen to people. Learning is not about proof. Learning is about learning and sharing. Let’s un-market school. If one day they were to seek equal work rather than equal pay - equal inputs rather than equal outputs - they could be the pivot of social reconstruction. - Ivan Illich slidedeck: culture of trust ebook: culture of trust books: delivering happiness, mindset, linchpin, cognitive surplus, blue sweater, significance of life, buccaneer scholar, at work with thomas edison, deschooling society, the element, drive, we are all weird
summing it up for ch 5:
culture of trust (rhizomatic currency): A fundamental attitude, everyone desires good, every actor has a reason. Without a culture based on trust, rather than proof, or competition, or money, we will no doubt suffer compromise. We will continue to swim in compromise.
more on attr ibution: We had a desire to write a short book, a pamphlet even, without using any names. As per the attribution at the beginning of this short book, how do you distinguish? Once you tribute one name, how do you not tribute everyone. But we were concerned, if then the focus might be on plagiarism, and all the heat and issues surrounding that, rather than the focus of the entire revolution. A question we would like to at least offer, however, how bad is the appearance of stealing words from others in comparison to the perpetuation of muted voices going on everywhere? Is respect for every voice a part of your soul?
- unknown
r hizomatic listening: This piece we’ve just shared may end up heavy on the face to face side for some, heavy on the sharing side for others, heavy on the artistic side, or heavy on nonprescribed learning. Our intent is to open eyes and hearts to more options. Our intent is not to suggest one way for anyone, but to facilitate everything.
Today, people are learning online, on boats, in buses, in classrooms, in schools of all sorts, in other countries, at home, in the city, …this is great. What we are suggesting is that we no longer pigeon-hole learners to any of these spaces. You want to learn on a boat. Great. But let’s not say now, that you are a boat learner only. Maybe tomorrow another space will behoove you. Change is good. Change needs to be, change begs to be, modeled more. Learning is change, is innovation. A more liberating question (or test or evaluation) we could be asking each other, might simply assume learning from living, and pose more curiosity in where, when, how, what and with whom it happened. The more differentiated those answers are, from person to person, but even more important within one person, the more evidence of life and learning. It’s a little ironic that many of us tend to think our experience with school is special. The system fit everyone else perfectly, I just wasn’t normal enough to fit in. And so we remain satisfied with things as they are. Because, hey, there’s more of them than me. Yet, this is the very thing that we should come together and see and say, and share what we all have in common. Nothing is for everyone. The very restrictive publicly prescribed and compulsory school agenda is wonderful, for a very small percentage of us.
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There are no replica thumb prints. That is discrimination to infinity.
When we facilitate that, prejudice will decrease. What the world needs most, is people, being themselves. People driven by that which they can’t not do. Prejudice decreases as discrimination increases. - Ellen Langer
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On being or becoming you. If you’re so inclined, James Bach has written a book that really helped us on this journey. Below, Amanda shares why the book matters to her‌ for me, buccaneer scholar is a hero's tale. it's rags to riches. the underdog who triumphs. it's devil may care, i'll do it my way. it's the wizened warrior. and in it's telling it grants permission. most say DONOT GOTHAT WAY. but here Bach emerges from the path and tells us how he traveled it. he guides a way for those one day buccaneers who will take learning into their own hands and live passionately. a swashbuckling adventurer on the high seas of knowledge. i am assured it is possible. i am not alone. there are others like me.
And appropriately and fortunately for us, Seth Godin just published his latest book, We Are All Weird. Also a high recommend, perhaps more for those that don’t necessarily need guidance for being themselves, but more so, a permission, or a realization, that weird is the new normal.
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