Rhizomatic Learning

Shooting Roots

Like many scholars and educators in higher education, I spent decades of my adult life living and moving from contract to contract, an academic nomad. I longed to find the elusive tenured faculty position that would allow me to establish long-term connections and invest years (plural) into my course developments and research projects. This longing was not merely a matter of relieving my financial instability and existential angst; there was wisdom in longing to put down roots in one place, one community, one landscape.

This year, for the first time in my life, I planted a garden in my very own backyard. Unlike the numerous, temporary, container gardens that I have built and dismantled on apartment balconies and rooftop patios in multiple cities, across many regions, I planned this garden for the long-term. I invested in a large raised garden bed, a shipment of productive garden soil, tools to dig and turn the existing soil, a compost container to start producing my own rich soil, and a rain barrel to catch the water coming through the downspouts from the roof. I went to my local dump to collect free compost from the city composting program. I attended horticultural seminars and gardening workshops. I started a gardening journal to document my plans, progress, successes, and failures, so that I can base next year's decisions on how things unfolded this year. My garden design will take several years to realize, as the perennial plants I am selecting mature and fill the space, and as I learn from year to year which annual plants thrive in which spots and alongside which companion plants.

Image credit: Julie Mooney (2024) Ink Drawing

Wild Ways

A rhizome is an underground stem system that propagates in unpredictable directions, producing roots below and shoots above (Bissola & Imperatori, 2017), while maintaining interconnection with all the components of the plant. Drawing from this botanical phenomenon, rhizomatic learning is based on the philosophical tenet that reality consists of structures and their components in constant motion, interconnection, and transformation (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). This continuous motion, also known as rhizomatic flow, develops in unpredictable ways, overcomes obstacles as they are encountered, and has no beginning nor any end (Bissola & Imperatori, 2017). The unpredictability and dynamic nature of rhizomatic flow strengthen the whole system, making it resilient in times of stress or sudden change.

Rhizomatic learning is fluid, flexible, (re)generative, unpredictable, unplanned, and playful (Charteris & Smardon, 2016). Learning in this way encourages a certain wildness, free movement, improvisation, and adaptation. When teacher and learners get into a rhizomatic flow they are connecting in a multitude of directions  (Charteris & Smardon, 2016) that may not make sense, at first glance, because the something(s) they are co-creating have yet to take full form, and may continue to evolve without reaching a static form at all. This flow, rather than being something, is in a state of perpetual becoming. In the education landscape, "teachers [and learners] can be understood as continually becoming different from themselves, and continually folding into new possibilities" (Ellwood, 2009, p. 33).

Complimentary Chaos

To embrace rhizomatic learning is to open ourselves to uncertainty and to the thrilling discomfort of discovery. This is not a learning process bound by pre-determined outcomes, objectives, and constructive alignment (Biggs, 1996). It does not pair well with assessment standardization and uniformity. Rhizomatic learning invites both teachers and learners to invent, adapt, inquire, and transform together, in complimentary and chaotic ways, with no fixed destination in sight or in mind.

When and why would I embrace this mode of learning? It's not suited to every situation, but elements of this rhizomatic learning philosophy can be applied to and adapted for many learning contexts and situations. Rhizomatic learning might best be suited to co-learning contexts where learners and teacher seek to explore complexity, requiring deep learning and creative, lateral, and multi-domain thinking, where the goal or desired results may be vague or broad, but not clear or precise, and possibly not pre-defined at all.

The Garden as Teacher

As I navigate the work of selecting and applying educational theories to my teaching and learning practice, I turn to my garden for insights and wisdom. I longed for and imagined this garden for decades. Now, as I prepare for its first harvest time, I realize that it looks very different from the garden held in my mind's eye all those years. It has not even taken the same shape as the garden I planned last winter. This complex system of soil, microbes, water, drainage, sun, shade, heat, cold, wind, birds, insects, squirrels, seeds, and me has taken shape in its own way, becoming different every day. I have been shaping this system as it has been shaping me. As we have transformed together through these first few seasons, I have learned a little about what thrives and what struggles. This system, this garden, of which I am only one part, has grown resilient, flexible, and adaptable through the obstacles of a cold wet spring, a hot dry summer, a violent hail storm, and an early frost. As we continue, together, on this path of perpetual becoming, I am excited for what the seasons to come will bring.

References

Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education, 32: 347–364. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138871

Bissola, R. & Imperatori, B. (2017). A rhizomatic learning process to create collective knowledge in entrepreneurship education: Open innovation and collaboration beyond boundaries. Management Learning, 48(2): 206-226. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1350507616672735

Charteris, J. & Smardon, D. (2016). Professional learning as ‘diffractive’ practice: rhizomatic peer coaching. Reflective Practice, 17(5): 544-556. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2016.1184632

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Ellwood, C. (2009). Listening to homeless young people. In B. Davies & S. Gannon (Eds.), Pedagogical Encounters (pp. 31–52). New York, NY: Peter Lang.