Rhizomes as metaphor for relationships in learning processes

Metaphors from agriculture are widely used to describe educational processes. For example the "fertile soil" for a stimulating setting, "nurturing" for the teachers' efforts or "growing" for the development of the learner. In particular in the Learning Agency Network, we benefit from agricultural terminology e.g. in the LANETO Participatory Permaculture Model and are thus happy to reflect on the rhizomes as a metaphor for learning connections.

The Rhizome theory for non-hierarchical knowledge development isn't that new, but is based on the theory of the two famous philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. According to them, the traditional development-metaphor of a tree (e.g. in Darwin's "On the origin of Species") would need to be rethought and replaced with a concept of "multiplicity" (there is no "single one" but a "multiple one"). That was more than 30 years before - but today, it seems to be more state-of-the-art then ever before.

In a recent RSA talk, Manuel Lima talks about the "Power of Networks" and refers to the Rhizome-theory of Deleuze and Guattari. He elaborates in particular the inter-connections between action and reaction: according to him, there is still a cause and effect, but it is much more complicated since so many systems are influencing the results (LANETO has thus developed the Systemic Needs Analysis). Some educational researchers find this process of connecting so interesting that they even developed learning theories such as the Connectivism, to highlight their importance.

Lately, LANETO has done many experiments which are related to the meaning of connections for the learning process. The topic has been approached from different angles in order to get a holistic view. In our view, the metaphor of a rhizome can be perfectly used to emphasize on the importance of learning relationships - however, it seems less chaotic when defining important roles or terms in the learning process such as:

• The goal or direction: Here, we have used inspiring benchmarks and successful examples i.e. in services like Transtitution (currently in development). One of the core advantages of Transtitution is the possibility, that the goal is not set initially in detail, but bottom-up approaches can be stimulated to reach similar or even better results within the given conditions.
• The information or learning resources: Currently, we are piloting a course for OER practitioners to train teaching staff how they can use and also create openly licensed educational resources. epprobate can serve here as a way of developing and evaluating the quality of the resources.
• The learning community: This was one of the main focus' in the last 9 weeks. We identified different roles in the community that need to be elaborated, e.g. the (peer) mentor. We also did research on how collaboration with a community positively influences the learning outcomes in Immersive Worlds (published within the EADTU 2012 conference). We also do experiments in so called Community Spaces, which are currently co-working spaces, in order to get experiences with informal learning process between a wide diversity of people - i.e. to find out about good conditions for sharing and collaborating.
• The teacher or guide: This part is definitely the most difficult one. It is clear that the teacher or tutor plays a tremendously important role in the learning process. Students at the Oxford University even benefit from 1 tutor per 3 learners. So, personal guidance can enhance the quality of an educational process. But what characteristics should a teacher have beside the knowledge, skills and competences on the matter? In services like MRPE, we try to realize the conditions from a quite unusual perspective: Experiencing the own powerful potential might lead to an inspirational behave and support personal growth towards an altruistic attitude to balance communties, as outlined in the CSN Model.

There is indeed a lot of potential in the Rhizomatic metaphor in particular regarding the connectivity of systems and people, e.g. the theory on the "six degrees of separation" claims that every person on this planet is only six connections away from every other person.

Such realizations might encourage curiosity for other cultures, the wish to understand the different ways of approaching similar objectives and also a sense of responsibility for external communities.