{"id":776,"date":"2014-01-12T18:37:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T01:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/?p=776"},"modified":"2014-01-13T19:54:28","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T02:54:28","slug":"rhizomatic_pragmatism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wayupnorth.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/12\/rhizomatic_pragmatism\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhizomatic Pragmatism – a Contradiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“When what’s on your cell phone is more important \"Googlethan what’s in the library, we’re challenged to say how do we do education differently, because if it’s about delivery of content, Google wins over teacher every day.” http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/north\/yellowknife-parents-teachers-talk-education-renewal-1.2451853
\n<\/a>GNWT director of education renewal John Stewart addressing a December 2013 meeting of parents and educators in Yellowknife.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m really looking forward to Dave Cormier’s Rhisomatic Learning<\/a> “joining-in-with-me” (aka “course”) at P2PU.\u00a0 He begins with a question about, “…how we can learn in a world of abundance?” Cormier offers the wandering rhizome<\/a> as a metaphor for learning via a connectivist community, contrasting it with the tree – a metaphor for learning from monolithic authority.<\/p>\n

The learners to whom I am responsible are not in Higher Education.\u00a0 They never got there because the system was unable to accommodate their different way of learning.\u00a0 Cormier proposes that we might be brave and decide that “important learning is more like being a parent, or a cook than (memorizing a bunch of out-0f-context facts)<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

This leaves me grappling with some pragmatic questions\/issues (while questioning whether “pragmatic” contradicts or complements “rhizomatic” learning):<\/p>\n