Rhizomatic Learning

Mary Ann Reilly

Standardized Learning

In the past:

“Learning is treated as a series of steps to be mastered, as if students were being taught how to operate a machine or even in some cases, as if the students themselves were machines being programmed to accomplish certain tasks. The ultimate endpoint of a mechanstic perspective is efficiency: the goal is to learn as much as you can as fast as you can.”

Expert-centered curriculum.

Mechanistic vs. Rhizomatic Learning

Knowledge is defined by expert and limited to lists.

Focuses on teaching learner about the world.

Students must prove that they have received the information transferred to them.

Knowledge is composed.

Focuses on learning through engagement within the world.

In rhizomatic learning the point is to embrace what we don’t know. Come up with better questions about it, and continue to ask those questions in order to learn more.

Principles of Rhizomatic Learning

1. Connection

2. Heterogeneity

”[A]ny point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be. This is very different from the tree or the root, which plots a point, fixes an order” (p. 7).

3. Multiplicity

There are no points or positions in a rhizome, such as those found in a structure, tree, or root. There are only lines” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 8),

4. . Asignifying Rupture

”A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 9).

 

5. Cartography (maps) a map produces an organization of reality rather than reproducing some prior representation of reality

6. Decalcomania (tracing) 

”A rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 12).

A rhizomatic system is comprised of a multiplicity of lines and connections.

Connection & Heterogeneity: “Any point in a rhizome can be connected to anything

other, and must be.” ( D & G, p. 7)

Multiplicity: “There are no points or positions in a rhizome.” ( D & G, p.8)

Asignifying Rupture: “A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on

new lines.” ( D & G, p.9).

Cartography & Decalcomania: “…rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure” (D & G, p. 12)

Rhizome is

made up of lines.

3 types of lines: Rigid,

Supple, and

Line of Flight.