Model one: maps

I've noticed quite a few folks taking about Rhizomes (particularly as they come out of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus) as metaphors. I was struck by this and found it surprising and odd to think of them as metaphors. Upon reflection, I realised that this was because I tend to think of them as models rather than metaphors. Exactly what the distinction is, I'm not sure just yet. But I thought I'd write a few posts about some of the models that D&G offer us and how I think they might be applicable in teaching and learning.

The first model I want to focus on is the map. To illustrate my point I've used one of my favourite maps: the London Underground or 'tube' map.

Image Source: Thom Minifig CC Licence

The tube map is itself rhizomatic (it grows and changes in response to desire for instance), but more importantly, the way people engage with it and use it is also rhizomatic. From a pedagogical point of view it is ridiculous to say there is any right or wrong way to traverse London via the underground. You can't say, for instance, that the only correct way to use the tube is to get on at Bethnall Green and get off at Gloucester Road using the Central and Piccadilly lines. That is a correct way to use the tube if you need to get from Bethnall Green to Gloucester Road as quickly as possible but it's not the only correct way to use the tube. That's because the tube has no beginning, middle and end, but instead has multiple entry and exit points and everyone using it has different needs.

Thinking from a teaching point of view about supporting students who are engaging with learning in a rhizomatic context is, in some instances, going to be a bit like this. Students who come to a rhizomatic learning context are going to all be coming from different places and wanting to get to very different places from each other. The role of teachers is to help them navigate and negotiate the journey, to encourage them to seek help from others as well as reading signs along the way and, as I've suggested in a previous post, attending to the 'trees' as and when they encounter them, taking responsibility along the way.