People forget that this phrase has some of its origins in Mao's expression, "Let a hundred flowers bloom" and that it was piece of disinformation. Speak the truth, Mao implied, and the truth shall set you free. The real truth is that if anyone spoke the truth they were revealed as heterodox, as dissident.
Or maybe this is all about marijuana de-criminalizaton?
"Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye
Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"
Saib Tabrizi
All this talk of flowers and weeds and thousands reminescent (flourescent even) of 'a thousand plateaus', an idea that transcends 'rhizome' in D&G
Great video on D&G, pomo and Zizek. Thinking about taking the whole course, sticking it on Vialogues and having a conversation with myself and others. Sometimes you have to break through the thousand flowers, the thousand gardens, the thousand weeds, and the thousand shining suns to get through to a new plateau.
The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.
clear definition of the word "knowledge" is difficult
simply another part of the way things are"
Horton and Freire
no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.
a negotiation (Farrell 2001)
social contructivist and connectivist
(Cormier 2008).
we see as our goal the co-construction of those secret connections as a collaborative effort
I think that there are layers of letting go. There is the primary one you describe in the first paragraph--an aware sloughing off of the skin of coursework and curriculum and student and teacher and syllabus--the whole catastrophe. This is very hard unlearning. It requires a continuous monitoring of old metaphors and thinking in the light of ...well, you know not what.
The secondary letting go is individual baggage schema we each prize. We call it experience. It is an even greater unlearning. It is the matter of taking Coleridge's axiom, "the willing suspension of disbelief", to heart in ways that most of us are unwilling to do. We say we can do it, but such work is perceived as dangerous. It requires a vulnerability to and presence of the immediate, unmediated now. That is some scary shit, compadre.
trust the idea that people can come together to learn given the availability of an abundance of perspective, of information and of connection?
We are quite capable of doing this. We just have to remember what it was like to be an infant learning once more. Yeah, just open up a vein while you're at it. I will try, but how do I try to do this? First, I have to accept as given that everyone has best intentions at heart. That means that I have to have the very best intentions myself. Not perfect, but the best that I can muster. Second, I have to bring immediate and vulnerable stuff to the table. That means no bullshit to the best of my ability. Or even better, I will be honest. For example, I am trying to be straightforward about my worries here and about what I expect of myself and what I expect of others. And I have to acknowledge that I might be wrong, yes, totally wrong about all or part of what I have already written.
As a farmer, I am enamored of the idea of working in a field. I acknowledge that there are pre-existent, but not largely predetermined paths. I understand that there is mystery here and unknown unknowns that can play out like Taleb's black swans unbidden and unpredictable. As a farmer, I know that I am always working behind the arc of the future, a future that is as often as not curling and ready to collapse in gnarly waves crushing or carrying me forward into the present and then the past.
the class is made up of the collected paths chosen by all the students, shaped by my influence as an instructor and the impact of those external nodes they manage to contact.
I am simultaneously the best conformist and worst iconoclast I know of. I have had plenty of practice at doing what I am told. Plenty. At the same time I have found it quite impossible to do so. For example, my wife and I homebirthed all of our children in a time and place where finding midwives was a challenge. There were no certified nurse midwives. In fact, getting a physician to help with pre-natal care was problematic. We found exceptional help on the margins. Our midwife had gotten her training and experience working in Texas with very poor folks exactly like us. Our midwife's assistant opened up a world of knowledge that we didn't know existed. Our firstborn had some interesting complications including a cord wrapped around the neck. Thank God we had them. My point is simple--we only became iconoclasts because the issue was so personal and important, so important that we could not leave the work to experts.
Just like we could not leave our kids' learning to the not so tender ministrations of schools, public or private. Just like we can't leave our food and water and housing entirely to others. This behavior probably shouldn't be called 'iconoclastic' in the good ol' USofA, but it is.
I must get past my personal iconoclasm to get to the community. This will be hard for me. I have some experience last summer working with some fabulous folks from the National Writing Project. They took me on and I learned how to connect better. That community-centeredness is not foreign to me, it is just now always been the way I have gotten along best in the world. I love helping every Tom, Jane, and Harry, but I really don't like institutional groups all that much. I shy away from Rotarians and churches alike. This will be part of my continuing effort to get out of my comfort zone. God help me.