Tilling the soil

January 25, 2014 by Maddie 13 Comments

Since we are talking about rhizomes I thought tillage is also important. Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. One of the advantages of tilling the soil is that tillage helps develop strong healthy roots with better air circulation.

I am reading through blog posts that have sprung up after I posted this on the rhizo14 group on Facebook:

I find it ironic that people talk about their qualifications and researches and their ability to read and understand critical theory when that is not the aim of this uncourse at all. As long as everyone “gets” the generic meaning of it, all is well and we progress as a community. How everyone reaches to the end is immaterial. If you get the theory without reading it, you have cheated brilliantly.

Furthermore, I would like to assert my independence and state that I am not an academic and yet wish to be part of this uncourse. Does that make me “Un-qualified” to take it up? If we are to question the very foundation of the education system and try to change it so as to include one and all in a whole big community, then it shouldn’t matter whether I am a phd or a college drop out, should it? This is how a rhizome breaks.

Perhaps that was my way of unsettling the soil to make it healthy again for unrestrained growth.

Did I do it on purpose? No. Did I wish to make jabs at privileged people? No. Did I project such an outbreak? No. Did I want to make people uncomfortable? Probably yes. Perhaps to make them think and take charge. It started a discussion between academics and non academics or as my frainger Ary calls them pragmatists and theorists. It shook things up – the rhizomes multiplied and divided. It made some of us to stop and take notice of our actions and behaviours as academics, non-academics, pragmatists, wanna be academics, recovering academics etc. It was an opening of sorts to make people stop and spend some time to self assess and self re-mediate.

Dave told us in the week 2 hangout that “for rhizomatic learning to work, people need to feel like they are empowered and in control of their objectives.  It’s not possible to tell someone to be independent.” He’s right, you cannot just make people empowered, you cannot hand them down their powers or tell them to be responsible. There can only be the right circumstances that make people feel empowered and responsible. You can only create such circumstances or situations (not exactly scaffolding) but something that makes them uncomfortable perhaps? so as to make them take notice of their actions and behaviour which will in turn start a process of self-introspection and self re-mediation.

Here’s another example from my personal life. I am an only child and both my parents worked. I was mostly left to my own devices and gained a lot of life experiences from being alone and not relying on my parents during that time. It made me independent in a way that I had to take some everyday decisions without consulting my parents (this was before the cell phone invention). Did my parents actively want to make me independent? Is that why they both worked and left me in the care of my grandparents? No. It was only the circumstances. It made me independent at a very young age.

We cannot ignore the hierarchies in the educational system or any other system for that matter. One way to feel independent or to assert your independence is to take charge and break out of the mould and you can only do that when you are uncomfortable or in a situation that demands you to stand out and voice your opinion.

Someone posted this in the g+ rhizo community

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.”
— Steve Jobs

“Every successful movement throughout human history – whether political, religious or social – has been shaped and driven by a powerful narrative, one that invites participation by many and makes it clear that the outcome hinges on that participation.”
— John Hagel

If I try to connect the dots now I can see how this independence was enforced by my post on me and on others. It made people uncomfortable – some agreed with it, some choose to ignore it.  It fostered a whole new rhizomatic network with people linking it to feminism, victimization, cultural differences etc..

Does that achieve my goal for this week? Enforce independence? Take responsibility, self-assess and self remediate?? Yes….I think so! A small ripple…