Reclaiming Public Learning Spaces: We are Pando

I read with much interest Will Richardson's recent post, "How the Hell Could They Let this Happen"? Will writes:

As Kohn suggests later in the article, educators need to drive these conversations, not politicians and businessmen. And I get the sense from the comments on my last post that people are looking for ways to do just that but are frustrated with the lack of scale. We can only start so many wikis…

He closes by asking what we might do.  I began my response by writing:

I think the way public education is reclaimed as a public institution is by leveraging the long tail, the rhizome. There is a movement of people who are designing public learning spaces that offer a public alternative to for profit and industrial schooling. Via internet we are connecting. It is this type of force that can and hopefully will counter the for-profit scheme being foisted on the public as the only alternative. It will be the average person who will make this decision--this choice.

Will's comment that there are only so many wikis one can compose is interesting. In some ways I think the underlying approach of raising voices in protest and in guidance is an approach we have known.  In doing so we attempt to meet force with equal force.  But these times may no longer require such strategy, or at least such single strategy.  I've been puzzling over the issue as well (as I suspect you too have done) and I want to suggest that a way (not the way) of response is to leverage the Internet to connect us and to begin to build a rhizomatic response to our government and the corporations that seem to own our government.  Every day via Twitter and those I have met on Twitter I am learning about some amazing responses to industrial education.

For example, there's Monika Hardy in Colorado, Ian Chia in Melbourne, Rob Greco in San Diego, Thomas Steele-Maley in rural Maine, Thedisruptdept in St Louis, Mission VHQ and Liam Dunphy in Ireland, Pam Moran in Virgina, Ira Socol in Michigan, Cristina Milos in Romania, Michael McCabe in Wisconsin,  Rob Cohen, Scott Klepesch, Mark Gutkowski, & Micheal Doyle in NJ, Mike Ritzius from NJ/PA and more and more than time and space can permit.  It's a very long tail when you consider that these people are connected to so many others and those people are connected to others, and so on.

Chris Anderson explains:

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers.

Oddly,  public schools are being squeezed more and more into a one size fits all through standardization, standards, national curriculum, Race to the Top, and national and state testing.  We have been too long trying to find a single reform. To disrupt such established power requires a long tail revolution which is inherently a rhizomatic response.

From Leaf and Limb Tree Service Blog

It's not about being the reform answer or being at the top of something as a way to maintain power, but rather remaining in the middle where connections can be made and remade.  It's about each of us doing great work, not work that needs to be replicated, but rather work that is unique, native to its own ground.  The challenge is to know we are there and to connect our work. To connect great work is an antidote to mass standardization.

Leveraging social media to share stories and work, to try on tentative ideas, and to establish patterns are all critical.  Connecting and showcasing the small triumphs that by themselves may feel insubstantial, represents a mass. This is the work before each of us.   


On my own, I am Mary Ann Reilly.  Alongside you I am  Pando*, a rhizomatic triumph.

Let's do great education work, local to our ground, informed by Wendell Berry's 17 rules for a sustainable local community.

Let's value local funds of knowledge as Luis Moll's most important work has taught us to value.

Let's connect with one another and act as conduits connecting others.

I hope you'll join me as I am making my way.

I'll be looking for you...waiting for you.






*"2. Pando: Also known as the Trembling Giant, Pando is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen located in Utah. Each genetically-identical individual tree (or “stem”) is connected by a single root system. Spreading across more than 100 acres, Pando is believed to be over 80,000 years old and collectively weighs over 6,600 tons, making it the heaviest organism on the planet, as well as one of the oldest." from Leaf and Limb Tree Service blog