As usual my dear Karen, you say it as you see it! Reminds me of my husband saying that he used to get in trouble when young for 'being a smart ass' - so his dad said to him endlessly as he grew up.

I learnt to play 'game' early and was too invested in getting positive feedback to rebel.

Yet, my experience through the educational system here in the UK was so far removed from the 'sage on the stage' norm you refer to. I did the International Baccalaureate, met amazing people and amazing inspiring teachers. My English teacher, supported me (a foreigner) to take it at the highest level and I got the equivalent of an A. This was before university. At university, I still remember all my amazing teachers. Including the one I had a crush on because he taught philosophy of mind and I loved that subject more than I can say :) I believe that the one thing they all had in common was that they so wanted me to get it! Get the love they felt for their subject.

The same passion for learning and exploration that so clearly comes through your writing was the thing that made the difference in my own learning journey. Teachers that believed in me, that demanded quality of me ***because*** they believed I could do it and this instilled in me a passion for learning for its own sake.

I often say that I love hearing people who love their subject talk, I care not at all if the subject is crochet, football, or philosophy of mind. I connect at the level of their love for their subject. So my why is simple: I hope to help those I teach connect to my own love for inquiry for its own sake. As Judy Marshall talks about ' the love of living life as inquiry'. The topic is pretty irrelevant to me. It is the passion for inquiry that lights up my world, and a passion I feel we share.

Look forward to more engaging rants from you and may be one or two stories?

DS106 rocks, Girl!
I loved the song, why not sound cloud it to do it justice? A house made of books, a floor carpeted with books…Do you know I wanted to make a Xmas tree out of book this Xmas? I was lazy and didn't else you could have had those photos as well as the disappearing video:-) I love the way you use your voice to show emotion. I was left in no doubt how you feel about the question!

May be we should just keep going to different hashtag classrooms for material to make more DS106 art with. Long live the learning weeds - sorry but rhizome in my head is just a weed….I guess that learning in the weeds is not a catchy….should we read D&G in order to make art?

It was a lot of fun and the learning point for me was that any position taken as dogma creates stupidity.

Hey! I just answered the question when it first came up! [ARE] books making us stupid? He asked. No, she replied. Are you sure? he asked.

I am with Frances and her comment on the week in Heli's post:

‘The either/or approach is OK to kick of discussion but there is a danger of us getting stuck in polarisations of ideas when what we are trying to make sense of is much more complicated than that.’

She also says she is finding the approach to the weekly challenges rather samey….

I think polarising and challenging received wisdom has its place but not as the only means of intervening in a learning environment. On the hangout it was said that 'book' included e-books and other e-means of reading. So, I think the challenge is aimed at the written word and how in shaping something in the 'stable' state of a book it is not as easily changed/challenged than a 'fluid' blog. Discuss?
Good luck with the video.

I will need to reflect on your questions and thoughts. Particularly the distinction between uncertainty, safety, learning and my role as an educator. Profound questions. Thank you. The question that Lou is asking and many more amazing questions can be found in Time To Think by Nancy Kline. Lou uses Nancy's approach for her development and it is based on asking those types of frame shifting questions.

"What are we afraid of when we hand over the task of learning to the learner?"

That right there is the question that will point to the shadow side of our psyche…best talk in the third person and focus on something else, is the reaction most of us human prefer in my experience :-) training the mind to discomfort and blind spots is not for the faint hearted and not for most educators either I am sad to observe. Great questions my dear. And now in case you missed it on Twitter: go do some DS106 with this: http://www.play-create.com/id.php?034

so glad you are here :-)

"And isn't it sad that, while people participating in Rhizomatic Learning 2014 and the open education movement are trying to smush students lightly, the vast majority of our colleagues are still trying to wedge their students into that tightly controlling box called the education system. "

I had to look up 'smush' and amongst many definitions I liked this sentence for 'right' usage best: "I made it by enchanting some rose petals, so it's pretty fragile; I hope it gets to you without being smushed up or anything."

Smushing (?) is better than 'wedging', I guess.

The underlying point to your whole post here is of course that the power ( wether used benignly or not) is always with the educator and the system to which that educator belongs. This is true of formal education at all levels. What has been surprising to me, as I get to know more about Open Education, is that status games are alive and well - the rules of the game may be different, but the game is played.

Piers Ibbotson, a theatre director working in business, believes true collaboration cannot happen until we name and suspend status games. Here is a quote from his book 'The illusion of leadership' :

"The block to trust is relative status. All social animals naturally evolve hierarchies. Knowing where you fit in the hierarchy is essential to survival. Loners die out. When you have found a place, you can relax. But hierarchies are mobile; they are constantly changing and being renegotiated, depending on the group’s needs, and so there is constant competition and renegotiation of places. This leads to status games. We play them all the time. They take up most of our energy and attention whatever we are doing. We only feel we can relax and trust one another and get on with something when these games are resolved – when we suspend the status games."

I have a pin with an excerpt here: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/356277020492024581/ book is worth a read. I work with him and would love to get him to review some of what we do online and give his view of the status games he observes, but that is another story.

What strikes me from reading you narrative is that when you are thinking about joining a class or institution you can now 'interview' your prospective teachers 'to se if you mesh'. Or use other selection strategies to see if there is a fit.

This seems different online, I notice that 'the law of two feet' rules.

If we don't like it, we walk. Nothing more is said, talked about or dealt with. After all we kneel at the altar of self-direction now. But, how does this relate to issues of power and status? How does it make educators online accountable in any way for how we educate? It happens to be the case that #opened attracts responsible people, but accountability is not embedded in the medium. These are important questions that I would love to engage with people on. But I fear it is too fierce a conversation to have virtually.

Instead, my experience generally has been that when you try to name and engage the shadow of any group at best you get lip service to 'the added value' of your challenge followed by rationalisation and meta-talk about how 'they are right and you are wrong' after all. At worst, the 'mob' speaks and you become a peripheral community member until you comply and quit with the criticism.

And as I write that I notice: this behaviour is not that different from 'wedging' students into shape? or is it? Just a different box? I hope I am wrong as I am hopeful for #opened ...

You post challenged me to think with a head full of cold - it must be good :-) #rhizo14MF

"Throw off the shackles of curriculum, 'what you should learn/do/know' and actually play and make our own meaning without fear of judgement. It allows us to grow in our own way."

"it promotes a "free association on terms of equality and sharing and cooperation, participating on equal terms to achieve common goals that were democratically conceived."

Awesome reflections, Karen. My highlights from your post above and wanted to engage with the ideas here. But first I have to pull out something else: your reflection of 'I may never go back to regular school again'. My version is: I may never go back to being a regular academic again! Once you see the potential, you see the joy and the output that working in this self-directed free-association without covert power plays brings - what would keep me slogging away to be part of the academic mainstream? Why would I want to go back to teaching in that way? I don't. I thought I would be able to involve my academic network in #opened, I cannot. There is a question as to why I feel I need to change them rather than just change myself. There is much personal work still to do as the trappings are to do with status and recognition, if I am honest.

The draw of actually playing and making our own meaning, is significant as you suggest - I do think this is what makes us work so hard to get 'the best answer' by collaborating rather than just get a better answer than the rest. And then we add to that, losing the fear of being judged and you have a magic recipe. We saw that in DS106 project work, didn't we?

It was not until I made the choice to do this immersion experiment, took the sabbatical and became an open education student that I saw the rigidity of my thinking vis-a-vis academia and opened up to new possibilities. I am learning that being in the system had blinded me - and I have always thought of myself as a pretty good teacher. Hell I train other teachers how to do it :-)

I have now come to that scary place where I need to make a choice. I am now asking: What would it mean to be free from the shackles of a curriculum, participating on equal terms to achieve common goals and apply that to being an Open Educator full time? May be the dream of being a hybrid educator is just the fear to make the courageous choice to quit. This is my focus for #rhizo14 and I am glad we are on this journey together. Thanks for this thoughtful post. #rhizo14MF

Happy New Year my dear Karen! Breaking my rule of no typing until next week just to say the thank you goes both ways. It has been a pleasure getting to know you and look forward to more adventures in 2014. I still laugh when I remember: Gifachrome, it bears repeating! See you next year!

Definitely a 'which way is up' type story:-) how could it be otherwise? it reflected the messiness of many humans making up stories on the fly! I think the link to the video I made to ask forgiveness from my fellow zombies after I rejected their offer to help me feed belongs right here: http://youtu.be/7V1G5NxLOUM
Zombie Barbie's learning was exponential - an example of what humans can do when motivated to play a game. She was a delight to play with. And please don't ever accept the Patient Zero role or we will never have a chance. Great post, nice to read clear links to DS106. I too really like the patterns of stories and I think they will be useful to shape stories in the future. You have an ally for the next one - I really enjoyed myself and next time... I am in :-)