The first week will … Write an introductory blog post, state what your goals are going in to the course, post your blog post by Tuesday… This is the ORIENT part of the process.
On this blog I did some blogposts on rhizome and learning.
In the about page of this blog is a lot of introduction stuff about me and about my blogging.
My goals for this 6 weeks are a revival of my study on rhizomes in change11 and other MOOCS. How does rhizomatic learning relate to academic writing? How to disconnect rhizome from Deleuze &Guatari? Question to self: Why should one want to disconnect these guys from the concept rhizome?
In Deleuze I did read about rhizome as an image for structures, even cultures. Like that. All kinds of things are connected, life is not as straight and well formed as the metaphor of computers does suggest. Learning as a very fuzzy concept. Do you know a clear definition, could you tell me how learning goes?
image: Anestis Logothetis – “Fusion” (1971) music for bass clarinet. (Deleuze and Guatari in Mile Tableaux have a piece of music for piano in their front page)
Questions 
Hi Jaap, thanks for getting this started. Just reading a footnote to a passage in a book on psychiatry (“Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self Experience” by Christopher Bollas) and the author praised two other authors for their clear thinking even though he doesn’t agree with them. Maybe that’s the beginning of learning, appreciating what others have to say, even in disagreement?
[…] to Jaap’s post I noticed the #rhizo14 invitation to write an introductory post and state what our goals are. […]
[…] The first week will … Write an introductory blog post, state what your goals are going in to the course, post your blog post by Tuesday… This is the ORIENT part of the process. On this blog I did… […]
hey Jaap – thanks for starting this! I didn’t realize we were meant to post by *this* Tuesday, thought it was meant for *next* week… I thought the image you posted of a rhizome (it is a rhizome, yes?) looked a lot like what I had read earlier by Pedler on Learning communities – where interdependent learning communities are a group of people working loosely together to meet different goals using different paths with the facilitator as one of them (not central in the process). I often draw a diagram like that in my classes… but might try the rhizome idea as well.
@Scott Johnson – I like your point about appreciating what others have to say even in disagreement. I’ve found that, however, charm and eloquence and charisma of the speaker play a role in how well that actually occurs in real life – not just the openness of the listener. It is actually quite difficult to consciously empathetically listen to and understand another’s views, especially if it is something one feels strongly about. What do you think?
Ha @Balimaha Yes the image is a rhizome, it is the sheetmusic for a modern piece for bass clarinet and it has the name “rhizome”.
A class with students is a kind of rhizome, there are connections in and outside the classroom. in http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2007/Buchanan.html I found a set of 6 principles for a rhizome. I will write a post on that. And think about a classroom as a rhizome.
@Scott, You are right, appreciation on rhizomes is changing with me. In earlier MOOCs I had still some questions about the concept. My curiosity is greater than my disagreement in this matter.
Hope you both survive this winter. Some little flowers in my garden are visible now. (Eranthis hyemalis is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, winter aconiet we call it)
Hi Maha, I too wasn’t clear on when to do the first post so I better on to doing it:-)
Since I contradict myself and misunderstand things fairly often I’ve been working on a theory of falsehood that tries to be neutral and sort things afterwords. This is a theory in progress. The premise is some things are elegant and suggestive of the truth but are false in sustaining life because they advantage self-interest or hurt others. I think.
And yes, there are things I disagree with that I won’t even bother considering. Alternately, what’s to be done with someone I respect and like who’s job it was to fire me from my last job? In order to not lose the value of her acquaintance and access to her interesting thoughts it’s necessary to settle myself in a place of acceptance that at one time I would have labeled something like “compromise.” I don’t like that term, it forces me into giving up something of value for a principal that benefits no one.
Somewhere within the human value to pretend is a socially stabilizing mechanism that allows hurting to not hurt so much. There are times when it’s necessary to test relationships that need not break people apart. We can’t exist as entirely benign or nonthreatening to each other or we’d all be the same. To my mind, pretending allows a logical world to exist alongside a more volatile and interesting kind of danger zone. And no, I’m not totally resolved on this.