It is a question of a
model that is perpetually in construction or collapsing and of a process that
is perpetually prolonging itself, breaking off and starting up again.
-Gilles
Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand
Plateaus, p. 20
What models and metaphors do we employ to make sense of how
we organize our schools? Much has been said about the “factory model of
education” (
go here
or here
to see what I mean), and
Audrey Watters is right to make the point that a
large part of the story has been manufactured to fit certain narratives about
the present (
go here to read her
critique of “the factory model of education” conversation). However,
factory and school design are both born out of a similar
historical-intellectual event, one that is rightly associated with the
Enlightenment and its influence. Both institutions, more often than not,
exemplify organizational models that reveal our tendency (as post-Enlightenment
thinkers) to “mathematize our life-world” as Edmund Husserl might put it - or
what Bernard Stiegler might call the “
grammatization
of human life.” Understandably, schools and factories, like many other
organizations, are structured according to rationalist concepts such as binary
logic, hierarchy, centralization, and order, and with this in mind, I
understand why critics of contemporary school models might make connections (
but perhaps too crudely) between
factories and campuses.
On the Idea of Silos:
So what’s prompted all this philosophical reflection? I’ve
been thinking a lot about the concept of silos and more specifically how a
“silo mentality” fits well with organizational structures that are hierarchical
and centralized (like a hub-and-spoke or factory model, for instance). And I’ve been asking myself: what about Silos
in schools?
I'd like to thank Seth Burgess and Sanje Ratnavale for pushing my thinking in this direction! Seth and I will be
delivering an Ignite Keynote, titled “Breaking Down the Silo Mentality – A
Grassroots Movement,” at the upcoming
OESIS conference in L.A., this Feb. 23-24, 2016.
Not that long ago, the idea of silos was foreign to me, and
others like me might be wondering what the term means in this context. The
concept helps one describe an institution’s vertical organization; it’s used
metaphorically to mean a system, process, or department that operates in
isolation from others. Audra Bianca defines
silos with the following critique: “A silo mentality can occur when a team or
department shares common tasks but derives their power and status from their
group. They are less likely to share resources or ideas with other groups or
welcome suggestions as to how they might improve. Collaboration in a business culture
with silos among teams or departments will be limited… In addition, the members
of a silo tend to think alike. They get their power from association with their
function and their shared technical knowledge” (“
What
Do Silos Mean in Business Culture?”).
What drives us to think and operate in this way, one might
argue, is the well-founded desire to successfully facilitate management, productivity,
and efficiency at the workplace. When presented with the question of what’s the
most rational way to organize company x or institution y, models like the
hub-and-spoke example serve us well (at least in relation to certain desired
outcomes such as order and efficiency). Emotionally speaking, the silo
mentality may stem from basic human desires to belong to something, to have
significance, and to be able to exercise one’s sense of responsibility in ways
that are manageable and quantifiable (or traceable). At the root of this mindset,
therefore, one uncovers the natural and good desire to belong to something and
to be responsible for it, and it’s important to remember this when
discussing institutional changes like “breaking down silos.” Usually, we don’t seek to change something
because we disagree with the intention behind it – more often, we share common
goals, desires, and priorities but seek to change things because the map to
getting there constantly needs improvement, clarification, and adjustment. But
before mapping new changes (and employing new organizational models in the
process) one first needs to know clearly and specifically the values, goals, or
desired outcomes of the institutional culture in question.
On Goals, Priorities, and Outcomes:
What are the goals, priorities, and desired outcomes shared
by educators who seek to prepare the citizens of our global future? How have
Silos – as a form of organizational mapping – come up short in helping us
realize these goals? What do we need to adjust, improve upon, or change when
thinking about the functionality of Silos? But first, what do Silos look like
in education today? Immediately I think of academic departments, content-based
linear curricula, classrooms, campuses, division & grade levels, etc., and
it occurs to me that a
Siloed
organization operates according to the logic of binaries:
one is either in a class or outside it, on a campus or off of it,
engaging relevant curriculum or indulging irrelevant information, and as my
colleague
Jason Kern points out, the person who is the least
siloed in schools is the student
herself. She is the
nomad who travels from one territory to another while the
instructors and administrators remain in their fiefdoms, so one might ask, what are we modeling for our highly connected and heterogenous students as isolated instructors? Gilles Deleuze writes, "We learn nothing from those who say: 'Do as I do.' Our only teachers are those who tell us to 'do with me,' and are able to emit signs to be developed in heterogeneity rather than propose gestures for us to reproduce" (
Difference and Repition 23). Departmental silos often demand students to "do as I do" and to trace and reproduce in isolation, so why have silos
in schools? One answer gets back to the models and metaphors which shape
our organizational thinking,
but another response points towards the goals and outcomes we seek to realize.
When thinking about our desired goals as educators it’s
important to remember that the metaphors and models we teach by can limit and
expand our possible ways of thinking about certain concepts and how they can
work. In other words, our mindsets map the expanses and limits of our ability
to match thinking and strategy to the realization of our goals and priorities. With this in mind, what do the metaphors or models of binaries, factories, hub-and-spoke
structures, etc., expand for us in terms of desired goals or outcomes? Possible
answers might be maximizing profit and efficiency, establishing
control and power, fostering competition, maintaining safety and
predictability. Some of these might be goals we value and prioritize for
schools today, but others may not, meaning we need to pose the opposite question
as well: What do the metaphors or models of binaries, factories, hub-and-spoke
structures, etc., limit for us in terms of desired goals or outcomes? Some
responses might be trust and collaboration are more inhibited; spontaneity and
risk tend to be discouraged, and divergent thinking as well as creativity could
be stifled; yet many of us will agree that these are priorities we want to
expand upon, not limit, in our modern learning spaces. So I think we have to (continually) return to two questions: what are the most important priorities we need to focus on as a school, as a class, etc.? And what are the models and metaphors for
thinking that expand the possibility for us to make those priorities a reality?
Instead of factories,
hubs-and-spokes, binaries (and dare I say
trees), we need to root our thinking about education in new metaphors; in
fact, we need a new kind of root altogether: consider the Rhizome, for instance.
On the Rhizome and Responsibility:
Every rhizome contains lines of segmentarity according to which it is stratified, territorialized, organized, signified, attributed, etc., as well as lines of deterritorialization down which it constantly flees... That is why one can never posit a dualism or a dichotomy, even in rudimentary form of the good and the bad. You may make a rupture, draw a line of flight...
-Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 9
Google defines a rhizome as “a continuously growing
horizontal underground stem that puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots
at intervals.” Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guatarri offer it as a
metaphor or model whose purpose is to resist binary conceptualization and
static formalization (It’s much easier to
teach Plato’s theory of the forms when discussing trees as an example as
opposed to considering the Rhizome…). It’s hard to talk about “the form of
the Rhizome” in traditional, ontological terms, but D&G suggest the following qualities:
-A rhizome is pure connectivity
-A rhizome is pure differentiation
-A rhizome is pure multiplicity (as opposed to binary)
-A rhizome resists territorialization
-A rhizome maps, but never traces
-A rhizome is a form of decalcomania: “forming through continuous negotiation with its context, constantly adapting
by experimentation, thus performing a non-symmetrical active resistance against
rigid organization and restriction” (A Thousand Plateaus 20).
What if we thought about school organization more rhizomatically?
How might rhizomatic models help us deterritorialize the fiefdoms of silos,
especially when they discourage collaboration, creativity, communication, and
spontaneity? As I think of rhizomatic models (along with hub-and-spoke or
factory structures), one common goal or priority stands out for me: all of
these organizational frameworks want to encourage teachers, administrators, and
students to exercise responsibility for something,
but responsibility can work
differently according to the metaphors and models we use. In the siloed form of
organization, responsibility tends to function as such:
as an English teacher, I am
responsible for the student’s education in literature and composition, but her knowledge of polynomials
does not matter for my purposes. I call this
distributed
responsibility. But what if we thought about our organization differently?
In place of factories, I suggest the metaphor of the community garden, which is
much more rhizomatic in the way such social spaces promote unpredictable
connections and spontaneity as well as a deterritorialized sense of ownership.
No one owns that specific tomato, for instance, but everyone is responsible for
the garden itself: I call this
shared
responsibility. What if we could deterritorialize the departmental
landscape of the traditional school model? How might that make possible new pathways for mapping our
responsibility for the student’s learning and development? Like a community garden, education is about sharing the responsibility of cultivating certain universally-valued skills that all learners need to master; it's not
about Shakespeare vs. polynomials or curricular material vs. irrelevant
information. Instead of asking,
have they learned Shakespeare?, we need to ask together
are students
thinking critically? Are they exploring creative solutions? Are they
collaborating and connecting with others? Silos, unfortunately, often discourage the latter kind of mindset.
As students, administrators, and teachers, we all care about results (and we should) and with that
comes the need to feel in control. Silos make that emotional reassurance
possible, in my opinion. We feel a
heavy sense of responsibility to produce certain outcomes because there is so
much at stake, but it’s also possible to share the weight of our labor more
collaboratively. Hub and spoke, inside and outside silos, curricular content
and irrelevant info, inside and outside departments… these categorical binaries are meant to help us trace certain outcomes, but where are the opportunities to map new possibilities which resist such rigid organization? It’s important to make
clear, however, that organizational infrastructures and models (on a macro-institutional scale) can’t be
rethought in completely rhizomatic terms, not for tomorrow at least (that would be a revolution, for sure), but my call to action is a “grassroots” one. How can we as teachers, students,
and administrators rhizomatically disrupt (actually, make that deterritorialize) the silos we found ourselves in
today? What can we do tomorrow? Think of a silo (such as a classroom, a
department, a campus, a curriculum) and ask this question: where is there an
opportunity for an offshoot, for a new line of flight? What small steps can I
take to deterritorialize our traditional landscapes for learning?
Some examples in recent years for me:
-Last fall, the drama director at our school invited me to direct a one-Act version of William Shakespeare's Richard III. I had never directed, blocked, or acted in a Shakespeare production in my life. We also invited the drama teacher to join our literature class project and discussion which focused on cutting lines for the production. Drama and English departments were in lock-step, molding to each other's shape like the wasp and the orchid, and students' learning became more connected, relevant, and integrated.
-Last spring, the forensics science teacher enlisted the theatre & set design class to build a crime scene for a project. Drama students were cultivating the appropriate skills for building sets while also engaging in conversations about science and forensics making their learning more spontaneious in its offshoots.
-In recent years, I (along with two teachers from different schools) have collaborated across campuses using blogs, garageband & audacity, youtube, as well as other programs, in an ad-hoc, organic way such that the boundaries of who's teaching whose students (as well as boundaries of who's the student and who's the teacher) have become more and more rhizomatic and fluid. (Go
here to watch a K12 video about these collaborative projects)
-Last spring, I gamified my British Literature class, which provided more options, paths, and methods for demonstrating learning, and with a wider variety of assignments and learning styles, students discovered passions well beyond that of literary analysis. One student made a dagger (don't worry! it was blunted metal!) when studying Macbeth for some extra XP points, and in the process, he discovered his love for building things. It may have been "irrelevant," but it was awesome all the same!
-In recent years, I have used google docs as a platform for my students to construct and curate their own exam, making it a collaborative, student-driven form of inquiry such that the high-stakes test itself truly becomes something for the students & by the students. As a result, they owned the learning together.
****
In Charles Dickens's novel, Hard Times, one might recall the scene where Mr. Gradgrind, the utilitarian school supervisor, stands above the rows of desks filled with silent, passive children as he proclaims, "Now what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them" (9). I can't help but imagine Deleuze and Guattari interrupting to say, "Make rhizomes, not roots, never plant! Don't sow, grow offshoots! Don't be one or multiple, be multiplicities! Run lines, never plot a point! Don't just have ideas, just have an idea" (A Thousand Plateaus, 24-25)
Works Cited:
Bianca, Audra. "What Do Silos Mean in Business Culture?" yourbusiness.azcentral.com. Gannett Satelite Information Network, Inc., n.d. Web. 17 December 2015.
Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Print.
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repitition. Trans. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Print.
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. New York: Barnes and Nobles Books, 2004. Print.
Watters, Audrey. "The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education.'" hackeducation.com, 25 April 2015. Web. 17 December 2015.
