Of Fractals and Gardens

My lasting impression of this year's DEI is that we are part of a movement that is exciting, complex, chaotic and lively. As more and more people apply Dialogue Education in their work in so many ways, it continues to bear fruit and spreads to new individuals, organizations and communities. The best metaphor for describing it that I can come up with is that of a garden. In 1981, Jane Vella collected all kinds of tasty seeds from different gardens -- Freire, Bloom, Training for Transformation, the shambas of the men and women she worked with in Tanzania, her Ed.D. research -- synthesized / planted a wonderful garden at her Jubilee Popular Education Center (later Global Learning Partners). From there, participants in the courses, people who read her books and people who even just worked with people who had taken her courses adapted the principles and practices and planted their own gardens --- in Vermont, Haiti, Thailand, New Orleans, California, South Africa... -- and these seeds in turn took root, adapted and produced new unexpected fruits and fertile seeds that spread to other areas: the Philippines, Australia, Tanzania, British Columbia, London, etc.

With my new set of Human Systems Dynamics glasses -- thanks Darlene and Glenda --- I can now see these multitude of blooming gardens as a "fractal" pattern. Each of these thousands of individual decisions and exchanges were in themselves "Random", but guided by some "Simple Rules": Respect, Safety, Immediacy, Praxis, Subjects etc. that gave them enough of a frame to grow upon. And if you "scale up" and step back, you can start to see the same patterns emerge even amongst the myriad of wonderful local variations.

As a result of this week's conference and this new perspective, the tasks for Global Learning Partners are now clearer to me. I'm thinking that we need to:

• Tend our own garden with the aim of producing stronger, more resilient varieties of our favourite fruits and vegetables (e.g. Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach)
• Propagate new seeds (e.g. SURE-Fire Meetings) that expand the application of Dialogue Education to new areas
• Cross-pollinate with plants in other fields of learning (e.g. Human Systems Dynamics, online learning, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space) so that we don't become too inbred!
• Help others plant these seeds of learning in their gardens through our courses, the Voices listserv, Voices in Dialogue newsletter and future online offerings Document the new varieties of plants, fruits and seeds that this network of practitioners will create.
• Support the work that others are doing in their gardens, to add some helpful compost where requested, but without smothering the plants.
• Celebrate with you all at the next DEI "potluck"!
  

Happy Gardening!

Dwayne Hodgson
GLP Programs Director

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