“To these centered systems, the authors contrast acentered systems, finite networks of automata in which communication runs from any neighbor to any other, the stems or channels do not preexist, and all individuals are interchangeable, defined only by their state at a given moment—such that the local operations are coordinated and the final, global result synchronized without a central agency.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 17)

Rhizome

A Rhizome, in the words of Deleuze & Guattari, “has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo. The tree is filiation, but the rhizome is alliance, uniquely alliance. The tree imposes the verb ‘to be,’ but the fabric of the rhizome is the conjunction, ‘and... and... and...’ This conjunction carries enough force to shake and uproot the verb ‘to be.’ Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you heading for? These are totally useless questions … proceeding from the middle, through the middle, coming and going rather than starting and finishing.” (p. 25)

“one of the most important characteristics of the rhizome is that it always has multiple entryways” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 12)

Students they co-create their learning rhizomes. At the same time, each and every participant can be thought of as a manifistation of they learning rhizome. According to Bohm, the observer is the observed: "thought is a system belonging to the whole culture and society, evolving over history, and it creates the image of an individual who is supposed to be the source of thought." (Bohm, 2004, p. 82)

The Rhizome teaches, the teacher cultivates the Rhizome

The rhizome as a whole becomes the teaching apparatus, a multiplier of perspectives, an amplifier of synergies. In such epistemology of learning, the main role of the teacher is rather not to teach in a traditional way, but catalyze and facilitate the development of the rhizome that will drive leaning towards the desired direction.

Paraphrasing Yalom's words, the group teacher’s job is to create the machinery of learning, to set it in motion, and to keep it operating with maximum effectiveness. (Yalom & Leszcz, 2005, p. 117)

This is a group-as-a-whole pedagogy. Students form a self-organized learning rhizome in the way that Kauffman (1996) describes living coevolving systems: "In coevolving systems, each partner clambers up its fitness landscape toward fitness peaks, even as that landscape is constantly deformed by the adaptive moves of its coevolutionary partners. […] As if by an invisible hand, each adapting species acts according to its own selfish advantage, yet the entire system appears magically to evolve to a poised state where, on average, each does as best as can be expected." (p. 24)

"A new rhizome may form in the heart of a tree, the hollow of a root, the crook of a branch. Or else it is a microscopic element of the root-tree, a radicle, that gets rhizome production going … An intensive trait starts working for itself, a hallucinatory perception, synesthesia, perverse mutation, or play of images shakes loose, challenging the hegemony of the signifier … a microscopic event upsets the local balance of power … To be rhizomorphous is to produce stems and filaments that seem to be roots, or better yet connect with them by penetrating the trunk, but put them to strange new uses. We're tired of trees. We should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. They've made us suffer too much. All of arborescent culture is founded on them, from biology to linguistics. Nothing is beautiful or loving or political aside from underground stems and aerial roots, adventitious growths and rhizomes.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 15)

“A rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines. You can never get rid of ants because they form an animal rhizome that can rebound time and again after most of it has been destroyed.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 9)

Teacher and Students form a learning rhizome of becoming.

“The orchid deterritorializes by forming an image, a tracing of a wasp; but the wasp reterritorializes on that image. The wasp is nevertheless deterritorialized, becoming a piece in the orchid's reproductive apparatus. But it reterritorializes the orchid by transporting its pollen. Wasp and orchid, as heterogeneous elements, form a rhizome.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 9)

“Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of signifiance and subjectification, central automata like organized memories. In the corresponding models, an element only receives information from a higher unit, and only receives a subjective affection along preestablished paths. This is evident in current problems in information science and computer science, which still cling to the oldest modes of thought in that they grant all power to a memory or central organ.” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 16)

Pando (Latin for "I spread out") is a clonal colony of an individual male quaking aspen determined to be a single living organism by identical genetic markers and assumed to have one massive underground root system. The plant is located in the Fremont River Ranger District of the Fishlake National Forest at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau in south-central Utah, United States. Pando occupies 43 hectares. The root system of Pando, at an estimated 80,000 years old, is among the oldest known living organisms. Pando is currently thought to be dying. Though the exact reasons are not known, it is thought to be a combination of factors including drought, grazing, human development, and fire suppression. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)]