Oct 5th, 2022—When you consider teaching at your best, what metaphors come to mind? Maybe it is a bridge, a key, or a librarian. Metaphors are good ways to capture the complexity of teaching while preserving some of the mystery. In the language of metaphor there is room to imagine and explore the possibilities. To envision teaching that is meaningful and consistent with the teacher’s inner-wisdom and calling. For instance, to say that good teaching is like a bridge conveys the sense of creating a structure and process for students to move across the learning space. But how, when, and where the bridge is constructed is completely unanswered. Some educators are called to the task of building a massive bridge to transport large numbers of learners toward learning goals and outcomes. The heart of other educators is drawn to smaller footbridges. Pathways that attend, in intimate ways, to the unique needs of students for care, empathy, compassion, and the invitation to grow beyond preconceived limitations.
Depending on my mood or lived experience in the classroom I use different metaphors including bridge, gardener, healer, and map maker. A new metaphor has entered my lexicon, teacher as mycelium network or mushroom. To be precise, mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of an underground network of fungal connections that span large expanses of forest and field. These interconnected communities are so spread-out that they are considered the largest living organisms on the planet. Bigger than genetically similar aspen groves. Bigger than the largest mammal, a blue whale.
I like this image of my teaching as metaphorically similar to something that grows and spreads out of sight, not easily observed and controlled by institutional pressures and norms. My successes are evident in the accolades and awards I receive, the visible mushrooms poking into the world of the visible. But they are only marginally representative of the work that is really going on below the surface in my heart. Soul work in teaching is deep work. For me it represents the massive spiritual body of interconnectedness with self, others, and text that knits together seemingly different and disparate experiences into an integrated whole.
What might the wisdom of the mushroom offer educators working to create more holistic and healing spaces for learners? I’ve pointed to one piece of knowing; the essence of teaching is more expansive and complex than outer practices and curriculum. It is far easier for institutions and accrediting bodies to judge the external, the various mushrooms pushing through the ground of the classroom, then it is to understand the mycelium network binding together the soil of heart, soul, and calling. In mushroom wisdom it is less important to analyze the individuals and of greater value to honor and nurture the fungal nexus. When the underground world of teaching is healthy, the land above flourishes.
I was listening to an interview (June 23rd, 2022) with adrienne maree brown on the program On Being with Krista Tippett. Emerging from her connection to nature, adrienne has a deep fascination with mushrooms. Her understanding of their ecology is useful, metaphorically and practically, in her work as a social justice advocate and activist. Her insights on the ways that mushrooms take toxins and death, repurposing them to create life, are helpful for educators seeking to create and sustain holistic and healing educational spaces. As I listened to the interview, I heard three questions in her comments of particular importance to educators: 1) what toxins are present?, 2) how are the toxins being repurposed?, and 3) toward what end will the repurposing serve?
What toxins are present? What are the places in schools and classrooms where things are dying, dead, or stagnate? For me, it is when a lesson falls apart, I speak to a student in an angry tone, or I sellout my gifts and teach with minimal preparation. These toxins are mostly self-generated. I’m also thinking of the institutional imperatives that generate toxins. They include an emphasis on efficiency over fidelity to the call to serve learners, the emphasis on the rational over embodied forms of learning, or policies and practices that sustain Whiteness to the diminishment of learners of color. In both cases, these moments of dying and discord infuse the classroom with a toxicity that can poison learning.
Once the toxins form, the question becomes now what? How are the toxins repurposed? This I think is the gift of mushrooms. They are experts are recognizing and acting on death, destruction, and stagnation as a resource. That is the first lesson on next steps, taking advantage of something that no other forest creature can or wants to deal with. The second lesson is patience. Mushrooms play the long game of decomposition. It takes time to release the nutrients in dead matter so it can be turned into nourishment for self and others.
As an educator, mushroom wisdom advises that I push past the stink and rot, naming the thing that is dead or dying. This may be as minor as asking a leading question that stifles curiosity, or it might be as major as a syllabus that isn’t serving the learning needs of students. If my heart is open, I can see the value of the mistake. I can name the disruption, acknowledge the damage to self and others, and seek ways to turn the life denying into life giving. I find it is best to name the damage out loud. To own the mistake and share with students what I’m seeing and what I intend to do differently. This is where the second lesson of mushrooms is helpful. I need to be patient with myself and any negative student response. Depending on the level of injury to our relationship it might take most of the year to turn the toxin into something new.
The third question asks toward what end will the repurposing serve? For mushrooms the purpose is multifaceted including, the cleaning of the forest of toxins, the creation of a nutrient rich soil matrix that fosters life, and the production of a fruiting body with spores that allow the mycelium to spread. For me, one purpose is to stay fresh in my teaching. Even the best lessons will die in time. Repurposing is an invitation to avoid stagnation. Another important goal in repurposing is to sustain high quality relationships with students, which takes time and a willingness to own the behaviors that are disruptive.
I strive for a holistic, transformative, and generative learning space in my teaching. The application of mushroom wisdom is one way I can achieve my goal. What toxins exist in your teaching or institution? What mechanisms exists, individually or collectively to repurpose those toxins? Toward end should the released nutrients serve? And remember that like the interconnected mycelium network of mushrooms, you don’t have to work alone. Link up with other educators to share resources and strategies that lean toward life and wholeness. Teach like a mushroom.