I see teaching and learning as an active living and evolving ecology,  a vast web of connections linking ideas, experiences, people, time and place. Those connections are not always visible though, sometimes you have to dig deep beneath the surface to find those webbed connections, like the roots of a tree, even more apt, like the intricate web of fungal mycelium. A fungal network doesn't merely connect; it nourishes, transfers resources, responds to its environment, and continuously reorganizes itself.

 

Learning and active reasoning is just like a mycelium network. It is a process of noticing, nurturing, and extending the often-hidden relationships among ideas, experiences, people, places, and possibilities within a living ecology of meaning.

 

Understanding comes from noticing those connections and perceiving how every bit of information or experience is related to or connects in some way to what we already know and understand. We build new knowledge and understanding by revealing the connections and relationships among the knowledge and ideas that we already have. This includes the people and communities we know, the places and experiences that shape us, and finding space among the web of connections to imagine the possible -  what may not yet be known but can be imagined through the web of connections.