Mushrooms are the fungal fruit of mycelium networks, the underground fungal networks that connect and facilitate communication between plants and trees. Following a recent expansion of social science research into how these networks work and can shape how we understand social phenomena (Tsing, 2015; Hathaway, 2022; Harraway, 2016; Kimmerer 2013, 2021), this session explores what mushrooms can teach us about teaching and learning in post-secondary.

This research demonstrates these networks' complex, interdependent and dynamic natures that can offer educators many important lessons. Learning from Mushrooms looks at interdisciplinary research about what mushrooms and mycelium can help us examine in how we conceptualize education. This session will focus more on the philosophies of education and teaching, and less on the applied or practical approaches to instruction and assessment.

References:

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  

Hathaway, M. J. (2022). What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the worlds they make. Princeton University Press.

Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed editions.

Kimmerer, R. W. (2021). The democracy of species. Penguin UK.

Tsing, A. L. (2015). Mushroom at the end of the world: On the possibility of life in capitalism ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press.