Growing up in a Minnesota town – where farming and hunting cycles moved through nomadic, pastoral and peripatetic versions, where the US-Dakota War intensified the clash between nomadic communities – Dakota peoples and white settlers/Dakota warriors and white soldiers – until 38 Dakota were hanged as a single platform dropped on the Boxing Day of 1862 after a hoax of a trial, and where rhizomes of hops, asparagus, irises and Lily of the Valley rooted at home then traveled underground to new beds – the blend of nomad and rhizome made my brain light up, the synapses tingling with recognition from growing up and in learning that mattered to me as well as teaching I dare to engage. Nomads are not wanderers, homeless nor necessarily restless or relentless – purposed, mindful, drawn to next discoveries and to bringing these home, communal and communicative in both social settings and self-reflection, learners because of and teachers with their families – where the context is about making it safe to take risk and where the mentoring is about making it possible to discern risk and make other decisions.

Thank you, Dave, for this post.