Learners as Nomads

Abstract

This chapter explores how East Asian students optimize their modes of learning to ensure their academic success. The authors refute negative stereotypes of East Asian students as passive and uncritical learners, and suggest that these stereotypes are based on Western colonial interpretations including misperceptions about shadow education in East Asian countries. The authors demonstrate that students actively create “nomadic” learning spaces by crossing the “boundaries” of mainstream schools as they integrate learning from shadow education environments. Informed by Deleuzian nomadology, the authors characterize the students as “nomadic subjects” and the current educational culture as “nomadic learning culture.” The authors provide four characteristics of the new learning culture: (1) nomadic movement toward a new learning space called “shadow education”, (2) deterritorializing the school curriculum, (3) nomadic selection of teachers, and (4) a rhizomatic learning process incorporating multiple agents. The chapter demonstrates how shadow education is allowing East Asian students to actively seek the most suitable curriculum and learning spaces to meet their academic needs.