Experimential Education
View PDF | Print View | Html View
Written by: janesimmons
Total views: 20 |
Word Count: 645 |
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 |
0 comments
Experiential education, most generally, occurs in different kinds of programs that have as their goal the construction of knowledge, skills, and dispositions from direct experience. Service learning, adventure education, outdoor and environmental education, and workplace internships are just a few examples.
Brief History of the Role of Experience in Education
The role of experience in education has a history that connects back to philosophical debates between rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists argued that the information that is gained through one's senses is unreliable, and the only reliable knowledge is that which is gained through reason alone. Empiricists argued that knowledge is derived from empirical sense impressions, and abstract concepts that cannot directly be experienced cannot be known. In 1787 the German philosopher Immanuel Kant resolved the debate by arguing that both rationality and experience have a place in the construction of knowledge. Indeed, the human mind imposes order on the experience of the world in the process of perceiving it. Therefore, all experiences are organized by the actively structuring mind.
John Dewey (1859–1952), perhaps the most prominent American philosopher of the early twentieth century, expanded on the relationship between experience and learning in the publication of his well-known book Experience and Education (1938). He argued that not all experience is educative, noting:
The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative …. Any experience is miseducation that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience …. A given experience may increase a person's automatic skill in a particular direction and yet tend to land him in a groove or rut; the effect again is to narrow the field of further experience. (Dewey, pp. 25–26)
For Dewey, experiences could be judged to be educative if they led to further growth, intellectually and morally; if there was a benefit to the community; and if the experience resulted in affective qualities that led to continued growth, such as curiosity, initiative, and a sense of purpose. Finally, it is important to emphasize that Dewey saw traditional education as hierarchical and inherently undemocratic, and argued that in order to promote the development of a thoughtful and active democratic citizenry, students in schools needed to be able to participate in aspects of the school program democratically.
Kurt Hahn (1886–1974), considered to be one of the foremost educators of the twentieth century, contributed to experiential education as a practitioner worldwide. Hahn established academic schools, such as Salem in Germany and Gordonstoun in Scotland, and the Outward Bound schools, which total twenty-eight in Europe, the United Kingdom, Africa, Asia, Australia, and North America. In addition he founded the Duke of Edinburgh Award for involvement in voluntary, noncompetitive practical, cultural, and adventurous activities for young people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. For Hahn, the entire school day–including curricula, daily routines, social life, and extracurricular activities–could be used to help young people develop social responsibility and high aspirations. Most important, it could also provide education and practice in the fundamental principles of democratic life.
The work of field theorist Kurt Lewin (1890–1947), genetic epistemologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980), and educator and activist Paulo Freire (1921–1997) also provides theoretical grounding for experiential education.
About the Author
Although experiential education has come to mean simply "learning by doing" for some, educators utilizing this approach recognize both its distinguished historical and philosophical roots and the complexity of applying what appears to be so elementary.
Rating: Not yet rated
