More On Transformational Experiences

 In what ways have you seen transformative learning integrated within your learning community, classes or courses? What has been the inspiration for these moments and the results? How can you relate these moments back to our readings?

I found Dirkx's (2012) discussion of "consciousness" to be interesting as well. In my thoughts regarding transformative learning experiences, the idea of expanding our "consciousness" hasn't been something that I considered. 

One of my classmates wrote a passage that discusses the Greek belief that education "is to bring out that which is within. It refers to the process by which education helps realize, in relation to the other world, the inner qualities or make-up fo the person" (p 402)  but it's in the conclusion where Dirkx (2012) writes "these self-formative processes are continuous and ongoing in our lives, and as we struggle to understand various aspects of ourselves and our world, we deepen and broaden our consciousness and sense of meaning" (p. 404). 

This is the key passage for me that links what is going on in a transformative learning moment/experience and the learner's "consciousness" development. This could be naive, but for me, as I wrote below, transformative learning experiences follow the model laid out by Mezirow and are in my history, usually more accelerated than typical learning experiences. 

The development of the learner's "consciousness" is on par with any other learning experience, but it is done via the established framework, and happens more quickly. I would argue that a development of the learners "consciousness" happens in more traditional learning experiences just over a longer time frame and that it happens more quickly and abruptly in a transformative learning moment. 

Reference:

Dirkx, J. M. (2012). Self-Formation and Transformative Learning: A Response to "Calling Transformative Learning Into Question: Some Mutinous Thoughts," by Michael Newman. Adult Education Quarterly, 62(4), 399-405.