Yet More Transformational

 Having read the supplemental readings, which one has the most bearing on your work world, the learning community you support, or your classes and why?

One of the factors that surprised me most through our reading but will also have bearing on the community that I support would be the fact that prior experience and perspective shifting has such a significant place to play in transformative learning experiences. 

Having read the passages in Mezirow (1978) "this involves learning how we are caught in ou own history and reliving it" (p. 101) and "we tend to move through adulthood along a maturity gradient that involves a sequential restructuring of one's frame of reference for making and understanding meanings" (p. 104) then applying the passage that states as the second stage "reframing, restructuring one conception of reality and one's place in it" (p. 105) seems to help makes sense of the way that prior experience and perspective shifting can play an integral part in a transformative learning moment or experience. 

In the community that we support, we are constantly trying to find ways to utilize the experience of our learners to help other newer learners and expand the understanding of the experienced learner. Although there is a general belief that there is high turnover in our industry, what I have experienced is that if a new employee remains in the industry at their job for more than three months, they generally stay in the industry for the bulk of their career. Throughout that career, there can be several perspective shifts that occur that we should be able to, and be trying to exploit as learning moments. 

There is also the possibility that these more experienced workers can relive their own history by teaching the next generation of workers. There are several opportunities for more effective and stronger learning moments for our learners through perspective transformations and transformative learning moments in our classes and courses. 

References

Mezirow, J. (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education, 28(2), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202