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John Dewey and Experiential Learning:
Developing the theory of youth work
Abstract
Whilst experiential learning is an increasingly established aspect of youth work practice, in the
main it is dominated by a simplistic four stage cycle which is attributed to Kolb (1984). However,
it will be demonstrated in this article that this is a misinterpretation of Kolb’s theory which results
in a limited view of ‘experience’ within experiential learning. It is argued that not only a deeper
understanding of Kolb’s original theory is required, but a return must be made to John Dewey,
perhaps the architect of experiential learning, to fully comprehend its importance. In so doing, a
fuller appreciation of young people’s experience is acquired, as well as a wider theoretical basis
established for existing youth work practice.
Key words:
Experiential learning in youth work
Figure 1:
For many practitioners, informal education is synonymous with a pattern of learning that
might be described as experiential, ‘education that occurs as a result of direct participation
in the events of life’ Such a pattern starts with concrete experience, with
people doing things.
Learning [in youth work]is seen as a dynamic process, which leads to action. In other words,
to be meaningful, learning needs to be tested in reality. This process is reected in Kolb’s
experiential learning cycle.
... youth work is the application in work with adolescents of a form of practice which has
three dening characteristics-their personal and social development; the deliberate use of
experiential learning and transformative relationships; and adherence to a set of values
(which inter alia puts the interests of young people rst).
Transforming Youth
Work Strategy
Do-Review-Plan: A 3-stage experiential learning cycle (Neill, 2004, online).
Structural dimensions underlying the process of experiential learning and the
resulting basic knowledge forms (Kolb, 1984: 42)
We may choose to clear litter from a local beauty spot, and in so doing the area is visibly
improved (a consequence of ‘trying’) and at the same time we feel good about the deed that
has been carried out (a consequence of ‘undergoing’). For Dewey experience necessarily
contains these two distinct aspects.
When we experience something we act upon it, we do something; then we suffer or undergo
the consequences. We do something to the thing and then it does something to us in return:
such is the peculiar combination. The connection of these two phases of experience measures
the fruitfulness of experience. Mere activity does not constitute experience.
He [Dewey] does not mean by this [experience] the stored up product of the past; nor does
he mean simply the immediacy of the experienced present; nor the mere acceptance of
environmental impact by a passive recipient; nor does he contrast experience with thought
or reason. Experience is continuous from past through present to future; it is not static but
dynamic, moving, in process.
[T]o build theories about an experience we need to draw on a repertoire of ideas and
images… Book-learning and teaching can give us access to a range of theories and ways
of making sense. In other words we need to recognise that a ‘starting point’ for a lot of our
efforts may not be concrete experience.
The concept of education is a constant reorganising or reconstructing of experience. It has
all the time an immediate end, and so far as activity is educative. It reaches that end – the
direct transformation of the quality of experience... We thus reach a technical denition
of education: It is that reconstruction or reorganisation of experience which adds to the
meaning of experience and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent
experience
[I]n Paolo Freire’s work the dialectic nature of learning and adaptation is encompassed in
this concept of praxis, which he denes as ‘reection and action upon the world in order to
transform it’(1974:36). Central to the concept of praxis is the process of ‘naming the world’,
which is both active – in the sense that naming something transforms it-and reective-in that
our choice of words gives meaning to the world around us.
The dialectics of experience is important in theorizing experiential learning as it places a
different emphasis on how we conceive of experiential learning. An example of an application
of this dialectical tension of experience in youth work could be illustrated with reference to the
experience of young women. Their experience can be seen as a tension between the demand
to ‘accommodate’ themselves to the stereotypical expectations of their gender and femininity,
in contrast to the extent to which they conceptualise or ‘assimilate’ the world as an oppressive
environment which restricts their own authentic development irrespective of the environmental
demands. Similarly the dialectical tension in peer groups could be characterised by the extent to
which young people adapt their behaviour to meet the demands of the group, or free themselves
through a process of assimilation of information about the experience of peer groups and peer
group pressure. They realise that their desires, beliefs or values run contrary to the expectations
of the group; discovering that they actually have a choice to conform or not and that this does
not necessarily undermine their relationships with their peers.
[T]here is an ‘organic connection between education and experience’ (1938:25), Education
is part of that search for meaning – that trying to make sense... Hence, inquiry is an attempt
‘to make sense’ but in the light of what other people have concluded in similar circumstances.
Upon examination, each instance reveals, more or less clearly, ve logically distinct steps:
(i) a felt difculty; (ii) its location and denition; (iii) suggesting a possible solution; (iv)
development by reasoning of the bearings of the suggestion; (v) further observation and
experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection; that is, the conclusion of belief or disbelief.
[R]eection is turning a topic over in various aspects and in various lights so that nothing
signicant about it shall be overlooked ... thoughtfulness means, practically, the same thing
... in speaking of reection we naturally use the words weigh, ponder, deliberate ... closely
related names are scrutiny, examination, consideration, inspection – ... even reason itself.
Inquiry is the process that takes place when the person faces a problem. That problem can be
of many kinds. Often it is a sense of puzzlement, and the person concerned struggles to make
sense. The internal organisation of experience is upset as it were...Education is concerned
with providing the experiential capacity to make sense and to overcome the problem or
puzzlement.
The model for this art remains Socrates engaged in conversation with the citizens of Athens,
the informal and undogmatic mode of enquiry in which all participants and no one, including
the educator is above the fray of dialogue. From the educator this art requires skilful
guidance of enquiry from a given set of interests towards a broader horizon, the guidance that
draws upon a variety of methods.
...it is in politics that intellectual solidarity and effort must be centred. If the thinker does not
relate himself to the value of truth in political struggle, he cannot responsibly cope with the
whole of life experience
Founded Feb. 12., 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest, largest and most widely
recognized grassroots-based civil rights organization. Its more than half-million members
and supporters throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil
rights in their communities, campaigning for equal opportunity.
Dasain
Education in an Industrial Society
Principles and Practice of Informal Education
Reection: Turning experience into learning
Youth Work Curriculum
Child Centred Education and its critics
From Voluntaryism to Welfare State: A history of the Youth Service in England
Youth & Policy
Principles and Practice of Informal Education
Education Today
The School and Society, The Child and the Curriculum
How We Think
Democracy and Education
Creative Intelligence: Essays in Pragmatic Attitude
Reconstruction in Philosophy
The Quest for Certainty: A study in the relation of knowledge
and action
Experience and Education
Transforming Youth Work: Resourcing excellent youth services
Child Centred Education
Education after Dewey
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed
John Dewey Selected Educational Writings
Philosophical and Ideological Perspectives on Education
Hampshire County Youth Service Curriculum
Being and Time
Working with Young People
Continuing Learning in the Professions
‘Introduction to the Centennial Edition’ of The School and Society; and The
Child and the Curriculum
Text book of Psychology
Using Informal Education
Informal Education, conversation, democracy and learning
Learning Styles Inventory
Experiential Learning, Experience as the Source of Learning and Development
Learning Styles Inventory
Field Theory in Social Sciences
Luton Youth Service Curriulum framework & Toolkit
Towards a Contemporary Curriculum
The Youth Service in England and Wales (‘The Albemarle Report’)
The NYA Guide to Youth Work in England
Experiential Learning Cycles: Overview of 9 Experiential Learning Cycle
Models
Curriculum Policy and Framework
Youth Work Process, Product & Practice: Creating an authentic curriculum in
work with young people
International Journal of
Life Long Education
John Dewey
reconsidered
Play, Dreams and Imitation in childhood
John Dewey: Continuum Library of Educational Thought Volume 4
John Dewey Reconsidered
The Reective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action
Creators Not Consumers: Rediscovering social education
Developing Youth Work
Local Education: community, conversation
Curriculum Guidelines
Principles and Practice
of Informal Education
John Dewey Reconsidered
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Learning for Life, a youth work
curriculum framework
Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills
The Art of Youth Work
