Critical reflection has been elevated to the
major objective of adult education in the work of Mezirow
(1990).
“Perhaps even more central to adult learning than elaborating
established meaning schemes is the process of reflecting back on prior learning to
determine whether what we have learned is justified under present circumstances. This is a
crucial learning process egregiously ignored by learning theorists.” (Mezirow,
1990:5)
He maintains that such reflection on assumptions and
presuppositions (particularly about oneself) leads to "transformative
learning"
"Perspective transformation is the process of becoming
critically aware of how and why our presuppositions have come to constrain the way we
perceive, understand, and feel about our world; of reformulating these assumptions to
permit a more inclusive, discriminating, permeable and integrative perspective; and of
making decisions or otherwise acting on these new understandings. More inclusive,
discriminating permeable and integrative perspectives are superior perspectives that
adults choose if they can because they are motivated to better understand the meaning of
their experience." (Mezirow, 1990:14 – my emphasis)
In other words, the real significance of adult learning
appears when learners begin to re-evaluate their lives and to
re-make them. This, for Mezirow, takes precedence over whatever
it was they set out to "learn" in the first place.
Other contributors to the collection make clear
that the overall
project is necessarily politicized, as his indebtedness to Habermas and Freire indicates.
I have to confess to rather regretful reservations about this point,
on two grounds.
The first concerns accuracy: reflection on its own does not lead
automatically to "more inclusive, discriminating, permeable and integrative
perspectives". In the real world it is just as likely to lead to self-justification,
self-indulgence or self-pity. I am sure that this is not what Mezirow means, but his
"more inclusive, discriminating, permeable and integrative perspectives" remain
ill-defined. In the
Kolb model
, reflection is
linked to Abstract Conceptualization, and without being a slave to Lewin and Kolb, it
seems true that it needs to take place in the context of a cognitive framework, which may
be empowering or disempowering (excuse these waffle words, used as shorthand here),
positive or pathological. As the other papers in the 1990 collection imply, that framework
has to be supplied by the teacher, mentor or learning group. This leads on to the second reservation, which concerns the ethics of the whole
process: Mezirow appeals to Habermas’ notion of the ideal communicative act to
legitimate his idea, but — from an old-fashioned liberal position — I’m not
convinced. Lifton (1961) describes the process of
thought reform ("brainwashing") as practiced by the Chinese in the Korean War,
and there are disconcerting overlaps. Pity, because I should like to believe it!
And there needs to be a real, rather than merely dismissive,
response to Thomas Gray’s assertion that:
“When ignorance is bliss
’Tis folly to be wise”
from "Ode on a Distant
Prospect of Eton College"
On the other hand: I taught this—without
much conviction, I confess—a few years ago, and received a remarkable
assignment from a student who taught, of all things, basic computer
literacy. She wrote about middle-aged semi- and un-skilled people
who attended her classes because they recognized the need to
be computer literate for the present job market. But, she noted,
what they really learned when they were there was that
they could still learn. They were not stuck in
the rut of no qualifications. Not many, but a significant few,
took up the challenge of going on to other qualifications and
higher aspirations. So it does happen— Thanks to Lorraine Belam
Original content updated and hosted at
www.learningandteaching.info/learning/
Mezirow’s work is part of a
critical tradition in adult education
associated also
with Collins and Brookfield as well as Freire, owing its roots to Dewey on the one hand
and its theoretical base to Habermas on the other.
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