Transformative Education

Abstract

The human condition has changed radically in the past 100 years. Educational institutions, formal and informal, have not kept pace with technological innovations, the lengthening life span, or the need for ongoing reeducation to reinvigorate lives. The authors distinguish between learning and education and, more significantly, between transformative learning and transformative education. They then introduce the path of transformative education following a Navaho healing ritual that illuminates the mega-myth of death and rebirth as a model on which to organize ideas of adult transformative education across an extended life span. The purpose is to highlight the need for a fourth level of education suitable to 21st-century society, and to engage a global, cross-disciplinary dialogue to inform transformative educational practice across its personal, productive, instrumental, emancipatory, and holistic goals.Beyond the looking glass, in a monastery, through the gate of purgatory, or under the tutelage of a master, there is a liminal place in which education can transform individuals, organizations, and societies. There one can get an education distinct from that acquired on the traditional path taken from infancy to majority. An education that is transformative redirects and reenergizes those who pause to reflect on what their lives have been and take on new purposes and perspectives. The transformation begins when a person withdraws from the world of established goals to unlearn, reorient, and choose a fresh path.The archetypal form of transformative education is the path of death and rebirth, of regression in the service of a forward leap-"reculer pour mieux sauter" (Koestler, 1964). It is a generator of revolution for a society and revitalization for

Transformative learning: An emotional (r)evolution

“…Notably, many similar terms and considerable evidence regarding this concept of being stuck during phase 1, are scattered throughout the literature: psychological block (Mezirow, 1991, p. 139); mental emergency (Mälkki, 2011, p. 31); hijacked (Goleman, 1995, p. 14; Van der Kolk, 2015, p. 59); triggered (Ekman, 2003, p. 38); experientially blind (Barrett, 2017a, p. 29); the neutral zone (Bridges & Bridges, 2019, p. 344); a moment of suspension (Brookfield, 1994, p. 59); initial reaction (Courtenay et al., 1998, p. 68); ego equilibria or hanging in the balance (Kegan, 1979, p. 11); a feeling of being in limbo (Brookfield, 1994, p. 59) or trapped interminably (King, 2003, p.16); stalling (Lytle, 1989, as cited in Taylor, 1997, p. 40); liminal space and lightning strike (McWhinney & Markos, 2003, as cited in Sands & Tennant, 2010, p. 110); catastrophic disorganization (Perry, 1968, as cited in Berger, 2004, p. 339); unconscious habit memory (Post & Kegan, 2017); and enduring suspense‐feltness (Rodgers, 2002, p. 852). By associating the emotional edge with the advancement of knowledge, we find that Berger's (2004) edge of knowing (p. 338) most accurately describes the disorienting dilemma.…”

Civic and Citizenship Education: From Big Data to Transformative Education

“…Here, the role of the teacher and learner become intertwined where transformative learning for both parties in the classroom through critical reflection and dialogical methodology on issues of common interest (Taylor 2017). Transformative learning in civic and citizenship education should consider personal transformation of both the learner and the teacher, going beyond its foundation as the personal transformation of only the learner (McWhinney and Markos 2003). Taylor (2017) has correctly pointed out a learner's potential for transformation to developments of globalization and the associated change in demography, which is increasingly providing the inter-cultural integration required for transformative dialogical encounters.…”

Preparing student midwives for professional practice: Evaluation of a student e-portfolio assessment item

“…As the students undertake the transformation from student to practicing professional 382 there is a change from one set of goals to another as recognised in theories of transformation 383 (McWhinney and Markos, 2003). Enabling the students to identify personal learning goals, the 384 e-portfolio assessment encourages the development of independent learning, facilitating the 385 student's ability to manage this transformation.…”