What Constitutes Experience? Rethinking Theoretical Assumptions

White Privilege in Experiential Education: A Critical Reflection

“…By (re)interpreting the students' comments through my own lenses, I painted my reality as if it were everyone's reality (e.g., Brown, 2002). My interpretation of our experiences was privileged in our group's discourses (e.g., Bell, 1993). I failed to understand how my experiences and suggestions came from a racialized experience that was rarely, if ever, acknowledged in my upbringing and development as a person, as a professional, and as a White man.…”

“Let's Go round the Circle:” How Verbal Facilitation Can Function as a Means of Direct Instruction

“…Students are apparently free to draw valid and meaningful conclusions from their own experiences. while numerous commentators have remarked on the role of verbal processing and the leader's role in guiding student "self-discovery," several writers Bell, 1993;Boud, 1997;Bowles, 1996;Brown, 2002a;Estes & Tomb, 1995 have questioned how verbal facilitation is enacted and how it positions the participants in these sessions. Boud claims that present conceptualiza tions of facilitation and the role of the facilitator are often based in notions of group relations training and are not sufficiently critically aware of the need to acknowledge diversity in the pro motion of learning from experience.…”

Reconceptualising outdoor adventure education: Activity in search of an appropriate theory

“…Both can be considered as part of the same argumentative process which constructs meaning" (p. 142). Experience is not a stable entity, rather it is multi-layered and confounds attempts to bound and rationalise it into categories that can easily be managed (Bell, 1993;Fox, 2008;Michelson, 1999). Some OAE programmers have perhaps drawn a somewhat arbitrary line between being active and then structuring reflection on these experiences to aid meaning-making to enhance learning.…”

“…Such is the 'bedrock' status of experiential approaches that critiques of accepted experiential practices are relatively rare within OAE literature (for existing critiques see Bell, 1993;Brown, 2003;Fox, 2008;Hovelynck, 2001;Loynes, 2002;Quay, 2003;Ringer, 1999;Roberts, 2008;Seaman, 2008;Wurdinger, 1995).…”

“…various cyclic models, Joplin, 1995;Kolb, 1984). However the focus on reflection in experiential learning has been criticised for being too simplistic, reductionist and linear (Bell, 1993;Fenwick, 2003a;Fox, 2008;Holman et al, 1997;Roberts, 2008;Sawada, 1991). Critiques of the experience -reflection binary are focussed on several overlapping issues.…”