Editorial Forward

For this post, I would like to comment upon the following quotation:

“Scientific study leads to and enlarges experience, but this experience is educative only to the degree that it rests upon a continuity of significant knowledge and to the degree that this knowledge modifies or ‘modulates’ the learner’s outlook, attitude, and skill” (10).

Plenty of things to say here…I would argue that a study of any particular discipline can serve to enlarge—by which I mean broadly to understand more deeply—an experience. In other words, as an individual gains greater insight into a given body of data that acquired knowledge has the power to create a more accurate comprehension of and appreciation for the life experiences he or she encounters. Essentially, knowledge has the potential to create a deeper understanding of and to find the purpose of experiences of various kinds. That is point one.

Point two is that there is a distinct process of being educated from experiences. According to this quotation, education emerges from experiences in which:

1) The experience rests upon a foundation of prior knowledge.
2) A noticeable change in the learner’s attitude, skill level, knowledge, behavior, etc. occurs from this knowledge. (Outcome-based learning, anyone?)

Again, experience becomes a mode of education when it builds off of past knowledge gained and when this knowledge leads the learner to change a part of his or her behavior.

Placing these steps together, one notices a symbiotic relationship between study and experience. Study enhances one’s individual understanding of the power/importance of life experiences, while experiences prove educational when they are founded on a baseline of knowledge.

So what do I think of all of this?

I am reminded of what Maxine Greene asserts about the imagination and how that parallels in function to what I have labeled the “study” component of this equation. She acknowledges that one’s imagination has the power to penetrate established ways of thinking and uncover alternative realities within a world of formal modes of education. Not only that but she suggests that one’s imagination can open doors of perception and lead to an increased awareness of possibilities. In the same way, an individual’s acquisition of knowledge (study) functions to cut to the heart of an experience, to see it as it really is, perhaps to break it down or build upon it, and to provoke action from the learner in light of the possibilities perceived.