Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood

FOSTERING CRITICAL REFLECTION IN ADULTHOOD A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning ‘How Critical Reflection triggers Transformative Learning’ Jack Mezirow

To make ‘meaning’ means to make sense of an experience, we make an interpretation of it. When we subsequently use this interpretation to guide decision-making or action, then making ‘meaning’ becomes ‘learning’. We learn differently when we are learning to perform than when we are learning to understand what is being communicated to us. Reflection enables us to correct distortions in our beliefs and errors in problem-solving. Critical reflection involves a critique of the presuppositions on which our beliefs have been built. Learning may be defined as ‘the process of making a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of an experience, which guides subsequent understanding, appreciation and action’. What we perceive and fail to perceive, and what we think and fail to think are powerfully influenced by habits of expectation that constitute our frame of reference, that is, a set of assuptions that structure the way we interpret our experiences. It is not possible to understand the nature of adult learning or education without taking into account the cardinal role played by these habits in making meaning. Structuring ‘Meaning’ It is helpful to differentiate two dimensions of making meaning. Meaning Schemes are sets of related and habitual expectations governing ‘if-then’, ‘cause-effect’ and category relationships as well as event sequences. We expect food to satisfy our hunger, walking to reduce the distance from one point to another; turning a knob and pushing on a door to open it. We expect that it will take less time to get somewhere if we run rather than walk; that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. When we open the front door, we expect to see our front lawn, not a tidal wave or a charging rhino. Meaning schemes are habitual, implicit rules for interpreting. Meaning Perspectives...