I first came into contact with experiential learning when I got involved in this area of work (counselling, community work etc.) I found it new, refreshing and immediate – and I also found it suited my brain.
Like Prof. Billy O’Connor proposed – described in the previous post – experiential implied movement, in particular movement of energy through our body i.e. our emotions.
Therefore I lean towards it when designing and delivering training courses. I feel that better results are achieved than would be with academic, linear learning – and it also tends to lessen the amount of competitiveness that seems to creep unnoticed into all courses and training.
I also believe (and studies in neuroscience have shown) that people learn throughout their life stages, and those who may not have thrived in an academic environment when young can thrive in an experiential environment later in life.
I also believe that experiential learning assists cognitive development at all stages of our lives, and I read somewhere recently that learning skills that require some physical effort and activity in middle/late age is a protective factor in avoiding dementia and similar afflictions of the brain.
I referred to wisdom at the start of this Chapter, and surely growing in maturity is a function of experiential learning – learning through experience.
Perhaps it is because I am a slow learner myself that I am drawn to people who struggle or have struggled in school, who have high need, who have suffered from trauma, and who, potentially, may do harm to society, to their families and indeed ultimately themselves.
One of the most exciting developments (for me anyway) in this relatively new science of the brain (which to the best of my knowledge was not evident to traditional practitioners) was that the level of raw intelligence is not fixed at birth, and can change throughout one’s life. Studies have shown that the brain physically changes as it learns, and those changes can increase the level of intelligence.
This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity, where the neurons (the tiny little cells that receive and process information from one part of our brain and send it to another) and the synapses (the connections through which the information passes) change and reorganise themselves on learning and practicing new skills over time.
The amount of stress in our lives, what we eat and drink, the amount of exercise we take etc. all impacts on neuroplasticity.
Of particular interest (in respect of our leaning towards the Person Centred Modality) is that if something has meaning for us we learn faster, and that our emotional states can speed up or hinder the speed at which we learn, or indeed whether we learn at all.
And while we are on the subject, it is appropriate here to describe the difference between the brain and the mind.
The brain is a physical entity located between our ears. It can be scanned, studied, analysed and operated on. However the mind is concerned with how we process information, how we think, how we feel, what we value and what we don’t, even our conscience and our ability to be empathic.
Crucially, the mind develops in relationship (one of our root foundations) with others – it gives meaning to our lives.
And in respect of meaning, I have already described how important creativity – which is largely dependent on meaning – is to those who want to grow.