The 21st Century Necessity of Experiential Learning
Why do we value education? Better yet, what does the word education even mean? I went to the trouble of googling it, and here is what I found:
- the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university,
- an enlightening experience.
This is an imperative distinction to establish when speaking on the subject of education, because education at it’s core, is relative. In our western society, education is viewed as a means in which to receive input of knowledge in order to yield a desired output. (Freire, 1968)This output will typically take the form of a test, a paper, a killer interview, a lab experiment, a nobel prize, the list goes on. In this objective based learning system our western society operates within, we externalize most, if not all, nuanced forms of experiential learning. What is lost in this pursuit of these achievements is the diversity of perspective necessary in order to critically approach life’s more existential problems.
Experiential education offers an opportunity to take the academic concepts we grapple with every day, and reify them into action. It is proven that until “students learn explicitly to recognize when their knowledge might be useful, can recall that knowledge, and know how to apply it, they will fail to transfer what they know; their understanding is incomplete.” (Eyler, 2009)
I am currently engaged with an internship working with the Kitty Anderson Youth Science Center (KAYSC) curating Environmental Justice and Sustainability curriculum to facilitate after school learning opportunities for historically marginalized youth. This organization is a true representation of just how effective integrating hard STEM content into an experiential learning context can be for knowledge retention and engagement. Of all the participants, “82% enroll in college directly after high school, and 100% have graduated from high school or earned their GED.” (Machado, 2016)It is no surprise that allowing the opportunity to contextualize academic content into perceptible scenarios yields more positive results than the west’s traditional, public school education. The major emphasis of the KAYSC is to frame STEM content through a racial equity lense to radically shift the demographic participation of the field. Because youth interact with STEM content in a capacity they see immediately transferable to catalyzing community change, there is an incredible amount of investment.
The dynamic relationships developed through building community in the KAYSC are transformative. This is not by accident, but rather is extremely intentional. As a recent addition to the KAYSC family, I experienced the facilitated entrance into the community through what is called the STEM Justice Framework. This framework operates as a structure to plan projects, onboard new folks, and run crew. What is so exceptional about this model is that it’s the same process all the new (family) staff go through at every level of involvement. The product of this holistic pedagogical approach to learning and teaching is the assurance that all those in the KAYSC are working towards a similar destination, just coming from many diverse avenues. You feel a sense of connection to the work that is done and those that do it. A staff member named Aki said to me one of the first weeks I began working that “the KAYSC operates within a growth mindset, a culture of we don’t give up”.
Experiential education’s impact, just like the KAYSC’s, is relative to the many dynamic characteristics that make up the youth participants. The approach to cultivating capacity within future generations to solve own grandest challenges must be as diverse as the problems themselves. In the 21st century, we can not longer occupy just one job within a single discipline, and expect their to be certain life comfort. We will occupy multiple jobs necessitating we interact on a global scale while working across differences to unify under humanity’s common cause. Experiential education is not the means to an end to remedy all struggles, but if I have taken away anything from my time working in the KAYSC, is that this model creates reason to believe we have a chance.
Bibliography:
“Education | Definition of Education in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/education.Eyler, Janet. “The Power of
Experiential Education.” Association of American Colleges & Universities, 5 Jan. 2015, www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/power-experiential-education.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed 50th Anniversary Edition. Bloomsbury USA Academic, 2018.
Machado, Aiyana. “KAYSC 2015/2016 Program Year Report.” Science Museum of Minnesota, www.smm.org/sites/default/files/public/attachments/kaysc-2016report.pdf.
Whitehead, Alfred North. The Aims of Education: and Other Essays. Free Press, 1967.
