What is a Significant Educational Experience?

Abstract

This article analyses the nature of an educational experience by taking as its starting point Dewey’s Art as Experience in order to identify what it is that counts as a significant or worthwhile experience. Dewey suggests that an experience needs to have an integral character in which the different phases of the experience are related and which tends towards a conclusion. Furthermore, an experience also needs to have the character of what Dewey calls an ‘undergoing’, an engagement with content which may be difficult or painful. It is suggested that this kind of experience may be seen in terms of a ‘light’ pedagogy in which content is allowed to unfold. This is contrasted with educational experiences that are ‘teacher-driven’ or ‘learner-driven’. Education is often analysed in terms of process or outcomes. But in this article I wish to focus on the experience of education from the standpoint of the child or student who is having the experience. I want to see if there are characteristics of this experience that can be identified in such a way