Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, Second Edition

6. The Experiential Learning Theory of Development

The course of nature is to divide what is united and to unite what is divided.

—Goethe

There is a quality of learning that cannot be ignored. It is assertive, forward-moving, and proactive. Learning is driven by curiosity about the here-and-now and anticipation of the future. It was John Dewey who saw that the experiential learning cycle was not a circle but a spiral, filling each episode of experience with the potential for movement, from blind impulse to a life of choice and purpose (see Chapter 2, “Dewey’s Model of Learning”). He compared this progression in learning from experience to the advance of an army:

Each resting place in experience is an undergoing in which is absorbed and taken ...