The importance of being experienced

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Elements of Education: Time, Space, Experience, Other People

Abstract

The object of this paper is to clarify, extend and challenge contemporary educational understanding of experience and experience-based learning. Aristotle’s philosophy will serve as a theoretical framework for the discussion. His understanding of experience and experience-based learning contains elements that are highly neglected in contemporary education, and he can therefore help us to shed light on uncertainties and 'forgotten' aspects in contemporary education. Aristotle argues that there is a close relation between man’s actions and man’s character as men become virtuous by performing virtuous acts and not, as Plato argues, by knowing what virtue is. By insisting of the primacy of action he changes the educational focal point from a epistemological discussion of knowledge to an ethical discussion of practice.

Author

• Tone Saugstad, University of Copenhagen