Transformative Learning

Learning comes in an array of different shapes and size; everyone is affected differently by it. Two individuals who are going through the same situation will always comprehend and learn from it differently because of their own learning experiences and transformative learning has been altered by the events they have experienced. As adults, we understand the events around us from our own personal experiences because “adults learn to think for themselves rather than act upon the assimilated beliefs, values, feelings and judgements of others” (Mezirow 2001, pg.1). Countless different elements go into the complex process of transformative learning. My own personal experiences relate to the concept of perspective transformation (Mezirow 1991, pg

Five years ago, I was one of those people; the ones who think that it could happen to them because that doesn’t happen to people like them. This is not true, it can affect anyone and you can’t tell by just looking at someone whether or not they have ever been affected by it or known someone who is. This brings me to what is my learning experience that changed my perspective on a lot of things in the world. Like most 15 year olds my head what in the clouds and I fantasied about the world around me. I had no reason to worry about anything at that point in my life, the health problems that used to plague me had past and I was glad. A month before my sixteenth birthday this had all changed for me. It had started as a normal day at school, I was bored with my classes, I felt like I hadn’t acquired enough sleep as usual but it was a normal day of school. Everything changed when lunch came around, I had finished eating and I was just standing around with my friends when it happened, the incident that changed how I see the world today. As I stood with my friends talking, a girl approached me from behind and stabbed me in the arm with a used needle with enough force to leave a large black bruise. I spent the rest of the day at the office filling out incident reports and talking to teachers, however no one told me the gravity of the situation at that point. I wouldn’t know until I

Mezirow makes the point that “(Adults) cannot fully trust what they know or believe because there are no fixed truths and circumstances change” (Mezirow 2001, pg. 2). Even though I was only 15 when the incident first occurred I was growing slowly into adulthood. Mezirow’s statement is true in my opinion because my own experience proved to me that this statement was true. There are no fixed truths in the world because everything changes around us, every moment and event creates new meanings for us. Mezirow tells us that Subjective Reframing occurs in ten phases in order to clarify the meaning for one’s