Definition of Transformation Learning

A defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience. For some, any uncritically assimilated explanation by an authority figure will suffice. But in contemporary societies we must learn to make our own interpretations rather than act on the purposes, beliefs, judgments, and feelings of others. Facilitating such understandings is the cardinal goal of adult education. Transformative learning develops autonomous thinking (Mezirow 1997, p. 5).

As found, "Transformative Learning" is a term that stems from Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 1990, 1991, 2000), which describes a learning process of "becoming critically aware of one's own tacit assumptions and expectations and those of others and assessing their relevance for making an interpretation" (Mezirow, 2000, p. 4).

Since first introduced by Jack Mezirow in 1978, the concept of transformative learning has been a topic of research and theory building in the field of adult education (Taylor 1998). Although Mezirow is considered to be the major developer of transformative learning theory, other perspectives about transformative learning--influenced by the work of Robert Boyd--are emerging. Following a discussion of transformative learning as conceptualized by Mezirow, this is a blog about MY Transformative Learning and its current influence on my continuous learning. 

In this blog, I will attempt to give a personal example on how an incident that occured in my life has set me along on the road to transformative learning.