Defining experiential education
Charles Luckmann, Editor
In November 1994, the Association for Experiential
Educations Board of Directors approved a definition of
experiential education (see figure). As a profession we
frequently try to define what we do and the effort is
usually stimulating, provocative, and rewarding.
Though AEEs definition is a good one, and helpful, I
believe that any definition of experiential education
falls short of the truth-for, as Martha Bell (1993)
writes, there is no generic clone for the
ence which applies to everyone (p. 20). Fr
my perspective, the phrase experiential edu-
cation is a term for how I and others trans-
late personal and collective experience into
revelation; it is also a metaphor for seeing
phenomena from different angles and van-
tage points (i.e., as a child, a scientist,
mountain climber, or a mystic, to name
a few). I believe that experience is social
ly and culturally constructed, but ren-
dered unique by each imagination. As edi
tor of this journal for the last nine issues, one w
of my goals has been to publish in these pages articles
that reveal the innumerable contexts of experiential
learning. Hopefully, newcomers to the Journal will
pick up an issue and by reading what is published,l
begin to define and describe for themselves what is
implied by the phrase experiential education.
Each year at the annual meeting in September or
October, I sit down with the Journal Advisory
Committee and Journal Reviewers to plan the focused-
themes for upcoming issues, which is also a process of
defining who we are. There are four professional
groups within AEE: Therapy Adventure Professional
Group (TAPG); Experience-Based Training and
Development Professional Group (EBTD);Schools and
Colleges Professional Group ( S & C); Womens
Professional Group (WPG); and Native Americans,
African-Americans, Latino(a)s and Allies Professional
Group (NAALA). It is no coincidence that during the
last three years the focused-themes reflect the interests
of these professional groups. A sampling of past and
future themes shows as much: Professionalism and
Experience-Based Training and Development (August
1993); Adventure Therapy: Current Status and Future
Directions (August 1995); Experiential Education and
Teacher Education (December 1995); NAALA in
6 The Journal of Experiential Education
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Experiential Education (December 1996); and Gender
Issues in Experiential Education (December 1997). We
also have had and will have themes that do not neatly
fall into one category or another, indicating the range
and depth of our endeavors, which also defines us:
Critical Perspectives (December 1993); Experiential
Education as a Catalyst for Social Change (August
1994); Experiential Education around the
World (Fall 1995); and Facilitating
Experiential Education (August 1997). In
this current issue, Rebecca Carvers article,
Theory for practice: A framework for
thinking about experiential education, is a
recursor to the upcoming August issue on
Theory and Pedagogy of Experiential
ucation. Carvers article summarizes the
inter-disciplinary and holistic aspects of experien-
tial education, describing how experiential education
is both a process and an outcome. ?he summer issue is
shaping up to be a seminal one, defining and elaborat-
ing on topics that Carver introduces.
One context typical of many experiential education
programs is that the learning place is a natural setting.
The proliferation of environmental education programs
focusing on natural landscapes, ranging from the
mountainous to the marine, and instruction in natural
history as well as ecological concepts, has been one
area of growth within the profession. Articles in this
issue by Steven Simpson and Alan Ewert, A Leopold
for the nineties: The ecological age and outdoor recre-
ation and Experiential education and natural
resource management, encourage outdoor educators
to re-evaluate reasons for taking people to the wilder-
ness. Simpson shows how Aldo Leopold is a positive
model for shifting our actions from exploitation of
nature to eco-centered actions. Ewert challenges us to
consider the harm wilderness educators may be con-
tributing to, and asks important questions about the
continued use of wilderness settings for adventure
and outdoor programs. And Jennifer Davis-Berman and
Dene Berman describe how wilderness settings are
used by many colleges to facilitate adjustment to col-
lege.
I put the word wilderness in quotations because
it reflects Euro-American cultural consciousness, and
the dichotomy that is now playing itself out between
 AEE Definition of Experiential Education
Experiential education is a process through which a learner2
constructs knowledge, skill, and value from direct experiences.
Principles of experiential education practice
The priority or order in which each professional places these principles
may vary.
Experiential learning occurs when carefully chosen experiences are sup-
ported by reflection, critical analysis, and synthesis.
Experiences are structured to require the learner to take initiative, make
decisions, and be accountable for the results.
Throughout the experiential learning process, the learner is actively
engaged in posing questions, investigating, experimenting, being curi-
ous, solving problems, assuming responsibility, being creative, and con-
structing meaning.
Learners are engaged intellectually, emotionally, socially, soulfully,
and/or physically. This involvement produces a perception that the
learning task is authentic.
The results of the learning are personal and form the basis for future
experience and learning.
Relationships are developed and nurtured: learner to self, learner to oth-
ers, and learner to the world at large.
Because the outcomes of experience cannot be totally predicted, the
educator3 and learner may experience success, failure, adventure, risk-
taking, and uncertainty.
Opportunities are nurtured for learners and educators to explore and
examine their own values.
The educators primary roles include setting suitable experiences, posing
problems, setting boundaries, supporting learners, insuring physical and
emotional safety, and facilitating the learning process.
The educator recognizes and encourages spontaneous opportunities for
learning.
Educators strive to be aware of their biases, judgments, and pre-con-
ceptions and how they influence the learner.
The design of the learning experience includes the possibility to learn
from natural consequences, mistakes, and successes.
Notes
1. Approved by the Association for Experiential Education Board of Directors,
November 3, 1994.
2. Because there is no single term encompassing all the roles of a participant in
experiential education, the term learner is meant to include student, client,
trainee, participant, etcetera.
3. Because there is no single term encompassing all the roles of the professional
within experiential education, the term educator is meant to include therapist,
facilitator, teacher, trainer, practitioner, counselor, etcetera.
economic development and the environment
played itself out earlier in the history of the Western
Hemisphere, for example, as a dichotomy between
civilization and Indians-and because Indians were
defined as part of wilderness, they were something
that had to be expurgated (Ortiz, p. 3). Because histo-
ry also defines who we are and how we use language,
as an educator whose cultural traditions are from a
colonial world view, I know from personal experience
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the value of honestly addressing these historical truths.
Therefore, it is fitting that this issue contains
excerpts from the 1995 Kurt Hahn address given by
McClellan Mac Hall at AEEs Annual Conference of
that year in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Mac Hall is of
mixed Cherokee/Pawnee and Euro-American ancestry,
and like Hahn, he is a bridge between cultural tradi-
tions. Hall is the 13th recipient of the Kurt Hahn
Award, given annually to a person who exemplifies the
Kurt Hahn spirit in contributing to the development
and advancement of experiential education. Kurt
Hahn, a Jew and headmaster at a famous German
school during the 1920s and early 1930s, was one of
few in Western Europe at that time to resist, instead of
appease, the rhetoric and practices of Hitler and the
Nazis. Hahn also founded Outward Bound and origi-
nated the United World College. Similar to Hahn, Hall
has a vision and used it to create the National Indian
Youth Leadership Project in Gallup, New Mexico, for
which he also was recognized as the 1995 recipient of
the Spirit of Crazy Horse Award. Moreover, his search
for a way to serve within his native identity and tradi-
tions can help us define and discover our own histori-
cal identities and traditions as well.
Research, too, has been an ongoing part of defining
experiential education. During my tenure as editor,
nearly every issue of this journal has presented
research either quantifying or qualifying-small step
by small step-what differentiates experiential educa-
tion from other schools of learning, and the teaching
styles that maximize learner engagement. Perhaps its
time for researchers to have their own professional
group within AEE. Simon Priests research is regularly
featured in this journal, as it is in this issue with two
new studies. The research of Eric Trunnell et a1 on the
benefits of mindfulness training in optimizing an out-
door experience reminds me that promoting health
and well being is another significant part of what we
strive to do as experiential educators. As I finish typing
this piece, I want to acknowledge and thank the many
volunteers and AEE staff members who work very hard
to make this journal possible-its a Herculean effort.
Thank you, too, for being a reader and for your con-
structive criticism.
Notes
1. The Journal Advisory Committee and Reviewers
help me make these selections (see p. 2).
References
Bell, M. What constitutes experience? Rethinking theoretical assump-
tions. Journal ofExperiential Education 26(1),19-24.
Ortiz, A. (1988). Indian/white relations: A view from the other side of
the frontier. In Frederick E. Hoxie (Ed.),Indians in American
History. Arlington Heights, IL:Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1-16.
May/June 1996, Volume 19, No. 1 7