2016 Annual Conference

I argue that adult learners should critically engage learning situations to develop thinking and broaden their understanding during the course of their education. I make this argument by comparing existential learning models. Ultimately, I uphold Hannah Arendt’s concept of natality, or rebirth, which best inspires such dispositions in adult learners.

The presentation is aimed at scholars, researchers, practitioners, and graduate students alike. Although I examine philosophical concepts, I will carefully explain ideas and their educational implications for adult learners in a clear and practical way.

Peter Jarvis argues that learning is transformational (Learning to be a Person in Society). I will take up this claim, and build upon it by taking on a humanist approach to the analysis of transformation in existential learning, a type of informal learning toward personal flourishing. In this humanist analysis, I will turn to important works of three major philosophers, Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition), Jean-Paul Sartre (Existentialism as a Humanism and Colonialism and Neocolonialism), and Paulo Freire (The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and The Pedagogy of Hope). In my critical examination of key existential concepts from the works of these three thinkers, including Arendt's concepts of beginning and action, Sartre's concepts of authenticity and choice, and Freire's concepts of freedom and rebirth, I will compare each account's approach to the notion of personal flourishing, and ultimately demonstrate how Arendt presents the most viable account for facilitating growth toward personhood. By putting these thinkers in critical dialogue with each other and adult learning ideas of transformation, I am insisting upon the humanist tradition's importance in adult learning literature. I am also recognizing transformation as a foundational concept in adult learning.