AAACE 2021 Annual Conference

dis/ability, profound learning, human potentiality

Through the lens of profound learning, we examine deficit-based viewpoints that constrict human potentiality and propose an alternative perspective that allows us to see individuals as having varied abilities rather than being positioned on a dis/ability continuum. Implications include adopting a more apt starburst model of human potentiality.

Profound learning has been defined as a process that “seek[s] to open up, to ask, and to continually reveal rather than to close down, to an­swer, or to completely discover" (Carr-Chellman & Kroth, 2017). This is a positive view of learning that emphasizes possibility and wonder. It inspires and encourages. Yet, when one enters “profound learning” in the search bar on Google Scholar, 9 out of the first 10 articles that appear focus on “profound learning disability.” The abstracts of these articles are filled with deficit-focused words like unable, non-verbal, impairment, malformation, self-injurious, retardation, maladaptive, and restricted. These words evoke pessimistic images of the human condition. Combining the words “disability” and “profound learning” reveals a problem with educational and research approaches to exploring human potential. Profound learning is not only cognitive, but "can be related to any growth opportunity within the human experience” (Kroth, 2016). As such, we consider human potential as profound in other ways than merely the cognitive. This meta-cognitive approach can change the way we look at what is truly profound in human experience and, thus, will encourage a shift in mindset from concentrating on what individuals lack to concentrating on what individuals have.