ABSTRACT
From the previous chapter it is clear that both mind and self are learned within the context of social experience, which is itself related to the social structures so that it is now important to begin to explore the idea of individual experience that constitutes the basis from which learning emerges. However, what the individual actually experiences is itself contained within a social situation and to discuss the experience without reference to the social situation is to omit one of the more significant elements of the learning process. However, it will be noted from Figure 2.2 that the arrow from the person enters the dual box at the point of the situation and leaves from the experience, since it is the way in which the person experiences the social situation that affects the learning process. Since experience occurs within the context of the social situation, it is necessary first to explore that concept. The social situation may be understood to be the objective dimension of experience. Having analysed this dimension, the subjective concept of experience can be explored, and this discussion incorporates the idea of experience, as included within Knowles’s (1980, p. 44) discussion of andragogy. In this analysis, it is recognised that the internalisation of all previous experiences which can readily be recalled to mind, which is approximately how Knowles employs the term, does affect the manner in which any new experience is perceived and from which learning might consequently occur. Perhaps more significantly, however, the concepts of meaningfulness and meaninglessness are analysed within the framework of experience and this is also placed in the wider perspective of the person being a meaning-seeking being. Finally, there is the recognition that some experiences occur so frequently, because of the nature of social living, that they cease to be meaningful and become taken-for-granted, while others call for a response, which lies at the start of the learning process.
