FOSTERING CRITICAL REFLECTION IN ADULTHOOD A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning ‘ How Critical Reflection triggers Transformative Learning ’

ion as though it were an existing object, objectifying it (Whitehead’s „fallacy of misplaced concreteness‟). Interpreting reality concretely when what is required is interpreting it abstractly is a familiar epistemic distortion. Still another is the early positivist supposition that only those propositions are meaningful that are empirically verifiable. 2. Socio-cultural Distortions: involve taking for granted belief systems that pertain to power and social relationships, especially those currently prevailing and legitimized and enforced by institutions. A common sociocultural distortion is mistaking self-fulfilling and self-validating beliefs for beliefs that are not selffulfilling or self-validating. If we believe that members of a subgroup are lazy, unintelligent, and unreliable and treat them accordingly, they may become lazy, unintelligent, and unreliable. We have created a ‘selffulfilling prophesy’. When based on mistaken premises in the first place, such a belief becomes a distorted meaning perspective. Another distortion of this type is assuming that the particular interest of a subgroup is the general interest of the group as a whole. (Geuss, 1981, p.14). When people refer to ideology as a distorted belief system, they usually refer to what here is understood as sociocultural distortion. As critical social theorists have emphasized, ideology can become a form or false consciousness in that it supports, stablizes, or legitimates dependency-producing social institutions, unjust social practices, and relations of exploitation, exclusion, and domination. It reflects the hegemony of the collective, mainstream meaning perspective and existing power relationships that actively support the status quo. Ideology is a form of prereflexive consciousness, which does not question the validity of existing social norms and resists critique of presuppositions. Such social amnesia is manifested in every facet of our lives in the economic, political, social, health, religious, educational, occupational, and familial. Television has become a major force in perpetuating and extending the hegemony of mainstream ideology as, increasingly, will the Internet. The work of Paulo Freire (1970) in traditional village cultures has demonstrated how an adult educator can precipitate as well as facilitate learning that is critically reflective on long-established and oppressive social norms. 3. Psychic Distortions: Psychological distortions have to do with presuppositions generating unwarranted anxiety that impedes taking action. Psychiatrist Roger Gould’s „epigenetic‟ theory of adult development (1978, 1988) suggest that traumatic events in childhood can result in parental prohibitions that though submerged from consciousness continue to inhibit adult action by generating anxiety feelings when there is a risk of breaching them. This dynamic results in a lost function such as the ability to confront, to feel sexual, or take risks that must be regained in one is to become a fully functional adult. Adulthood is a time of regaining such lost functions. The learner must be helped to identify both the particular action that they feel blocked about taking and the source and nature of stress in making a decision to act. The learner is assisted in identifying the source of this inhibition and differentiating between the anxiety that is a function of childhood trauma and the anxiety that is warranted by their immediate adult life situation. With guidance, the adult can learn to distinguish between past and present pressures and between irrational and rational feelings and to challenge distorting assumptions (such as “If I confront, I may lose all control and violently assault”) that inhibit taking the needed action and regaining the lost function. The psychoeducational process of helping adults learn to overcome such ordinary existential psychological distortions can be facilitated by skilled adult counsellors and educators as well as by therapists. It is crucially important that they do so, inasmuch as the most significant adult learning occurs in connection with Life transitions. While psychotherapists make transference inferences in a treatment modality, educators do not but they can provide skilful emotional support and collaborate as co-learners in an educational context. Recent advances in counselling technology greatly enhance their potential for providing this kind of help. For example, Roger Gould’s therapeutic learning programme represents an extraordinary resource for counsellors and educators working with adults who are having trouble dealing with such stressful existential life transitions as divorce, retirement, returning to school or the work force, or a change in job status. This interactive, computerized programme of guided self-study provides the learner with the clinical insights and many of the benefits associated with short-term psychotherapy. The counsellor or educator provides emotional support, helps the learner think through choices posed by the programme, explains its theoretical context, provides supplementary information relevant to the life transition, makes referrals, and leads group discussion as required. This extract briefly adumbrates an emerging transformation theory of adult learning in which the construing of meaning is of central importance. Following Habermas (1984), I make a fundamental distinction between instrumental and communicative learning. I have identified the central function of reflection as that of validating what is known. Reflection, in the context of problem solving, commonly focuses on procedures or methods. It may also focus on premises. Reflection on premises involves a critical view of distorted presuppositions that may be epistemic, sociocultural or psychic. Meaning schemes and perspectives that are not viable are transformed through reflection. Uncritically assimilated meaning perspectives, which determine what, how, and why we learn, may be transformed through critical reflection. Reflection on one‟s own premises can lead to transformative learning. In communicative learning, meaning is validated through critical discourse. The nature of discourse suggests ideal conditions for participation in a consensual assessment of the justification for an expressed or implied idea when its validity is in doubt. These ideal conditions of human communication provide a firm philosophical foundation for adult education. Transformative learning involves a particular function of reflection: reassessing the presuppositions on which our beliefs are based and acting on insights derived from the transformed meaning perspective that results from such reassessments. This learning may occur in the domains of either instrumental or communicative learning. It may involve correcting distorted assumptions epistemic, sociocultural or psychic from prior learning. This extract constitutes the framework in adult learning theory for understanding the efforts of other authors who suggest specific approaches to emancipatory adult education. Emancipatory education is an organized effort to help the learner challenge presuppositions, explore alternative perspectives, transform old ways of understanding, and act on new perspectives.