I am reading about a learning theory that the theorist, Jack Mezirow has titled “Transformative Learning”. It seems like a relevant theory to my practice as an adult and community educator, but seems to fall down as the theorist assumes a moral stance in its fabric and logic. It seems to me a very valid and useful theory, but that the moral stance is relevant in it’s application: basically it is a useful way of thinking about how adults learn, and moreover why they wish to learn, but that any adult could learn any thing – not necessarily something that come form the moral standpoint of the theorist. I am drawn back to Hannah Arendt and ” The Banality of Evil”, and the cultural assumptions and moral practices that have been put into place and learned by various members of various societies over the reign of history… education, or learning does not necessarily make one a ‘better’ person, one can be educated and one can learn to inhabit practices and ideologies that another person may find morally abhorrent. Likewise access to art, creativity and cultural access does not automatically make someone ‘better’, they may choose to do or believe things that another may find morally dubious… despite being a person who has grown through art… one can grow in any direction…. I talk about morals because implicit in some ideas of adult and community education is an idea of fairness, or a fairer society, but these stances taken are either in denial of the pragmatic and relativist logic on which some of these utterances have been built upon.
I suppose I am saying that the moral standpoint of the teacher in adult and community education is their moral standpoint. Community education could be a conduit for any kind of morality… the fact that the teacher takes his or her standpoint seriously and directs their teaching practice in that direction is a conscious decision, and one to be respected and acknowledged as such, rather than assuming that a certain theory has a moral standpoint… for in fact it is the personal decision of the learners whether they choose to learn towards a fairer society… and this is their power in a sense… the power of moral choice… it is theirs to take….
