“A Moving Force”: A Memoir of Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is a time‐honored approach that can help to “…seal the bond between the learner and the learned.” Such learning encourages the making of meaning from individual and shared experiences and helps concepts to become relevant to the learner. The 20th century educational theorist, John Dewey, articulated a need for a unified “theory of experience” that could guide educators. He maintained that “all genuine education comes about through experience,” although he noted that some experiences may adversely affect a student's capacity to learn from future experiences. This article presents a memoir describing the author's involvement as a teacher who has endeavored to practice experiential learning with his students, and especially through a multi‐institutional, field course entitled Agroecosystems Analysis. This memoir was developed during a term leave at The Evergreen State College, an institution known for its extensive use of experiential approaches to education. This leave, and the memoir writing process, served as catalysts for reflecting upon the relationships between experience and learning. In addition to offering recollections and interpretations of the author's involvements as an experiential teacher, the memoir includes quotations from John Dewey and others that frame the author's convictions about such learning.