TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION

Often transformative education is framed in terms of ‘deep change’ at the individual level, with the focus mainly on moments where large shifts in personal understanding, purpose, and sense of possibility seem to occur. While these moments of change are important, these shifts occur within a larger context, often through sustained engagement within and across various educational communities and through a series of encounters supportive of such change.

A focus on only specific moments in which a shift occurs can be misleading because it misses the larger processes of transformation. Our challenge then is to more deeply understand these snapshots of change (a powerful moment resulting from a single
workshop or training) by widening our view to see these changes as part of the broader educational system of which they are a part. This wider view helps us understand the complex dynamics at play in transformative education.