Coming to know oneself through experiential education |
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| Authors: | Robyn Zink |
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| Institution: | Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, W1-34 Van Vliet Centre , University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H9, Canada |
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| Abstract: | This article draws on the work of Foucault to explore why students on a residential program talk about learning about themselves as if it were an epiphany and one of the most empowering aspects of the program. Foucault's schema of turning to the self suggests that the pleasure students experience at ‘discovering’ themselves is a logical response to what he terms as one of the most powerful technologies of the self. Butler's work on giving an account of oneself is used to investigate the terms through which learning about the self occurs. She extends and inverts Foucault's schema, suggesting that one is only required to give an account of the self in the face of another. To become self-knowing requires recognition by another and recognition of others. While contemporary experiential education has been shaped by the maxim that nothing is more relevant to us than ourselves, I argue that perhaps this maxim should read; ‘Nothing is more relevant to us than those around us’. |
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| Keywords: | experiential education Foucault Butler technologies of the self |
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