Experiences that affect learning

Powerful experiences affect learning. I will never forget in 5th grade receiving an F on a math test for fractions. I was ashamed, embarrassed, and immediately convinced that I was "bad" at math.  I do not remember feeling that way before that moment. Math became a struggle in that moment, and it stayed with me even through college.  At 10 years old, I did fail, but not at math. It was not understanding that failure is an opportunity to grow and learn.

Negative experiences stick with us, but so do positive ones. Experience is learning. We learn what to do and what not to do. 

John Dewey, an American educational philosopher, describes the value of experience in education. He believed that education should not simply be a prescriptive set of information passed down that a student may or may not use in the future. Instead educators should develop and facilitate experiences that encourage a love of learning.  Yet, he argues against experience without guidance.

 In the book, John Dewey Experience& Education, he writes that the facilitator has "the responsibility for instituting the conditions for the kind of present experience which has a favorable effect upon the future. Education as growth or maturity should be an ever-present process."

This makes me wonder as an educator what kind of experiences I am creating for my students. Do I put content over positive experiences? I wrestle to answer this question, but I also believe it is critical that I ask it. 

I want my students to have positive experiences and grow to be excellent writers and readers. Even as a teacher, Dewey's words ring true, growth and maturity is an ever-present process.