Toward a Theory and Practice for Whole-Person Learning: Reconceptualizing Experience and the Role of Affect

Although the importance of affect is acknowledged in the North American literature on adult learning and adult education, its role remains undertheorized. We argue that the influence of American pragmatism contributes to a cultural bias favoring reflective discourse and, thus, theoretical inattention to the role of affect. We describe a theory of personhood developed by John Heron to explore how his phenomenological lens on experience provides a more serviceable framework in which to understand the affective dimension of learning. Taking a phenomenological perspective suggests how adult learning strategies can be linked to a group habit of being that we call learning-within-relationship. Posited on what we describe as the paradox of diversity, we argue that there is a direct relationship between the degree of diversity among learners and the need to create whole-person learning strategies that fully engage learners affectively.