 Abstract | This study has adopted the metaphor of ‘mind-forged manacles’ to explore adolescent
transformation within an educational context. It does this by examining the experiences of
two groups of people who participated in an intensive, one-off personal development
program for adolescents, known as Discovery. The first study involves secondary school
students for whom the program was part of the school curriculum. The second study
consists of an older group of people who did the program during their adolescence and
outside the formal education system. The third study is a contemplation of transformation
derived from my experience as researcher during the course of completing this thesis.
In an attempt to reflect the perspectival worldview from within which the study is created I have drawn on a range of theorists. To integrate their ideas I created three different ‘lenses’
or ways of viewing the data. The first lens is developed from consciousness theory, the
second from process philosophy and complex self-organising systems theory, and the third
from individual humanistic psychology. The educational pedagogy is holistic and embraces
developmental models of thinking and learning. The study uses participant reflection to
argue that a program of intentionally focussed challenges, combined with the support that
enables these challenges to be successfully met, can be transformational for many young
people. It suggests that the complex postmodern world requires teachers to be aware of
their own and their students’ consciousness, and demands learning experiences that are
deliberately focussed on helping the process of consciousness transformation rather than
only on achieving predetermined outcomes. Transformation is understood as a shift to a
different order of consciousness in which it is how one sees rather than what one sees that
changes. With each shift towards a new order of consciousness the mind-forged manacles are
loosed and individuals accept increasing responsibility for their lives and how they live them.
Educational programs can be developed to assist this process. |
