Foreword
How You Learn Is How You Live provides a life-enriching formula: become a more attuned learner and you will be better for it. In your career, family, and personal life, a better understanding of the learning process and your learning preferences is the key to a better life.
Kay Peterson and David Kolb provide an engaging look at how to renew your natural ability to learn. Kay and David remind us how exciting and enriching learning can be. By taking what the authors term “the learning way,” you can learn more than you ever imagined.
Since the first time I read David Kolb’s classic book Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, I have been hooked on the power of its message: we all learn from experience, and by engaging in the four-phase learning cycle, we can learn almost anything. The ideas and practices associated with learning from experience have informed me professionally and personally. Since being introduced to experiential learning twenty years ago, I have regularly looked for ways to integrate experiential learning into my life, my teaching, and my research. By reading this book and following the learning way, your life will be enriched as well.
If this book marks your first introduction to experiential learning, then you are in for a life-altering experience. The notion that we learn from our experience grew out of the ideas of philosophers and psychologists. David Kolb found a common theme in the diverse thinking on the topic of experiential learning. His work on experiential learning cycle is among the most influential approaches to learning. In colleges, business, and school systems, it is impossible to talk about learning without the mention of David Kolb.
David also introduced the concept of learning style nearly fifty years ago. Learning style describes an individual’s unique preference for learning in different ways. As the author of The Learning Style Inventory, now in its fourth iteration, David transformed the experiential learning cycle into a hands-on exercise of self-discovery. The learning style inventory has helped hundreds of thousands of individuals realize their potential as learners.
In How You Learn Is How You Live, David has partnered with Kay Peterson, an innovative thinker and sought-after consultant. Kay has seen firsthand the power of experiential learning in transforming lives and careers. In her consulting practice, she has implemented organizational and individual change using the underlying values and ideas of experiential learning. Kay’s work has proven that experiential learning should be on the agenda of every organizational change effort and on the reading list of anyone looking to enact personal change.
This partnership between Kay and David has resulted in an extraordinary book. As you will see, the book builds on David’s work, making it practical and personal. Kay and David provide step-by-step instructions on how to live the ideas of experiential learning.
If you have already discovered Kay and David’s work on experiential learning, you will find new insights in this book. Experiential learning is made more accessible than ever. Even the avid follower of experiential learning will find new applications of a tried-and-true formula.
One of the key insights I gained from this book is the power of learning flexibility. Learning flexibility describes our potential to change and adapt. Many of us find change difficult, and this difficulty at change can be traced to our learning style preference. We can get stuck and rely only on a limited set of learning tools. This book describes how to embrace change and move beyond our comfort zone. Luckily, Kay and David provide hands-on exercises and descriptive examples of how to overcome our limits and build upon our strengths by embracing learning flexibility.
Just before reading this book for the first time, I was watching a full moon shining over the Maryland Chesapeake Bay. This wonderful experience was cut short. My thoughts turned to a documentary I had watched earlier in the week about the engineering and psychological challenges of landing the first people on the moon. Experiential learning provides a formula for understanding both the experience of the moon shining and the concepts behind the moon shot. For me, understanding the moon from different perspectives, for example, through my direct experience and through abstract concepts, I am able to see the world in a much richer way. This is the power of experiential learning, to be able to learn from different angles. The ultimate promise of this book is that you, too, will learn how to enrich your life, experience events more deeply, and understand situations with greater clarity.
D. Christopher Kayes,
Professor and Chair, Department of Management,
George Washington University