Action learning and the nature of learning

Abstract

From so vast a repository of dialectic we may draw what samples we please, and we may fashion these samples snugly over any period of time we may have at our disposal. We may, indeed, compose our syllabus with a variety of our heart's content; over forty years ago I used to meet a young lady at the University of Michigan who was reading chemistry, office methods and polar exploration; and no doubt the progress of technology has afforded even that mixture some new richness. The material point is the infinite elasticity of the theoretical syllabus, combined with an illimitable particularity; in a real world cramped and twisted by the miserable inadequacies of God's Creation, we are made happy by escaping through the doors of our libraries and of our staff colleges into the Empyrean of programme and theory. Here we may cast off the fetters of responsibility and lay on such bills of entertainment as we please, like drudges on Saturday night at the music hall after labouring all week in the pit of toil. For what is the derivation of the very word theory? It is from the Greek for spectacle, and has the same root as theatre.

Citation

Revans, R. (1978), "Action learning and the nature of learning", Education + Training, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 8-11. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb001979