Sounds like some hippy-dippy method where you close your eyes and let the universe's secrets seep in through your flower-power headband. Which, you never know, could be a good experience for learning about the 1970s, or, well, flower biology.

But simply put, experiential education involves learning by doing.

John Dewey was one of the first educational philosophers to propose incorporating authentic experiences into classroom learning, primarily by taking students out of the classroom from time to time. (All hail the inventor of the field trip.) His basic thing was transforming the classroom from a lecture hall to a learning lab.

 

The genius is in the mustache.

Dewey believed that learning solely via lecture ignored students' basic needs for movement, social interaction, and active participation in society. Doesn't that just make you want to walk through town reciting math formulas?

He also believed that students could acquire a great deal of knowledge—both academic and social—from real-world experiences like, for example, building a house. That's an activity that involves science, math, and engineering skills as well as communication, collaboration, and self-reflection.

In 1895, when Dewey proposed designing a school's curriculum around such real world experiences as cooking, sewing, woodworking, and gardening in his essay "Plan of Organization of the University Primary School," it was a transformative idea in education. Up to that point, U.S. schools had primarily been set up according to the rote-learning model, which meant that teachers talked; students listened, repeated, and reiterated; and that was that. Yawn.

Today, of course, things are a little different. Experiential education, which is all about students acquiring their knowledge and through real-world experiences, is a key component in Expeditionary Learning, Montessori, and Waldorf Schools, and it's found its way into the curricula of many public and private institutions.

In fact, most schools incorporate elements of experiential education without even thinking about it. Some of the most common examples include

• school newspapers or literary magazines
• school garden projects
• letter writing campaigns, including letters to the editor
• school plays, particularly those for which students help design sets, sew costumes, and perhaps even write or direct
• band and chorus concerts
• science or educational fairs
• student council or other forms of student government
• a student yearbook staff

Considering these examples, it's easy to see that Dewey's influence can be felt even in schools that consider themselves traditional and devote a great deal of classroom time to direct instruction. When it comes right down to it, it seems that real-world experience is kind of tough to avoid. Though not every class spends its days building houses—we'll give you that.