Exploring the Ideal of Teaching as Consummatory Experience

Abstract

In this article, it is argued that fulfilling teaching and educative experiences go hand in hand. Not only is it possible to be fully alive as a teacher, it is also essential for educative experience to unfold in students. To substantiate the claim made here, an analysis of what I would like to call the ideal of teaching as consummatory experience is engaged based on John Dewey’s concept of experience as this was elucidated in his later works, especially Art as Experience. Given an intimate understanding of Deweyan consummatory experience, its implications for teaching and teacher education programs are considered.