Post-Adult Education Alternatives in 45 Years of Learning/Teaching

Abstract

The author critically examines the directional trends that education has gone through in the last 45 years of his teaching and learning experiences, primarily in Alberta, Canada (1972-2017). He argues that, formerly, Alberta was at the leading edge of positive progressive change, before neoliberal ideology invaded Education. Through use of autoethnographic reflection and sociocultural and political contextualization of his educational experiences, the author elaborates the necessity of adopting a holistic-integral alternative path to research and teaching outside of institutionalized mainstream education systems. His emphasis on the affective domain, for example the importance of fear in education, is accompanied by his applications of developmental notions of “post-adult,” transdisciplinary, and integral theoretical work. The purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate, through his own life, a model of potential guidance for teachers, who are questioning how best to negotiate their own careers within the challenges of 21st century neoliberalism and cascading global crises.