Uncomfortable Learning: In search of that 'clarifying moment'

By Randall Thomas Ph.D.

Robert Gaudino was a Political Science professor who, within the context of a changing educational environment, re-conceptualized what a liberal arts education might be. He was of the opinion that such an education needed to facilitate greater student self-awareness, believing it was students' unrecognized, culturally determined attitudes and beliefs that had the potential to bias their thinking and reasoning, and therefore, needed to be exposed, or revealed so that they might be 'extracted' from any objective or systematic analysis of a subject. Convinced that tension and conflict were central to this process, he developed a form of experiential education that he called "uncomfortable learning", in which students were taken out of the comfortable environs of college, and immersed in communities that were culturally distinct from what was familiar to them. Gaudino believed that as students came face-to-face with 'difference', through careful, guided reflection, several important goals could be achieved: Students would learn to articulate their particular opinions and perspectives more clearly; they would become increasingly aware of the underlying cultural beliefs and attitudes which influenced their thinking; and they would learn to engage others in the kind of meaningful dialogue which would lead to a more empathic understanding of others. While recognizing that this type of informal, experientially-based learning differed markedly from the rigorous, systematic learning of academic life, he believed that it allowed students to reach beyond a more distant, dispassionate, intellectualized view of the world, and "fuse thinking, seeing, feeling" into a broader, better integrated, conceptualization of our complex world. This paper will describe the educational context in which Gaudino's model of "uncomfortable learning" evolved and the constituent factors to which he adapted this new approach to learning. It will outline his paradigm of learning and its related re-conceptualization of our liberal arts education. The three functional ingredients of which his model is composed will be identified, along with the goals and objectives to which they are directed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F5NGNYS8
• ISBN13: 9798310832565
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 32 Pages
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 0.1" x 8.5"