Transformative Valuing

AbstractIn this essay, Randall Curren addresses four basic questions about transformative experiences in education: Is education necessarily transformative? What must education provide for it to be personally transformative? What standard should educators use in determining whether engaging students in potentially transformative experiences is beneficial or justified? How should schools and educators orchestrate opportunities for beneficial transformative experiences? The focus is on transformative valuing, but also on the importance of a fully transformative nexus of personal attributes and social pathways to living a transformed life. Curren argues that educational decisions on behalf of students can be justified on the basis of necessary goods that persist through transformative changes in what is contingently good for them, and that schools' efforts to orchestrate opportunities for transformative experiences should engage students in activities that can be eudaimonic for them.