Abstract
The task of this project is to explore and explicate the notion of growth as expressed in the philosophical works of American philosopher and educator John Dewey. Specifically, I shall address the importance of our everyday aesthetic experience as it is embodied in our struggles to come to understand our world and each other. These sorts of moments can be pivotal, in that they are opportunities for us not only 'to learn,' as that phrase is traditionally understood, but to be transformed by the continual play between our environing conditions and ourselves. Educative experiences are many and varied, but are not ever-present and are not always fully undergone even when they do avail themselves to us. They exist at least as often in failures and sufferings as in moments of understanding and satisfaction. Furthermore, not all experiences are educative. I shall explore and evaluate the criteria for educative experience which Dewey presents, paying special attention to the continuities which exist within and among our moments of development and transformation