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Working and ageing
220 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

need to find benefit in passing on their experience. For this reason, it is
important to give consideration to the issues at stake for them, in particular
the possibility of continuing to work under good conditions;
(b) particular importance needs to be given to the experience-based
knowledge identification stage. Philosophers, pedagogical experts,
didacticians, psychologists and, more recently, managers, have long taken
an interest in learning through experience. Piaget (1974) was one of the
first to model the processes in experiential learning. According to him,
most of the knowledge individuals use is unconscious and, to ʻderive a
lesson from an experienceʼ, the said experience must be explicit and
subject to thought. The American psychologist Kolb later added to that
model by developing an experiential learning cycle, Kolbʼs learning circle
(1984), based on an alternating cycle of reflection and experimentation.
Lastly, Dewey (1938), an American philosopher and teacher, focused in
reflections on the ties between theoretical and practical knowledge.
According to him, there are two ways for individuals to learn through
experience: through trial and error, which improves their operational and
emotional experience, and by reflecting on their own action. From that
action, a theory will emerge which, in turn, will guide their action.
Recent professional didactics research on skills development in and
through work provide further insight into these issues. According to Pastré
(2005), ʻthere can be no action without building experience, and thus learningʼ,
though he still distinguishes between ʻincidental learningʼ, unintended and of
which one is not necessarily aware, and ʻintentional learningʼ, which refers to
action undertaken for educational purposes. This intentionality leads to a
further distinction, between ʻnon-didacticʼ and ʻdidacticʼ situations. While rote
learning, arising from situational chance, falls within the former category,
setting up a mentoring system can meet, provided certain conditions
(intentionality, mediation, time of reflectiveness, etc.), the definition of the latter.
The summary put together by Le Boterf (1997) based on the work carried
out by Kolb and Piaget, suggests an experiential learning loop that
emphasises the need for distance and reflective analysis on the part of
subject, with regard to the practice in question. That reflectiveness, which he
refers to as ʻthe third dimension of skillʼ, comes in addition to the first two,
namely, action and use of resources. It entails a stage of expression and
retelling of the experience. For individuals to do this alone is difficult, so it is
necessary for a mediator to guide them.
In highly-experienced employees, know-how is sometimes so deeply
integrated, due to extensive practice, that they are all the harder to access