The vast majority of teaching and training in education and work continues to be conventional, narrow and highly prescribed - not experiential. Teaching and training is oriented virtually exclusively to meet external needs, not people's individual needs and potential. This is largely because in education and work, commonly the needs of the organizations (whether educational government department or employing organization) are put before the needs of the individual. To a certain extent experiential learning is counter-intuitive, which fools a lot of supposedly clever people. Administrators and business leaders tend to choose the quickest fix, the shortest path from A to B. "if someone does not possess the skills or knowledge, then give it to them" they say and try to do. Simple, but not so. this ignores the human and emotional aspects altogether. People are not machines which can be programmed or filled with new skills or knowledge. People learn and develop in different ways and different directions, if they can be given the chance. One size does not fit all.

In Indonesia, we also seem to have some paternalistic culture problems which  influence the way that organisations, business, education and government operate.People in authority tend to think they know best what everyone else needs and this arrogance - combined with obsession for cost savings, measurement and control, and inability to trust others to do a decent job - all tend to create and sustain highly prescriptive organisation-centred and 'sausage-machine' methods for teaching and training people. In work and in mainstream education the 'whole-life' needs of people are efectively ignored. No wonder society is "broken" and so many people are unhappy. Properly organized and facilitated experiential learning, along with other similar approaches to developing people as individuals, can help enormously in attaining a much more useful balance in the ways we teach, train, develop and attempt to give to people the skills and emotional well-being we all need for a happy productive life.

Diagram adapted from Kolb's learning styles and process theory as it might be applied to experiential learning. This provides a helpful simple diagram of process of experiential learning which is broadly

1. Do
2. Review
3. Develop and implement ideas for improvement 
   

Herewith, follow the principles of experiential learning on greater detail, especially as they relate to organized activities, events and games.

LEARNER IS CENTRAL the learner is central to the process throughout, the facilitator provides the learner with a service. The principle that the success of the experiential approach to learning depends on the learner is fundamental. Therefore the facilitator must understand that learners can only make best use of their opportunities if they are ready, willing and able to become personally involved in the learning process. Learners have to be prepared to actively develop their understanding, critique and evaluate the messages in their context and then work hard to apply appropriate learning.

FACILITATION MUST BE LIGHT AND SUBTLE Individuals can and do learn without facilitation. Learners learn experientially by reflecting on their experiences, developing personal insights and understanding through involvement in intellectual, emotional and physical activity. This can be (and often is) done by an individual without any external help. A facilitator is not a prerequisite. Experiential Learning involves people in working things through for themselves and developing their own understanding, so facilitators should always be seeking ways to enable this to happen. Although effective facilitation can add tremendous value, facilitators should remember that inappropriate facilitation can hinder, rather than help learning, they should not instruct, proffer knowledge, proscribe or offer personal wisdom.

FIND/CREATE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES A facilitator should help create learning opportunities and enable others to recognise and make good use of these opportunities. The facilitator can provide help during each element of the learning cycle by creating an appropriate learning environment, providing and activity that will initiate the learning process, creating an atmosphere and framework conductive to constructively critical review, (guide thinking and challenging to developing understanding) ensuring that any conceptual thinking is progressed to meaningful conclusions and opportunities for improvement identified. Facilitation is complex and skilled process.

REACTIONS TO EXPERIENCE VARY SO DON'T PRE-JUDGE You can't predict the learning an individual will take from an activity. Because individuals are personally involved in experiential learning individuals can take very different messages from a single event. An obvious example is one where a person fails to listen to another. If they are to learn, both individuals need to understand their part in their failure to communicate, but the causes could be numerous and therefore each persons learning very different. So for example, behaviour seen in an individual who is not heard could be; doesn't express ideas clearly, doesn't check the "listener has understood", speaks when the other person isn't ready to listen, doesn't help the listener to understand the significance of the information, fails to develop the idea, backs down the challenged etc. Similarly example reasons why a listener doesn't listen could be, doesn't see the issue as being important, had prejudged the issue, is distracted by personal thoughts, doesn't respect the other person (and or their views). Therefore one event can provide the individuals involved with quite different or even diametrically opposed training.

SINGLE EVENTS CAN ENABLE SEVERAL DIFFERENT LEARNING EFFECTS There is potential for the learning to be at several levels. In the example used above I gave behaviours for not being heard, but reasons for not listening. Typically addressing and developing behavioural change is less challenging than addressing the reasons. Taking the example from above, It can be seen that there is a hierarchy of challenge that the facilitator can encourage the learner to address " realizing the need (i.e. I won't be listened to if the other person is speaking) developing the skill (i.e. speaking clearly and concisely) developing the confidence or self esteem (i.e. believing that I and my views are of value) challenging personal attitudes (i.e.  Questioning personal drivers and belief systems)

BUILD CONFIDENCE BEFORE ADDRESSING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOUR Developing basic skills in a supportive environment is relatively simple, changing day to day behaviour is another matter. After having read this note it might be tempting to go straight to the fundamentals and target attitudes first (if you have a positive attitude and personal confidence it is easier to implement personal change) However remember that the learner has to want to learn, it is far safer to build the learners confidence through success with skill development and behavioural change in simple or supervicial areas first. When some progress has been made you can consider raising and tackling more fundamental issues like personal confidence and attitudes to others. Its worth being aware however, that a knock on effect of individuals beginning to use new skills and realize their benefits can be a growth in self esteem and personal confidence.

THE ACTIVITY MUST BE REAL AND ENGAGING - NOT BASED ON ARTIFICIAL IMPACT A learning activity is a mean to an end, not an end in itself. The purpose of an experiential learning activity is to create an opportunity for valuable and memorable personal learning. the ideal activity will engage, stimulate and challenge with individuals becoming absorbed in the task as themselves. It will not involve role play in a conventional artificial sense. All activities must be designed, managed and facilitated carefully so that the activity has impact, but it isn't so memorable that these "activity memories" override the impact and memory of the learning. If this happens the lasting memory may be an aspect of the activity, not the learning that was realized.

ENSURE ACTIVITIES ALLOW ADEQUATE AND MEANINGFUL REVIEWS An effective activity provides the opportunities for learning with as few distractions as possible. It can be great fun to run "big activities" (although some people hate them) and there is no doubt that "ropes" course (as "outward bound" activities are referred to in some parts of the world) and outdoor team challenges can generate real learning opportunities but take care. Besides the risk of big events overpowering their intended lessons, the duration of these activities often means that many learning opportunities are lost, valuable incidents can get forgotten or overlooked or submerged in the complexity of the task. Although less memorable in themselves, running several short activities (10-30 minutes) each followed by its own review will often have far greater long term impact that one big activity.

CAREFULLY REVIEWS OF ACTIVITIES ARE CRUCIAL The learning review is a vital stage of every activity. It should be planned as part of the design, not left to chance. Reviews can take many forms but all must engage the learners. The ideal review will involve the learner in personal thought, challenge and discussion before coming to some form of conclusion. It is often useful if a period of individual reflection, guided by open-ended or tick-box questionnaires, is followed by a facilitated discussion. If it is to be of real benefit, the review must be an honest critique of what happened and the contributions of each individual. Real issues should not be swept under the carpet, but equally criticism must be constructive.

ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVES Concentrate learning and reviews on the positives more than the negatives. It is all too easy to focus on the negatives but this can seriously undermine confidence in the whole idea of learning and development if the negatives are over-emphasized, especially for people who are not especially robust. It is obvious that if something goes wrong, or just doesnt go as well as we hoped, there will be benefit in review and change. It can, however, be equally beneficial to review what's gone well. It is not only motivating to recognize and focus on success, but finding out what cause the success and seeking ways to make greater or wider use of it can reap tangible rewards.

USE STIMULATING QUESTIONS IN REVIEWS, ESPECIALLY FOR GROUPS DISCUSSIONS A review discussion is an opportunity for learners, helped by the facilitator, to develop their own understanding and draw their

own conclusions. The role of the facilitator is to enable others to learn by drawing out the issues and developing the learning that is relevant to the individuals. The facilitator should ask questions that will stimulate thought about relevant isues and enable the group to use answers given to develop further thought and learning.

RESIST TEMPTATION TO GIVE ANSWERS - ASK QUESTIONS ONLY Don't tell people what they should learn. An observer is in a privileged position, often seeing aspects that are not obvious to others. If you observe a point that isn't raised during a review it is legitimate to raise it, but only through questioning. If, despite questioning, individuals don't relate to the point, there is no benefit in pursuing as any "learning" will not be theirs. A better option is for you to run another activity designed to focus more attention on this specific point. Whatever happens, don't be tempted to provide a "professional analysis" as this approach

takes the ownership of the learning away from the individual.

HAVE FAITH IN PEOPLE's ABILITY TO LEARN FOR THEMSELVES Believe in the learners, they can and will make experiential learning opportunities work for them. To be an effective facilitator of experiential learning you have to believe, really believe, in others. You have to believe that they have the potential to make progress and be committed to the fact that your role is to provide opportunities for others to learn and progress.

IT'S ABOUT THEM NOT YOU Forget your ego. Your success is individuals capitalising on their personal learning. As an effective facilitator you have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you offer and develop opportunities for others to learn, many of which will go unused or undervalued. You have to accept that you are not offering "tangible and technical" contribution and therefore will not be able to look back and say "I taught this person x or y" If you are lucky however, every now and again in the ears to come you will hear of some far-reaching consequences that will go way beyond what you might have hoped or imagined.

GETTING STARTED Perhaps not surprisingly the best way to start is to experience facilitating - actually have a go at it, experience the process. Find a group of people who are happy to be "guinea pigs" and just try a simple activity that is tried and tested. Think about the activities you have experienced yourself in the past. Talk to other people. Ask the potential delegates if they have ideas and preferences or recommendations.