From Cicero to Mohammed Atta: People, Politics, and Study Abroad

Abstract

My own contribution to the literature on experiential learning is intended as a reminder that however novel the term, and however modern (indeed, post-modern) many of the issues surrounding it may be, the phenomenon itself is anything but new. Experiential overseas learning dates back at least as far as when young Romans traveled to Athens to study at the feet of the great philosophers and rhetors; it also enjoys a distinguished history in both Western and non-Western societies. The examples I have chosen—17th century Russia and 19th century China—are but two, particularly fascinating and well-attested, examples of what seems a persistent constellation of human impulses: to travel, to learn from travel, and to learn from travel by doing. Bureaucratic complexity and controversial policy and pedagogical issues are never far from these episodes of experiential learning over the centuries. My discussion concludes, for a number of reasons, with the most notorious foreign student of our time. For one thing, the ‘career’ of Mohammed Atta raises important questions that challenge our easy assumptions about cultural assimilation and the value of overseas vocational training. For another, his life and career both conform to and challenge an important paradigm I identify in experiential learning throughout history. Finally, his example reminds us that our appreciation of the novelty of our own experience is both confirmed and called into question by the search for historical context—learning how to learn from the past may take place more often in the library and the archives than in the field, but is no less experiential if undertaken seriously.