“Tistou and His Special Power of Growing Trees”: from Experiential Learning to Transforming and Healing Society

Abstract

This academic paper focuses on the learning process of the character named “Tistou” in the French youth literature “Tistou, les pouces verts”. It was found that Tistou was unable to study in the classroom because he became drowsy every time when the lesson began. Therefore, father let him learn from the real place. Tistou's description of the learning process in this paper is based on David Kolb's experiential learning cycle theory framework, a learning model in which individuals develop holistically. The results showed that Tistou's learning was characterized by steps in Kolb's experiential learning cycle: 1) fully opening to real-world experiences; 2) carefully observing the experience by asking questions and researching information to understand; 3) taking the experiences that have been observed and processing them into concepts in which Tistou uses a comparative method that the happiness and suffering of others are no different from the happiness and suffering of Tistou himself until it inspired him to take action to solve social problems; 4) bringing the understanding of problems and sufferings in society that has been compiled together with the special power of planting one's own trees to plan and taking action to heal society. Solving problems allows Tistou to experience the special power of planting trees and used the experience to improve the use of this special power to solve the next problem forming a continuous learning cycle. This article is a study of youth literature together with the theory of education and learning. It also presents a perspective of reading this youth literature in terms of learning the learning skills of the characters that have developed holistically as a way to promote and develop the learning skills of individuals through literature that is another way.