




















































Analytic teaching and philosophical praxis


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Caritas and Experience-based Learning: Teaching Love to Filipino College 
Students 

 
 
Bernardo N. Caslib, Jr.   
 
Abstract:  

 
In this paper, I argue that love, specifically Thomas Aquinas’ notion of caritas, can be taught by 
employing experience-based learning. I attempt to present a strategy that I’ve employed in my own 
classes in a university in the Philippines: by taking students to an institution for abandoned elderly, 
lessons in class are concretized in a real-world situation. Composed of three steps: meaning making, 
paradigm-shifting and self-understanding, Provenzo’s road map of learning was followed. This was 
implemented through classroom discussion, immersion, and writing reflections, respectively. Using my 
students’ statements on things they have learned throughout the process, I have proved that this 
technique effectively bridged a 13th century concept with a concern that this generation is in need of 
fuller understanding, love. 

Introduction 
 

rew Leder, in his chapter in the book ‘Teaching Philosophy’1, introduces the notion of experiential 
learning: teaching by exposing students to out-of-classroom learning experiences that are intended to 
enrich these learners’ cognizance of usually distant, abstract concepts. He recognizes that teaching and 

subsequently, learning of students may be achieved by connecting concepts with real-life situations. He cites 
teachers who have provided “experiential examples in class”2 to facilitate better learning and better understanding 
of lessons by students. He suggests, however, that rather than just providing examples in class that mimic 
students’ actual experiences, we teachers could “design experiences for our students that provoke further 
philosophical reflection.”3 

 

     Leder relays how he employs this strategy in his teaching Asian Philosophy: by allowing students to visit 
institutions such as a home for people with AIDS, he allows his students to grapple with the intricacies of topics 
in his course such as “personal identity, self-body relationship, karma, death and reincarnation, suffering and 
techniques for mastering and transcending it, compassion, interdependency, the caste system...”4 among others. 
Through exposing students to circumstances that provide them deeper insights into life in general, they are able 
to appropriate concepts better in their own lives and in their general understanding of the world. 

 
     Even as he thinks that this technique is pedagogically sound, Leder admits of questions and challenges that 
this method faces. One of these is its applicability in the realm of Western Philosophy. Leder says, “And while 
these techniques may be suited to Asian Philosophy are they adaptable to topics in Western thought?”5 This paper 
is an attempt to respond to this. 

 
     In this work, I attempt to present a version of an experience-based learning strategy that I have employed for 
quite some time in my own classes6 in the university where I teach. I claim that this medium successfully 
complements classroom lectures on a particular variety of love, Aquinas’s notion of Caritas. This type of love, he 

D 



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elucidates, is based primarily on man’s rational faculty and not on his senses alone. In this paper, I first talk 
comprehensively about Thomas Aquinas’s concept of love in the Summa Theologica. This shall be the groundwork 
upon which I present a way love can be taught and how an out-of-classroom activity makes the learning experience 
richer for my students and how this technique becomes potent in bridging a 13th century concept with a concern 
that this generation is arguably in need of fuller understanding: love.7 

 
Thomas Aquinas and Love 
 
     For Thomas Aquinas, there are two kinds of love, amor and caritas. Amor refers to the love that is produced by 
the sensitive part of the soul. According to Aquinas, beings in the world that have sensitive souls just like animals 
and humans are prone, foremost, to sensitive love or amor. 

 
     Aquinas’s vocabulary owes its origin to Aristotle’s tripartite distinction of the kinds of soul. “The soul enlivens 
in three ways, cumulative like the point, line, plane series in geometry. The nutritive soul is simplest, involved in 
feeding, growth, and reproduction. It is the soul in plants and simple animals. Most animals in addition have 
sensitive soul to sense and respond to the environment and enable desire and movement. The rational soul occurs 
only in humans.”8 When a lion senses a prey to feast on, this is the working of its sensitive soul and a 
manifestation, properly speaking, of amor. 
 
     Because of this amor, a passion, the lion does everything in its powers just so it can catch its intended victim 
because to it, the prey is attractive. It is beautiful. It is good. This is no different from a man who likes a particular 
woman. Amor starts off in this man, by his seeing or rather, using Aquinas’s term, apprehending the beautiful 
qualities that this woman has: qualities that appeal to this man’s appetite. This sensitive apprehension, meaning 
apprehension through senses, starts off the loving process. I do not think that this kind of love can be subjected to 
teaching. Since this love hinges on the randomness of what appeals to a particular being’s senses, it varies from 
person to person, and its subjectivity deters us from teaching it. Furthermore, the fact that it relies on the sensitive 
soul alone proves that intellect, or the capability to learn and be taught, cannot be employed. But Aquinas 
introduces another kind of love: caritas. This shall be the concern of this paper in its attempt at showing that love 
can be taught. 

 
     Aside from Amor, any Thomist account of love cannot be complete without mention of another form of love: 
caritas or friendship. If love has a sensitive aspect, owing to the sensitive part of the soul that produces it, how 
about the rational aspect? Can men get past what the senses can provide? 

 
     If a man is attracted to a particular woman, a specific version of the good for him; if this woman is appetitive 
for him and he recognizes this, thus leading to generation of amor, what makes him different from a lion who 
hunts down a prey which it apprehends as good? Building on Aquinas’s own example, if a man loves a particular 
wine because it is good for him, what makes this love different from a dog’s when it would not leave its territory 
because the latter has been good to the former?  

 
     What may explain a love that does not seemingly approach what is beautiful? In his monumental book, Man’s 
Search for Meaning9, Viktor Frankl relates his thoughts, musings, and experiences in a concentration camp during 
World War II. In one of his more poignant pages, he writes, “We who lived in concentration camps can 
remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They 
may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from man but one 



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thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s 
own way.”10 If humans tend towards the good, and love is about moving towards something that promises beauty 
and the good to the subject, what may make one give his “last piece of bread,” his good, for another man? What 
good and beauty is there in an act that seems contrary to self-survival? At a time of sheer difficulty and frustration, 
why is one man capable of moving towards others who are not torches of beauty but of ugliness, desperation, and 
literally, death? What might attract the subject when the object of love is clearly not an appetible? This seems to be 
the deficiency in an account of love that is anchored only on what is perceptibly beautiful and good. Thus, there 
is a need to delineate one that goes beyond what the senses apprehend, one that’s not limited and is unbounded. 
This is the love that is possible to teach and is worthy of such attempt. 

 
     In Frankl’s mention of the last freedom that remains with man even until the very end, he names man’s 
capacity to choose how to act as this particular freedom. Is ultimate freedom in love found in amor? Is absolute 
freedom in love guarded by the senses, limited by the spell of what is overt, manifest, or tangible?  

 
     If so, how could we explain Frankl’s firsthand experience of unconditional love void of the pursuit of beauty? 
Furthermore, how is it possible to explain a sustained love between two individuals until the twilight of their lives 
even when the initial beauty that incited the appetite between the two and which was apprehended formerly is no 
longer present? Could it be that there is much more than amor in man, and we are capable of much more than 
reacting to a stimulus, an appetible that takes the form of beauty and good? 

 
On the Characteristics of Caritas 

 
     What makes one a friend? Normally, a person is a friend when one wishes his friend the good. When one 
extends loving benevolence and goodwill towards another, he is a friend. When two people share the same 
language, joking about the same thing even if others outside their friendship do not understand what’s funny, 
that is normally taken to be friendship. When the whole world collapses into the world created by two people, 
one normally thinks this is friendship. Friends are attracted towards each other because of each other’s goodness 
and beauty; but this, as opposed to a love of amor, is not solely based on what one perceives through the sensitive 
soul. Friendship sees beyond what the naked eye can see, the beauty that can only be illuminated in the real 
communion of two souls. Friendship hears not just what the auditory faculty allows but the throbbing of the 
deepest recesses of a person’s being. 

 
     Aquinas asks in ST II-II, Q, 23, a. 1 whether charity is friendship. He says that “..not every love has the 
character of friendship but that love which is together with benevolence: when, that is, we love someone so as to 
wish good to him.”11 Recall that there is nothing in amor that promotes the target’s good. In fact, it is because of 
this good that one becomes an object of amor. Without this good, the object will cease to be an appetible. 
Friendship is different in the sense that it is not just based on the goodness of the appetible but also on its 
potential as a recipient of the good. This is what Aquinas meant when he says in the same response: 
 

If, however, we do not wish good to what we love, but wish its good for ourselves, (thus we are said to 
love wine, or a horse, or the like) it is not love of friendship, but of a kind of concupiscence. For it would 
be absurd to speak of having friendship for wine or for a horse, Yet neither does well-wishing suffice for 
friendship, for a certain mutual love is requisite, since friendship is between friend and friend and this 
mutual well-wishing is founded on some kind of communication. Accordingly, since there is a 
communication between man and God, in so far as He communicates His happiness to us, there must be 



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some kind of friendship based on this same communication, of which it is written (I Cor.I. 9): God is 
faithful: by Whom you are called unto the fellowship of His Son. The love that which is based on this 
communication, is charity. And so it is evident that charity is the friendship of man for God.12 

 
     Caritas therefore involves certain prerequisites, on the basis of this part of the Summa. First, benevolence; as 
caritas allows a person to extend himself and go out of the province of his own good to wish good with all sincerity 
for another person. A friend is someone who looks after the welfare of his friend. This is clearly in stark 
comparison with concupiscence whose primary characteristic is its being drawn to an object that can satisfy its 
own needs and wants, or its own good. 
 
     Second, friendship involves mutual love. One normally finds claims of friendship between a man and an 
animal: say, a dog. Aquinas does not think this is possible because friendship is only possible between two men 
who are capable of loving each other and who wish each other goodness. Owing to its absence of a rational soul, 
an animal does not have the rational faculty to wish someone good. A dog can probably endear itself to a man 
only in so far as it sensitively apprehends the good that the man brings it. Caritas allows for going beyond what the 
friend, the lover, can do to benefit the other friend or the object of love. This capacity to transcend the measuring 
of benefits in the world is only found in humans. 

 
     The third characteristic of caritas is its being built on a stable ground, communication of happiness between 
friends. God communicates His love to man in so many ways, one of which is his sending His Son to save 
mankind. Despite his unworthiness, man is loved by God deeply. 

 
     One does not experience this love through his sensitive faculty. It is through his intellectual faculty that man 
communicates with God. Aquinas concurs: 

 
Man’s life is twofold. There is his outward life in respect of his sensitive and corporeal nature, and with 
regard to this life, there is no communication or fellowship between us and God or the angels. The other 
is man’s spiritual life in respect of his mind, and with regard to this life there is fellowship between us and 
both God and the angels.13 

This is the perfection of love, caritas, for Aquinas. 
 
     But can friendship be directed among man? Can man love others with the love of caritas? Aquinas thinks this 
is possible. We can duplicate the love of God for man by channeling our love for God to others. Aquinas thinks 
we can love a person in two ways: 

 
first in respect of himself, and in this way friendship never extends but to one’s friend; secondly, it 
extends to someone in respect of another, as, when a man has friendship for a certain person, for his 
sake he loves all belonging to him, be they children, servants, or connected with him in any way. Indeed, 
so much do we love our friends that for their sake we love all who belong to them even if they hurt or 
hate us.14 

     Friendship is, then, more distributive. Unlike amor that involves only the lover and the bearer of beauty, the 
appetible; in caritas, the object of love may multiply the love given by the subject of love to those whom he, the 
object of love, himself loves.  But how does this replication of caritas happen in the world? Can this be taught? 
 



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On Teaching Caritas and the Use of Experience-based Learning 
 
     Is it really possible to teach students how to love? In my classes, I try to infuse my students’ minds with the 
wisdom of the philosophers and their own takes in grappling with the complexity of love. Most college students 
come to my class with varying notions of love, none of which I am willing to dismiss as invalid. However, in my 
classes, one of my aims is to help my students systematize the way they understand the phenomenon of love, to 
balance the impressions that mass media, the internet, their societal norms teach them. I see that the most potent 
way to do this is to introduce them to the classical works in Philosophy. 

 
     Roger Straughan in the book, ‘Can We Teach Children to be Good?’15 reminds us that “one can teach children a 
mass of information, without teaching them to use that information; and one can teach them how to do all sorts 
of things, without teaching them to do those things on appropriate occasions.”16 The danger in limiting teaching 
and, subsequently, just learning inside the classroom is that it often results in a limited amount of learning, often 
characterized by a cognitive understanding of concepts that do not necessarily translate to these concepts being 
applied in the students’ lives. Part of the reason is probably the lack of exposure to actual life experiences 
involving the said concepts. Indeed, application of ideas is vital in the process of educating. Straughan says, 
“Teaching to…must, therefore, play at least as important a part in moral education as teaching that… and teaching 
how…”17 Teaching to love is as important, if not more important, than teaching that love is this and that for a 
particular philosopher. 

 
     Eugene Provenzo Jr. provides a “road map” for experiential learning activities in social studies and humanities. 
He states that there are three critical stages of effectively performing active learning inside and outside the 
classroom: meaning making, paradigm-shifting and self-understanding18; which I implemented through classroom 
discussion, immersion, and writing reflections, respectively. The teaching methodology I followed was based 
primarily on these three stages in order to maximize the students’ in-depth engagement with the complex issues 
mentioned, using relevant and applicable standards. 

 
     Meaning making, the first step, seeks learners to understand the world around them better using pattern 
making and pattern perceiving. Through the use of metaphors and relationship webs, analogies are made for 
students to come to terms with notions in a very real and personal way. An example of such was given by 
Provenzo: 

 
A group of researchers (Ericsson, Chase and Faloon, 1980) worked with a college student on memorizing 
randomly generated digit strings. By chunking such numbers into meaningful combinations (e.g., 
telephone numbers, on in this student’s case, winning times for famous track races), the student was 
able to memorize up to seventy numbers in a row. Yet when presented with a series of randomly 
generated letter strings, the student did just as poorly (up to seven in a row) as before he had started 
practicing. Learning thus seems to be supported by generating ever-expanding frameworks for 
knowledge. We remember things, be it chess positions or random numbers, if they are meaningful to us. 
They are meaningful to us if they are framed within our prior knowledge and if they help us make sense 
of our present situation.19 

     I usually teach four introductory Philosophy classes with an average of 30 students per class every semester, and 
the perennial concern is how these young Filipino kids will appreciate concepts and abstractions that, though 
obviously gems of wisdom, are not just historically distant but also geographically and culturally cut-off from their 
own milieu. In order to establish the process of meaning making, I try to relate my lessons to their prior 



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experiences, and place examples in specific contexts as a way of transferring knowledge. I have mentioned 
endlessly in class that at a time when self-help gurus proclaim wisdom in matters of love, it pays to go back to the 
discourses that the classical world affords the present generation. We read works of Plato, Forms of Good and 
Beauty and their analogies to everyday objects; and how love is a perpetual attempt to reach the Forms. We go 
back to Aristotle and how friendship aims towards mutual goodness of friends, not very far from our perspective 
on true friendship in this era. We also read the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas and revisit the difference between 
amor and caritas, using examples previously mentioned. After each discussion, I encourage each one to actively 
participate in sharing their personal accounts of past experiences in which these ideas are used or can be applied. 

  
     In these classes, after the topic on love, I invite my students to partake in an interclass activity: a visit to a home 
for abandoned elderly called ‘Kanlungan ni Maria-Home for the Aged, Inc.’ (Mary’s Home) in Antipolo City, 
Philippines. For the visit, I enjoin my students to find suitable and willing benefactors who will help us finance 
our project especially for purchasing the goods such as medicines and supplies that we bring to the institution. 
The students spend a day in the institution interacting with the residents and even sometimes with the staff. 
Some students play board games with the residents whom they fondly call ‘lolo ’(grandfather) and ‘lola’ 
(grandmother). Others also help in feeding those who can no longer fend for themselves. While they while away 
their time, stories are shared, lives are bared, and realizations unfold. It is the second step, the paradigm shift, 
where they are exposed to an alternative environment much different from what they are accustomed to and enter 
genuine and difficult discussions, and so come to examine their uncontested assumptions and beliefs. Some of 
the students never even lived with old people, and the rest who do, have never bothered to reflect and share deep 
insights with them. 

 
     After the activity, I ask each student to write a reflection paper regarding what they learned. I will cite relevant 
excerpts from their papers to show how effectively the second step has been executed: 

 
How much are you willing to do to show your love to other people? One example that shows this quality 
of love is our act of visiting and talking with the people at Kanlungan ni Maria. As we interacted and 
shared stories with the people at the Kanlungan, we willingly gave our time and effort to them. And we 
know we’ve done this out of charity and service. This is one of the best examples of applying what we 
learned in class about love. Through the act of serving and interacting with the old people at Kanlungan 
ni Maria, we showed actions that are synonymous to what we consider love in action. (RayTorres) 

     What this student ably pointed out is what Aquinas claims to be the first ingredient in caritas: benevolence. 
The students learned to write solicitation letters, trying to seek the help of other people. Some managed to knock 
on every door of their respective condominium and apartment complexes to ask for financial assistance to raise 
the needed funds. Some even approached big companies in the Philippines to collect ample amounts of money or 
goods to purchase the medicines and supplies needed by the elderly in the institution. They did all these activities 
without expecting anything in return, with no promise of a corresponding grade incentive or reciprocation of 
their efforts by the residents of the home. For nothing certain in return, they went out of their comfort zones to 
contribute something for the benefit of these elderly people. 

 
     Another student communicates how she saw loving without expecting any good in return. 
In her account she recalled a resident in the institution: 
 

Nanay (Mother) Bing lived the simple life of a teacher. She had a husband, yet did not have children. 
Eventually, she decided to take an orphaned boy under his wings. She treated this boy as her own, took 



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care of him, loved him, sent him to school until he can stand on his own two feet. At present Nanay Bing 
is left in an elderly home, seemingly alone, and, for lack of better term, neglected and dismissed by the 
said son. And yet Nanay Bing continues to yearn intensely to meet her son again, most especially on her 
birthdays (notably the most important celebration of life of a person as an individual) and unite with him 
again regardless of his transgressions. Pointing out the example of the unconditional love of a mother for 
a child, for Nanay Bing to want union from her son again in the celebration of her life, it is shown that 
love is indeed vital in completing the meaning of one’s life. (Zia Katrin Ramos Dela Torre) 

The student that I quoted above came up with the realization that love can actually be mortifying because it does 
not just involve loving an object that will give the same love back.  
 
     The rational faculty of man, just as Aquinas says, is capable of going beyond measurement of the object’s 
worthiness of love. How this is so? The students found out by communicating with a woman who is a perfect 
example of such a lover, one who does not assess her gains in love. The woman mentioned is fully aware that 
there is little to no chance that her son will actively do her good, nevertheless; she continues to love and yearn for 
him. She just loves him because she thinks her son is worthy of her love no matter what. Such a characteristic of 
love echoes not amor but caritas.  

 
     Another student highlighted how she saw communication as a prime element in love. She went on saying: 
 

In Kanlungan ni Maria, I realized a lot of things about life. The old people staying there have been 
through a lot of ups and downs. We are lucky enough to have ample times to listen to their jokes, stories, 
and lectures. There was an immediate attachment and of course, fun. As a communication major, this is 
a clear example that language is a good tool to connect to one another. However, some of them were 
not able to speak with us anymore. Communication through language is no longer existent this time. Yet 
I know and I felt the same thing while simply staying beside Tata (Father) Ruben, and while playing 
sungka (mancala). There was happiness and I felt complete. (Arrianne May Estocapio) 

     In the same way that love between God and man is mediated by communication, this student thought that the 
short bond she formed with the elderly amidst the difficulty in communication made her happy and complete. 
This is akin to what Aquinas meant about love between God and man being complete only through 
communication. At the end of the day, this love brings happiness, the zenith of the loving process. 

 
     Exposure activities such as this do not just reinforce lessons inside the classroom; more importantly, they 
widen the world of the learner, as manifested in what my Korean student wrote: 

 
Through volunteer activity in Kanlungan ni Maria, I came to experience and develop love. I realized that 
extending love to others starts off from paying attention to others needs, getting away from ignorance. 
Before I went to the Kanlungan ni Maria, I was completely unaware and partly ignorant of the difficulties 
experienced by others. There, I was surprised by each of the nanay’s (mothers’) stories and became 
embarrassed of the fact that even after having lived in the same country with them for almost 6 years, I 
was not even aware of their situation. Nanay Bing told me that she does not have any family member 
with her now because both her parents died and her husband is also gone. Nanay Annie had inborn 
disease which did not allow her to stand from her birth. Moreover, she was abandoned by her parents 
and was raised in orphanage from when she was young. And all other nanays had their own stories to 
tell, each of which seemed very sad and gloomy. (Sarah Jeong) 



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The idea of caritas being distributive, meaning it is inclusive, has also been realized by my students through the 
activity. These students who are adolescents are bombarded by media and information online about variations of 
love that focus on its exclusivity: that it involves two people who squirm in the presence of one another, who 
promise eternity in each other’s arms; but these same students are often disillusioned because of their experiences, 
when this same kind of love results in anguish or worse, depression. Having a firsthand experience in the act of 
caritas brings back their faith in love. That love is not exclusive and may be given, distributed and multiplied to as 
many people as one can is a comforting thought at a time when loving is almost always equated with utility. 
 
     The last step, self-understanding, is characterized by “an ability for reflection, self-regulation, and critical 
thinking about our own beliefs and actions.”20 This was primarily the purpose of writing the reflection paper: for 
the students to initiate and engage themselves in the knowledge they were drenched in. 

 
     Without this, the practical benefits that one could reap from the knowledge taught can all go to waste. Thus, 
the students in my class are encouraged to discuss and reflect on their immersion so they could engage on caritas 
not just when they are told to do so; rather, so they could find ways to perform caritas in opportunities within 
their daily lives. 

 
     One student half-jokingly shared: 

 
Remarkably, I found new things I could look for in a boyfriend, or symptoms that I have to be aware of if 
it’s true love. I used to have a list of standards to prepare myself for finding my other half. Mass media 
made me yearn for superficial things in a partner like looks, money, or even intelligence. I never exercised 
my choice to choose for myself because I was predisposed and trained to “want” those standards. The 
immersion opened my mind to discussion and allowed me to rethink my ways. The intensity of love I felt 
and witnessed in Kanlungan ni Maria was quite too good be true, but now I have proof it exists. (Angela 
Balanza) 

The student, whether she knows it or not, realizes that her freedom to choose for herself and not be swayed by 
other factors, like mass media, has led to the use of her own will. As mentioned earlier, the use of one’s decisive 
choices is a product of man’s rational faculty; one that does not merely rely on our senses. Although caritas has 
not materialized yet in the case of this student as she has not found a receiver of the action, she has learned to 
know its characteristics and how it can be truly achieved. 

 
     With deepened insights, putting an idea into practice becomes inevitable. As philosophy is a very flexible 
discipline, what applies to a particular student does not translate to the exact same effect on another; thus, it was 
gratifying to see even some students benefit from the experience. Not only were their perspectives about love re-
aligned, but also their lifestyles. Efficient self-understanding leads to a change in behavior, attitudes, and 
knowledge levels, as a particular reflection proved: 
 

I have a grandfather who lives far away from his wife, and I never truly understood why he always yearns 
for her even if she’s too old to not be cranky, wrinkled and forgetful. I found it confusing. But I was 
enlightened in our visit to the home for the aged; as I shared life stories with these people, I learned 
about a love that transcends time, a love that never expected anything, a love worth remembering. I was 
forced to rethink my relationship with my boyfriend, and ultimately, my relationship with my family. 
Often, I overlook what good they bring to my life and seldom appreciate the things they do for me. I 
found ways to keep ties strong and more importantly, real. (Miriam Miciano) 



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     Experiential learning, or even learning in general, cannot be proven efficient unless students are able to “see 
the ‘big picture’ rather than they are just given a set of disconnected facts, when they are engaged in learning 
rather than positioned as passive spectators, and when they believe that such learning leads to meaningful 
outcomes rather than to predefined and predetermined goals.”21 As so many of my students have understood the 
otherwise broad and complicated concept of caritas not only from a cognitive standpoint, but also through 
meaningful applications in their lives, I would deem my method of teaching through experiential learning quite 
successful. 
 
     Without activities outside the classroom, abstractions in philosophy can be more confusing than clarifying. 
Exposure to real-life manifestations of love brings about increased understanding and educative benefits for 
students.  
 
Conclusion 
 
     In this work, I have attempted to demonstrate that experiential learning is applicable even in studies of 
Western Philosophy, specifically in teaching about love, or a variation of it. Love is a human endeavor and as such 
can only be learned in the presence of, and through experiences with, other humans. The philosophical texts that 
aim to illuminate our minds from the dark shadows of confusion brought about by love and its complexities may 
help light up the way; but it is my firm belief that only through experience generated by participating in 
pedagogical activities outside the four corners of the classroom, will allow students to grasp love is in its entirety. 

 
     Leder affirms the use of experiential learning in saying, “I have found that one of the most powerful ways to 
escape the classroom cave is to enter the many other caves our society constructs (ideally bringing our students 
with us) — the penitentiaries, homeless shelters, youth programs, hospices, senior centres, halfway houses — to 
humbly learn from the rich experience of those who therein dwell, and assist them, with whatever tools we have, 
in their own struggle for freedom.”22 I assent to this observation as I myself, as a teacher, have seen the potency of 
this approach for teaching. What better way to learn love than to experience it, and where else to experience love 
but outside the classroom, beyond those four walls that supposedly inform us but sometimes actually limit us as 
well. Indeed, love can only be apprehended in full freedom. 

 
Endnotes 
 

1.  Drew Leder, “Escaping the Cave: Experiential Learning in the Classroom, Community and Correctional    
Institutions,” in Teaching Philosophy, ed. Andrea Kenkmann. (London: Continuum International  Publishing 
Group, 2009), 81. 

2.  Ibid., 82. 
3.  Ibid. 
4.  Ibid., 83. 
5.  Ibid., 89. 
6.  The official course title is Philo 10: Approaches to Philosophy. 
7.  Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 26, a. II res. 
8.   John Peterman, On Ancient Philosophy (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008), 171. 
8.   Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston MA: Beacon Press, 1959), p. 86. 
9.   Ibid. 
10. Ibid.  



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11. ST II-II, Q. 23, a. 1, res. 
12. Ibid.  
13. ST II-II, Q. 23, a. 1, res.  
14. ST II-II, Q. 23, a. 1, res. 2 
15. Roger Straughan, Can We Teach Children to be Good? (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1982), 90. 
16. Ibid. 
17. Ibid. 
18. Eugene F. Provenzo, 100 experiential learning activities for social studies, literature and the arts, grades 5-12. 

(California: Corwin Press). 
19. Ibid. 
20. Ibid. 
21. Ibid. 
22. Drew Leder, “Escaping the Cave: Experiential Learning in the Classroom, Community and Correctional 

Institutions,” in Teaching Philosophy, 94. 
 
Address Correspondences to:  
 
Bernardo N. Caslib, Jr., University of the Philippines 
Diliman, Quezon City 1101Philippines 
jr_caslib@yahoo.com 


