The Hero's Journey There are twelve steps to the hero's journey. According to the Oracle Education Foundation Library, those steps are as follows. 1. Ordinary World: This step refers to the hero's normal life at the start of the story, before the adventure begins. 2. Call to Adventure: The hero is faced with something that makes him begin his adventure. This might be a problem or a challenge he needs to overcome. 3. Refusal of the Call: The hero attempts to refuse the adventure because he is afraid. 4. Meeting with the Mentor: The hero encounters someone who can give him advice and ready him for the journey ahead. 5. Crossing the First Threshold: The hero leaves his ordinary world for the first time and crosses the threshold into adventure. 6. Tests, Allies, Enemies: The hero learns the rules of his new world. During this time, he endures tests of strength of will, meets friends, and comes face to face with foes. 7. Approach: Setbacks occur, sometimes causing the hero to try a new approach or adopt new ideas. 8. Ordeal: The hero experiences a major hurdle or obstacle, such as a life or death crisis. 9. Reward: After surviving death, the hero earns his reward or accomplishes his goal. 10. The Road Back: The hero begins his journey back to his ordinary life. 11. Resurrection Hero - The hero faces a final test where everything is at stake and he must use everything he has learned. 12. Return with Elixir: The hero brings his knowledge or the "elixir" back to the ordinary world, where he applies it to help all who remain there. "Are there any real-life examples of the hero's journey?" Yes, absolutely. Look in the mirror. Part of the point of the Hero's Journey is that it reflects nearly universal human experiences. It does so in two major ways: 1. The Hero's Journey reflects the process of growing up. It's learning about the world, maturing, exploring new regions of experience, meeting fellow travellers, encountering new challenges, and developing the skills to overcome them. It's about flourishing and flowering in new ways--the journey from juvenile to adult. 2. Even after we're no longer children, the Hero's Journey continues to be relevant. It's also about the obstacles we experience in everyday life, the obstacles and crises that cause us disadvantage and pain. The Hero's Journey is the story of encountering desperate and difficult situations, grappling with fear and hesitation, seeking out mentors and allies, developing strategies and forging new psychological tools, and then expressing the drive and fortitude to weather adversity and come through as a better person. A Hero, if you will. That's why Joseph Campbell was able to identify heroic archetypes in the mythologies of every civilization. These stories express universal truths about the human experience. We are each a Hero in our own journey. the Hero’s Journey reflects an inclusive conception of transformative learning theory that focuses on the centrality of emotion in the personal transformation experience. Through critical self-reflection, The Hero’s Journey provides a framework that guides individuals in understanding that significant personal growth and transformation are often accompanied by challenge and tension, but often the greater the challenge, the more significant the personal fulfilment and self- growth. To take the heroes journey is to expose ourselves to risk and opportunity. It is to open ourselves to the possibilities of hope and despair. It is a vehicle for helping students discover the best in themselves, in others, and in the world they inhabit. The challenge of contemporary education is to regain a sense of shared purpose and to recognize, all over again, the power of the learning process in transforming lives. The beauty, complexity, and occasional terror of the hero's journey in education find powerful parallels in countless prose and verse classics. Some of these are captured in a charming book, The Quotable Traveler(1994). For example, this book quotes American writer Diane Ackerman: “[The journey] began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between!” (p. 103).* https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302576163_The_Hero's_Journey_as_ a_metaphor_for_personal_transformation Willans, Julie. (2012). The Hero's Journey as a metaphor for personal transformation..
