Andragogy: teaching adults.

In brief, the term was used by Malcolm Knowles in discussions of adult education. Knowles was a further education/tech college lecturer interested in how teaching adults was different from teaching school children. Pedagogy means ‘guiding children’, so andragogy would mean ‘guiding adults’. Coming from the 1960s, it is now very dated, even though there have been later editions. The model of pedagogy was different then – more transmission and authority than in experience based learning. The introduction of experience-based and discussion types of pedagogy developed rapidly in schools in the 1970s, thanks to the Stenhouse Humanities programme, Integrated Studies and the like. Primary schools were dominated throughoutout this time (after the Plowden Report of 1966, influenced by the philosophy of John Dewey) with encouraging children to learn through experience, making curricula relevant to children. Knowles was reacting against an old fashioned notion of learning and teaching.

Knowles argued that discussion was better than telling, and that discussion should be based on the adults’ life experiences. We would say that today about teaching children too. There is a big question therefore whether pedagogy and andragogy are different. It is true that adults tend to have more life experience than children, but that is a matter of degree. For both, discussion is important, and so is the structured discipline of listening, taking notes and writing essays. One big difference is in authority – you can’t talk to adults as though they are children – but you might argue that we don’t talk to children very effectively anyway and should treat them with more respect. How you give a group of students boundaries may differ between children and adults, again in degree rather than in kind. In considering how learning is best facilitated at any level, we can reflect on what works well and what not, without getting bogged down by the tired old andragogy/pedagogy debate.

The issue of how best to teach adults needs more exploration. Fill them with confidence, instil can-do attitudes, use their everyday needs and issues, help them to think and express themselves clearly, show them how knowledge is relevant to their lives, help them to analyse and synthesise, make them curious, encourage self-discipline, celebrate their achievements. This is a powerful list to act on. It is the same list as we would use with children.