pedagogy and andragogy

In this podcast, Teacher Eduardo discusses the concepts of pedagogy and andragogy. He emphasizes the importance for language teachers to understand these concepts and how they relate to their teaching practice. He explains that education is not just about transmitting information, but also about shaping individuals and their environment. Pedagogy is defined as the art and science of teaching, but Teacher Eduardo argues that it involves much more, including accompanying learners, caring for them, and bringing learning to life. He also mentions the pitfalls of focusing too much on grammar and not enough on overall language proficiency. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Teacher Eduardo Podcast. I'm your host, Teacher Eduardo, and on this occasion we're going to be taking a look at pedagogy and andragogy. Now, it's quite important for language teachers to have an understanding of exactly what is pedagogy and exactly what is andragogy, because normally you're dealing within these both realms. Your professional practice has exactly to do with these both realms. So it's quite valuable to have a really good understanding of exactly what it is, what it entails, and what does it have to do with students of any age, and what does it have to do with my teaching practice as an English teacher. So those are some of the things that we're going to be addressing in this podcast. Now, I do want to make it clear that by no means are we going to do a deep dive into any of these two ideas of pedagogy and andragogy. That would be quite impossible. We have entire semester courses, in fact entire study programs dedicated just to these things. What we're actually going to do here in this podcast is really just scratch the surface a little bit just to get an understanding of what they are, get their definitions, their characteristics going, and start making some comparing and contrasting to help you better understand how these impact your teaching practice, how they should impact your personal views and beliefs regarding education in general. So, without further ado, let's get to it. Before we start with our first topic of the day, I'd like to do a brief touch on education in general first. We can't really talk about pedagogy, we can't really talk about andragogy if we don't have a basis or an understanding of exactly what education is as a whole. To understand education first, let's remember what it is concerned about. So education is concerned with knowing about things as well as changing ourselves and the world we live in. In general sense, in a very generic sense perhaps, that can be education. We have education so that we can improve ourselves, we can be better people in society, we can be better persons, we can be better family members, better husbands and wives and professionals as we are forming together a society. That's great. Now, what do I need as a human being to be educated, to have an education? Generally speaking, education requires some of the following. A common knowledge of things in general, abilities, values, methods and forms of acting through activities set in an organized way and as a part of a systemic process related to societal purposes. More or less, there you have a broad understanding, a broad parameter of what education is. In other words, when we talk about education, we're referring to the process of shaping human beings so they can better themselves and their immediate environment. There's no magic here. To educate involves working and developing specific abilities, skills, values and so on that are an integral part of the person. This is, in fact, a never-ending process. So as a teacher, I need to understand that in relation to my subject matter and level, how far do I need to move my students' development? This will be my contribution to this human's development or education for that matter regarding my subject matter, and in our case, would be English or languages. One thing needs to be made clear here. Education is not the transmission of information, no matter that it may be facts about a given discipline or information that is deemed essential that the students know. Being aware of or knowing information is not necessarily conducive to improvement and development of the person as a whole. I can know something and not be driven to improve myself to be a better person, even if that something, in theory, is life-changing in some way. I think that a very good example here is grammar. It is very common that an English class can easily turn to a grammar class where the teacher no longer is in the process of educating students, but is simply having them do exercises which are transmitting the grammar rule of how to conjugate a verb, structure a sentence, categorize words or some other language rule, yet knowing the grammar rule and actually being good at doing the exercises does not necessarily mean that the student will be a good communicator in the target language. As a teacher, you always have to keep in the back of your mind that, in a very general sense, education develops in students some of the following, a scientific conception of the world, about society, nature, human beings, thoughts, and about themselves, which becomes convictions, key word here, conviction, and core of his or her training. In Spanish, we may ask ourselves or our teachers, ¿Qué le vas a enseñar a tus estudiantes? What is curious about this question is the verb enseñar, referring to literally show students something, with the notion that this is enough to educate on the topic. However, and this is what I would like for you to take away from this brief look at education, to simply show something to a student, to talk about something, is not enough. To believe that it is enough would be to have an extremely reductionist point of view of what constitutes a human being. A human being has a brain with a myriad of cognitive processes and abilities, an emotional level that generally thrives on motivation and engagement, a social need to belong by sharing common experiences with others, among other layers. Thus, simply showing something to your student is not enough. Enseñar no es educar. Showing is not educating. This is exactly where pedagogy and androgyny come in. They help us observe, organize, and understand these various layers and dimensions that are critical and constitutional to what makes up a human being. This way, we can use this information, such as rules, guidelines, recommendations, to actually achieve a level of education, be it children, teenagers, or adults, at any stage of their life. Okay, in a brief moment here, we're going to take a look at pedagogy, but before we do, let's take a short break. And we're back. Okay, so pedagogy. Now that we have a basis for what education is and its purpose, let's start with pedagogy. A common definition might go as follows. Pedagogy is the art and science and maybe even craft of teaching. That's it. While there is truth to this, it really does not fully explain what pedagogy is. It falls way too short. You may say it is an oversimplification of the term. I highly recommend you look up the etymology of pedagogy and browse through some of its history. This will surely be enlightening and will greatly help you better understand why this generic definition is simply not enough. Here is a definition which I personally like a little better. Pedagogy is the process of accompanying learners, caring for and about them, and bringing learning into life. Notice that by simply adding a few simple terms really opens up the horizon of what pedagogy stands for. To say that a teacher accompanies a student through the learning process already means there is a social and emotional aspect to it all. It's not just about the information, if you were. There must be human emotion and connection at some level for it to make sense, don't you think? To talk about caring for students, it's following up on the previous idea that the teacher are emotionally involved, mainly by being empathetic with your student's learning process and also being compassionate. In other words, you not only feel and understand what your students might be going through, but you do something about it. That's powerful stuff in my point of view. Lastly, to talk about bringing learning into life really makes it clear that showing is not enough. It is your duty, and I do want to repeat that, it is your duty as a teacher to devise creative ways of taking the information and knowledge in the curriculum to work with your students so they are not just reading, repeating what might be empty information to them, but instead, they are the ones living and experiencing it. Of course, there are limitations. For example, if you have a topic on wild animals, you will not take your students into the wilderness to look at wild animals, of course. This can be extremely dangerous. This is where the creativity of the teacher has to kick in. To find a way to close the gap between the student and the topic as much as possible, within the constraints one might have, of course. To do so, you need to understand who your students are and where they come from, such as age, strengths, weaknesses, surroundings, and general interests, among other things. This is what pedagogy is all about. Do you see how the initial definition falls short? It just doesn't do it justice. I'd like to close this first definition section with the following idea regarding the notion of bringing learning into life. Pedagogy tells us that bringing something to life is not just talking enthusiastically about it. There is actually three things you can do to achieve this. One, animation. Involve potential new experiences for your students. Number two, reflection. Moments and spaces to explore lived experiences. Three, action. Make it social to strengthen change and improvement. Okay, let's carry on here with the next idea. The next idea is to create some pitfalls. Normally, when we talk about theories and methods, we generally come from a positive angle, but as a teacher, you always have to look at both sides of the coin. So, we just took a look at the good things. Now, let's take a look at things that are not so good. I already briefly talked about how an English learner class can quickly and easily lose its focus and turn into a grammar class. No matter how brilliantly one completes a grammar sheet, it does not grant language proficiency. From a pedagogical standpoint, this can be understood as treating students like they were the one-dimensional beings who all learn the same, which would be in a linear and mechanical form. I think we can agree that this is not the case for all of us. So, I'd like to briefly expand on this idea. We go back 200 years to the times of Johan Petzolati, the father of modern pedagogy. From this very early stage of what was to become pedagogy, Petzolati already clearly stated that learning was an experience that encompassed the entire person and not just a linear and systematic feed of information. He shows that there is more to education than attaining prescribed learning outcomes. It is concerned with the whole person, with their physical, mental, and psychological development. Despite the fields of education and psychology not being as studied and developed as we know it today, it was evident that there was an appreciation towards the many layers or dimensions that constitute a person. What's more, it was not seen as a characteristic or something static that people have, but something meaningful that actively played a role in the person's identity and development as a human being. Fast forward about 150 years, and we're now in the time of Paulo Freire. Among the many important contributions he made to the field of education, Freire talked about the idea of banking. To him, banking is making deposits of knowledge, such as a bank, trying to drill learning into people according to some plan. This quickly turns learners into objects, things to be acted upon rather than people to be related to. Freire was alive during the rise and broad acceptance of behaviorism, which deals only with the observable. The concept of banking is a direct critique to behaviorism. As popular as behaviorism was, the implication was that a person's learning process was seen to some extent as a computer work by activating and deactivating certain controls, positive and negative conditioning. Although popular and effective, it saw people in a one-dimensional plane. There was a lot more to learning and human behavior than just conditioning, and Freire saw this. People are not objects. They are others to be related to. In a broad sense, the educational process can inadvertently treat students of all ages as objects that teachers need to fill with information, at least enough information to accurately answer memory-based questionnaires. Does this really impact students in such a way that it improves their abilities, cognition, emotions, and how they relate to their surroundings? I'm quite confident that you will agree with me when I say that getting a perfect score in a memory-based questionnaire does not constitute learning. It simply doesn't. Not from a pedagogical standpoint, at least. This, then, is perhaps the principal pitfall that all teachers from all school grades must face and try to avoid at all costs, and this also includes English teachers. Now in this brief revision that we're doing, our next section here is the learning process, and we're going to take a very short look at this. As we progress through this exploration of pedagogy, we come to the learning process. We normally address this from a student's perspective, yet I'm going to go a bit against the grain here and talk about it from a teacher's perspective. I know that with current trends, we don't do this anymore, but bear with me as my purpose here is to help you appreciate what your role as a teacher is and an active participant in your student's learning process. So, here are some thoughts on things you need to pay attention to as a teacher. The first one has to do with the age and stage of development of your students. You have probably already heard the expression that you need to know your students. It might seem obvious to know, but not so much when dealing with multiple groups in a single day where each one has 20 to 30 students. This is where evolutionary psychology greatly helps the job of the teacher because it provides a clear outline of what humans go through in each stage of life, physical development, cognitive development, and emotional development. With a basic understanding of evolutionary psychology, you can walk into a classroom of students and quickly get a broad understanding of what their needs are just by identifying their age, gender, and overall demeanor. Further exploration can be done through a diagnostic test and activities, of course. The more you know who your students are and their age and stage of development, the better you will be able to serve them with regard to their learning needs and, in turn, contribute to their progress of being better humans. Another somewhat obvious idea is that when you're organizing the content from your subject matter and doing your lesson plan, you always start from the easy stuff and work your way to the more challenging stuff. It is highly unlikely that you could do this any other way because we're simply built in such a way that to deeply grasp a complex topic, we first need to understand its core principles so we can then establish a correlation, break things apart, put them back together, and ultimately internalize the complex topic. From a creative standpoint, you can, of course, adjust the narrative of your lesson plan to make the experience as a whole more engaging for your students, but you still have to follow a known-to-unknown sequence. For example, you might start your class by presenting the complex idea to students and showing them the end result. This is where I'm going to take you today to understand this complex idea. They may not understand the inner workings of it, but they surely will grasp its application. So, the class now becomes a discovery of understanding the inner workings of this complex idea, how it all builds so that, at the end, students understand what was initially presented to them. The class might have started at the end, but it quickly went back to the known and took students to the unknown. The difference is that they now know where they need to get to. Unlike the obvious nature of the two previous ideas, the role of instruction can be a tricky one, not in understanding what it is, but more precisely in its application. The tricky thing about instruction is that there is a fine line between it being a mindless statement that teachers enunciate for students to follow and, on the opposite side, a key that unlocks learning opportunities. Consider the following interaction between a teacher and students. Now, the teacher goes on here and says, Please open your book to page 45. Complete the reading in section 2, then answer the question in section 3. So, everybody does as instructed, and after everyone completes the exercise, here comes the teacher again. Jenny, what did you answer in question 1? Jenny provides an answer, and the teacher says, good. Once again, the teacher, Paul, what did you answer in question 2? Paul provides the answer, and the teacher responds, good. So, there you have this first interaction where we do have instruction and orientation of students, but is that really education? Now, consider this next situation. Once again, we have the teacher interacting with students, and the teacher first organizes everyone into pairs, and the teacher says, Please open your books to page 45. Look at the questions in section 3. Ask and answer these questions with your partner. Don't be afraid to talk about your personal experience regarding the questions and answers. So, time is provided, everybody does the activity, and after students finish with their interaction, the teacher once again says the instruction. Read the passage in section 2. Then, as you review the questions in section 3, compare the answers from the text with the answer you gave to your partner. How are they similar or different? And students would carry on with the following engagement or interaction. Both situations have to do with the same book activity on page 45. However, what is the potential of learning in situation 1 versus what is the potential of learning in situation 2? There is, of course, a broader context that these situations are a part of, and that would surely help paint a more complete picture. Yet, despite the limitations, we can clearly see that instruction greatly hinders or promotes learning. The real question is how you, in the role of teacher, will use instruction to promote learning in your students and what you need to do to achieve this. In order to realize the idea that human development is taking place, the teacher must have a system of some kind to measure students' progress. This means that there should be a general endpoint or benchmark, a starting point, and the eventual movements towards the endpoint. In other words, there is a learning objective to achieve at the end of the course, a diagnostic that takes place at the beginning and all of the classes and practices that happen in between, which should be designed to help the student reach the learning objective. With the diagnostic and learning objective established, measurement happens all the way through. It makes more sense at this point to go back to the idea of pitfalls so that it is in the appropriate context. Measurement of students' progress can usually not be about student progress and instead center around simply getting a passing grade, even though it is a completely arbitrary thing. From a pedagogical point of view, measuring progress is not just about knowing something. The person as a whole should be a concept that is present at all times, cognitively, emotionally, physically, socially. Here, I'm only referencing the broad strokes, but each dimension is a world of information the teacher needs to weigh in order to accurately determine progress as it works. It is not just about confirming if little Timmy can repeat back the three phrases of the cycle of water. It is also about identifying what he thinks about it, how he feels about it, what actions he takes about it, and how he shares it with others like family and friends. All of these human dimensions are not equally important all the time. Keep in mind that learning happens in relation to the developmental stage of the student. What is important to a five-year-old will be different to a ten-year-old and so on. It generally becomes more complex with age. The dimensions that conform the human are always present and should always be considered when measuring student progress. It's just that each one changes its degree of importance with regard to the stage in life the student is in. Right about now is a good time to remember that pedagogy is generally understood as referring to children and teenagers' learning process, whereas adult learning falls under the view of androgyny. I mention this now because there is quite a tangible difference when it comes to stakeholders. Stakeholders are the people or institutions who have some kind of invested interest in the learning process of the student. It can be a direct or indirect investment. For example, the school and parents of the child, student, will be direct stakeholders while a sibling or a friend might be an indirect stakeholder. Direct stakeholders should be frequently updated on the progress of the student while indirect ones can occasionally be informed. I'd like to close the section on pedagogy with a brief account of some of the most common approaches we have. Each one places the role of the teacher and student in a slightly and even very different way, as well as value the various dimensions of child-student somewhat differently. So, the traditional approach, basically the educator provides information through direct instruction and lecture-based lessons. Critical pedagogy, on the other hand, encourages students to analyze and challenge oppressive structures by being aware of diverse perspectives, societal forces and power dynamics. Social pedagogy involves moral education, teaching learners social development and awareness. Project-based learning utilizes theoretical knowledge in real-world situations, filling the gap between theory and practice. Culturally responsive approach recognizes and understands the cultural ethnic diversity of their learners as they aim to promote an inclusive learning environment with a culturally responsive approach. Inquiry-based learning approach where students develop skill and gain knowledge by asking questions. So, here is a very broad review of pedagogy and some of its components, characteristics. We move on now to anthropology, but not before we take a short break. Let's go! I've taken quite a lot of time on pedagogy in this two-section exploration, but that's fine because there is plenty of overlap between pedagogy and androgyny. The core principles are fundamentally the same, such as a human being comprised of several dimensions. What is different is the degree to which these dimensions are developed and the complexity with which they operate. These two variables greatly impact the educational process. So, don't think that there is a strict separation between pedagogy and androgyny. On the contrary, the second is an extension of the first, just like adulthood is a consequence of childhood. So, let's talk about definition. Pedagogy is about children. Androgyny is about adults, yet there is so much more about it as we have so far seen with pedagogy. Androgyny is no different. The oversimplified definition is stated as method and practice of teaching adults. It's the dictionary version, of course. With these sort of things, it's better to look at what experts have to say. Hanselman, who was a Swiss psychiatrist, talked about androgyny as helping adults with the learning process, and mainly he saw androgyny as a continuation of pedagogy. The definition might still be somewhat simplistic, but by the concept of adult learning, there is much to unpack. It serves as a gateway into what androgyny is. The University of Bamberg in Germany contributed greatly to the study of androgyny. They understood it as the life-wide learning of adults, referring not only to formal learning but also informal learning, intentional learning, non-intentional learning and even accidental learning. The principal implication here is that they believe that learning happens everywhere and potentially at every time. The biggest takeaway, then, from most definitions of androgyny is that it is about the learning process adults go through, understanding that theirs is different to a child's learning process. What's curious though is that androgyny has not been seen equally around the world. Towards the east of Europe, there is much more emphasis on the social androgyny, which refers to collective and collaborative learning geared towards societal change, while towards the western part of the world, such as America, the emphasis is on the individualistic androgyny, which focuses on personal growth and self-directed learning, thus not intended to change the status quo. To our benefit, both can be used and applied. It simply depends on the context and characteristics of the group of adult students you may have at any given class. Malcolm Knowles is most known for his contribution to androgyny. He contributed a series of assumptions and principles pertaining to adult learning, which helped to guide the educational process. I think it is safe to say that we all understand that adults learn differently to children and teenagers. It is exactly here that Knowles contributes his ideas to clarify just how adults are unique in their own way, and in turn, shed light so that teachers and academics can accurately target methods and didactics to the needs of adults. Knowles states five assumptions pertaining to adult learning. 1. Self-concept. As a person matures, his or her self-concept moves from one being of dependent personality towards one of being a self-directed human being. 2. Adult learner's experience. As a person matures, he or she accumulates a growing reservoir of experiences that becomes an increasing resource for learning. 3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures, his or her readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his or her social roles. 4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures, his or her time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly, his or her orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centered to one of problem-centeredness. 5. Motivation to learn. As a person matures, the motivation to learn is internal. As this points out, it is relevant to remember what exactly one means when talking about an assumption. In principle, this is something that is generally accepted as truth, yet there is very likely no evidence to support it. It is quite common to make assumptions. We do them all the time by simply observing our surroundings from afar. This is important because we will be touching on this again in the next section. In addition to these five assumptions, Noe postulates four principles of androgyny. 1. Involved adult learners. Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction. 2. Adult learners' experience. Experience, including mistakes, provides the basis for the learning activities. 3. Relevance and impact to learners' lives. Adults are more interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life. 4. Problem-centered. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented. To this effect, a principle is understood as an underlying truth for a belief system. You may have noticed, then, that there is some correlation between Noe's assumptions and principles. It should be expected that this be the case, since it demonstrates congruency of the entire framework. Taken at face value, these statements offer plenty of guidance for teachers, so much so that they continue to hold up to this day and are frequently referenced when talking about androgyny. No matter the popularity of Noe's contributions to androgyny, other experts on the matter have talked about its shortcomings. The most immediate and obvious critique is that Noe's ideas about androgyny lacked empirical data. This is to say that there was no rigorous data collection and analysis that commonly supports any serious theory. Thus, there has been much questioning on why Noe's androgyny is referred to as a theory of adult learning when there seems to be no concrete data to back it up. Another critique, this one by Sandlin, is that Noe's androgyny ignored the relationship between the individual and the society. The implication to this is that it presupposes that everyone has the same values and goals, no matter the culture they come from. This, of course, is inherently not true to humans given that surrounding environments may deeply shape perception, experience, and values. You don't need to go too far to prove this. For example, people who live in the south of Mexico have very different customs and values to people who live in the north. There are obviously similarities given it is the same country. However, because the environments are different, people in both extremes of the country live differently and come to have different life expectations and slightly different cultures. Thus, their learning process as adults has to be treated with its corresponding differences and similarities. One final critique that I'd like to mention here is that, according to Finger and Austin, Noe's androgyny does not challenge the status quo. In other words, the assumptions and principles will lead teachers to encourage development that only strengthens the current habit and practices of adults in the present culture. While there might not be anything apparently wrong with this, it may cause a teacher to easily fall into a traditional approach to teaching, omitting activities which may challenge what adult students believe. Critiques and opposing arguments on models, methods, and theories is commonplace. And a good thing, actually. It means the experts are working out the minutiae and that the ideas remain vibrant and in motion. Most importantly, critiques do not mean that they necessarily cancel what they are critiquing. These are simply opposing views, which are healthy and natural part of evolving ideas and theories. It is up to practicing teachers to be informed on the matter and decide for themselves if the model, method, or theory is pertinent to their current adult students. So, we've taken a look at pedagogy. We've taken a look at androgyny. Let's take a short break. In this final section, I'd like to leave you with a comparison between pedagogy and androgyny, which lists a few of the key criteria of both theories and for each provides a simple statement. With everything that has been presented here, this comparison will give you a broad idea that may serve as cues to spark new avenues that may lead you down interesting rabbit holes on children and adult education. The first criteria here is dependence. In pedagogy, the learner is a dependent personality. The teacher determines what, how, and when anything is learned. Whereas in androgyny, adults are independent. They strive for autonomy and self-direction in learning. Resources for learning. In pedagogy, the learner has few resources. The teacher devises transmission techniques to store knowledge in the learner's head. Whereas in androgyny, adults use their own and others' experience. Reasons for learning. In pedagogy, students learn in order to advance to the next stage. In androgyny, adults learn when they experience a need to know or to perform more effectively. Reasons of learning. In pedagogy, learning is subject-centered, focuses on prescribed curriculum and planned sequences according to the logic of the subject matter. In androgyny, adult learning is task- or problem-centered. Motivation. In pedagogy, motivation comes from external sources, usually parents, teachers, a sense of competition. In androgyny, motivation stems from internal sources, the increased self-esteem, confidence, and recognition that come from successful performance. Role of the teacher. In pedagogy, the teacher designs the learning process, imposes material, is assumed to know best. In androgyny, the teacher is an enabler or facilitator, promotes a climate of collaboration, respect, and openness. So we've come to the conclusion of this podcast. I hope that this brief revision of pedagogy and androgyny has given you some ideas, some clarity into what these are, and most importantly, what their impact is on the view of students as human beings, so that you as a teacher understand, again, the impact this all has on you as the person who is leading the class, the role you have in the classroom, what impact it has in your lesson planning, in your material, in how you instruct students, in how you orient and guide them, and how you relate to your students. With this said, thank you for staying along here for the ride, and once again, this is Teacher Hidalgo's podcast. See you next time.