Pedagogy vs. Andragogy – Where does HE fit?

In our first week of study at the PgCert, we were required to introduce ourselves, and our teaching practice, to our course-mates. In this introduction I spoke about my dislike for the word pedagogy, and academic language, as I felt it immediately wasn’t something I connect with. I also think it isn’t inclusive for a lot of our students, both home and international.

In the presentation, I went on to explain that the word ‘pedagogy’ comes from the Greek for ‘to lead a child’, or effectively ‘child-centred teaching’. ‘Andragogy’ on the other hand, is defined as the teaching of adults. The separation of these two meanings has always given me pause for thought, because at Higher Education level we tend to assume that all, or most, of our students are deemed as adults. Why then, do we continue to discuss pedagogy within a Higher Education setting, and not andragogy?

This topic is of interest to me because I feel that Higher Education fits into a weird, limbo-like, place between both pedagogy and andragogy. As pedagogy confirms, university students are led by their tutors through vocational and non-vocational subjects, but a large part of university studies remains to be self-directed learning, a tactic usually associated within andragogy. As HE students are actively engaging in both teacher-led and self-directed learning, are universities operating in a teaching grey area, with an audience that are not regarded as children, or yet adults (in some cases)? For me, this is where the designing of the curriculum, outcomes and assessment comes into play – there needs to be a method of constructing these factors of teaching that allow students to be nurtured by the teacher, but also allow for development of the self through self-initiated learning and interpretation. I believe that the arts university is the perfect place for this building of a curriculum, as the studio and learning environment can be extremely experimental – often operating alongside technicians rather than teachers.

When discussing with others on the course, we often came to an agreement that some students would have benefitted from taking a gap year before commencing study at HE level. Some other students though, are ready for university and this kind of learning. It has been identified by a lot of us on the course that the jump from secondary education to university is massive, and combined with external factors such as living alone for the first time, cooking your own meals, managing finances by yourself, etc. may be why there is still a pedagogic approach to HE students, rather than an andragogic approach. This observation by teaching staff perhaps gives more reasoning for the promotion and widespread nature of outreach programmes – how can we ensure that this gap is bridged effectively, not just in the city of London, but across the UK and perhaps even beyond?