Malcolm Knowles
processes.Andragogy, in contrast to pedagogy,
the art and science of teaching children, recognizes that adults:
· want to be responsible for their own lives and learning
· bring experience to learning activities
· want learning to apply to real-life situations
· are motivated by intrinsic motivators.
Knowles was influential as a practioner and author in the adult education field from 1935 until his death in 1997.He is the author of 18 books and more than 230 articles.He is identified with self-directed learning, learning contracts, and learning environments.
Malcolm Shepherd Knowles was born in 1913 in Missoula, Montana, the son of a country veterinarian.The family moved to Kelsey City, Florida in 1925. While active in the Boy Scouts, Knowles “learned the meaning of ambition and that I could achieve anything I was really committed to”(Knowles, 1989, p. 3).Some memorable early accomplishments included capturing butterflies and baby alligators for spending money, and earning a trip to the Boy Scout World Jamboree in England.
Knowles graduated from Harvard University and began his association with adult education as Director of Training for the National Youth Administration (NYA) in Boston, Massachusetts in 1935.That same year he married his wife, Hulda, with whom he had two children and co-authored two books.Also in 1935, he met his first real mentor, Eduard C. Lindeman, who was supervising the training operations of the NYA.Lindeman’s The Meaning of Adult Education became his chief source of inspiration and ideas for a quarter of a century. He stated, “I regard Lindeman as the prophet of modern adult educational theory” (Knowles, 1989, p. 8).
In 1940, Knowles became Director of Adult Education at the Boston YMCA where two key convictions about adult education took root:that enthusiastic amateurs can be superior teachers of adult learners; and that you must start with adult learners where they are starting from in terms of interests, questions, problems, and concerns (Knowles, 1989, p. 11).
In 1943, Knowles had a short stint as Director of the USO in Detroit and also served in the U.S. Navy.In 1946, he became director of adult education at Central YMCA in Chicago and also began a graduate program in Adult Education at the University of Chicago.He received his M.A. in 1949.In 1951 he became Executive Director of the Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., newly formed from the merger of the American Association for Adult Education and the Department of Adult Education of the National Educational Association.
Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1960, he was hired to develop a “bold” program in adult education at Boston University.He wrote,
By the end of the first year I felt so incongruent playing the role of a traditional professor and fighting “academic standards” that were irrelevant to mature, experienced practitioners that I was tempted to resign…I started experimenting with competency-based course syllabi, self-diagnosis of learning needs, student-initiated learning projects, learning contracts, performance assessments rather than tests, and other innovations…Word spread through the adult educational circles of New England that here was a program that “practiced what it preached,” and applications began flooding in (Knowles, 1989, p. 19).
Knowles preferred to think of himself as a facilitator, rather than a teacher.He wanted educators to redefine their role from an expert transmitting information into the more effective role of being a facilitator of knowledge acquired by the learners.He saw a change from a content transmission orientation to a content acquisition orientation, a focus shift from teaching to learning (Brookfield, 1987).
In 1967, after attending a workshop with Knowles, a Yugoslavian adult educator, Dusan Savicevic, told Knowles that he was promoting “andragogy.” Knowles’ initial response was, “Whatgogy?”In April 1968, Adult Leadership published “Androgogy, Not Pedagogy.”Knowles learned the correct spelling from publishers of Merriam-Webster dictionaries later in 1968 (Knowles, 1989, pp. 79-80).
Andragogy is derived from the stem of the Greek word “aner,” meaning man (as distinguished from boy).The term was coined by Alexander Kapp, a German teacher in 1833.Eduard Lindeman used andragogy in two articles in 1926 and 1927.Professor T.T. ten Have in the Netherlands used andragogy in his lectures in 1954, and in 1959 he published the outlines for a science of andragogy (Knowles, 1989, p. 50). The term did not come into common use in educational circles until Knowles adopted it, however.
Critics of andragogy claimed that children learned better with andragogical assumptions and strategies also, and that it was not an exclusively adult theory or process.In the revised edition of The Modern Practice of Adult Education, published in 1980, Knowles changed the subtitle to From Pedagogy to Andragogy.Knowles presented two models of assumptions about learners and learning that depend upon the specific situation.The following table summarizes the assumptions.
|
Assumptions |
Design Elements
|
||||
|
Pedagogy |
Andragogy |
|
Pedagogy |
Andragogy |
|
Self-concept |
Dependency |
Increasing
self-directiveness |
Climate |
Authority oriented- Formal Competitive |
Mutuality Respectful Collaborative Informal |
|
Experience |
Of little worth |
Learners are a rich
resource for learning |
Planning |
By teacher |
Mechanism for mutual
planning |
|
Readiness |
Biological development
social pressure |
Developmental tasks of
social roles |
Diagnosis of needs |
By teacher |
Mutual self-diagnosis |
|
Time perspective |
Postponed application |
Immediacy of application |
Formulation of objectives |
By teacher |
Mutual negotiation |
|
Orientation to learning |
Subject centered |
Problem centered |
Design |
Logic of Content units the
subject matter |
Sequenced in terms Problem
units of readiness |
|
|
|
Activities |
Transmittal techniques |
Experiential techniques
(inquiry) |
|
|
|
Evaluation |
By teacher |
Mutual re-diagnosis of
needs Mutual measurement |
(Knowles, 1978, p. 110)
Knowles work was not without controversy. According to Robert Carlson, the top administration of Boston University was:
unimpressed with andragogy.It seemed that too few professors were supervising too many dissertations, that the graduate program in adult education was structured more for students to learn from each other than from the professors, and that democratic process was more valued than intellectual discipline.
In 1974, Knowles resigned from Boston University to become a faculty member at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
In 1979, at the mandatory retirement age of 65, he retired to full-time consulting, conferences and workshops.His wife, Hulda, accompanied him on many trips until May 1986 when a stroke prevented her from further travel.Knowles continued to work and write until he died suddenly and peacefully of a cerebral hemorrhage on Thanksgiving Day in 1997 at the age of 84.
Knowles answered some key questions about his educational philosophy in a taped interview with Stephen Brookfield in 1987:
1.
What does “education” equal.Why do we educate?
We educate to help learners acquire the knowledge and skills they want to acquire.
2.
What is the most effective pathway to literacy?
Motivation is the most effective path.Removing the barriers to learning is the key.
3.
Who should participate in education?
Everyone should be able to participate and control their own learning process.
4.
What is the role of the teacher in the teaching/learning
process?
Teaching is a process of guided interaction between the teacher, the student, and the materials of instruction. The function of the teacher is to guide the student into the kind of experiences that will enable him or her to develop his own natural potentialities.
5.
What would be some practical advice you would give to someone
who is new to this business of educating adults?
Don’t think of yourself as a teacher if you want to help them learn. Think of yourself as a manager of the process by which they will explore a given body of content and as a content resource to them. But primarily, think of yourself as a facilitator of their learning rather than as a transmitter and controller of their acquisition of content.