What is pedagogy?

Meaning of pedagogy
Pedagogy (pèd-e-go´jê) literally means the art
and science of educating children and
often is used as a synonym for teaching.

More accurately, pedagogy embodies

teacher focused education.
Meaning of pedagogy
In the pedagogic model, teachers assume
responsibility for making decisions about what will
be learned, how it will be learned, and when it will
be learned. Teachers direct learning.
Pedagogy includes
 How the teaching occurs, the approach to
teaching and learning, the way the context is
delivered and what the students learn as a result
of the process.
 How the teacher interacts with students and

social and intellectual environment the teacher

seeks to establish.
So…
 Pedagogy informs teaching strategies, teacher
actions and judgments and decisions by taking
into consideration theories of learning,
understanding of students and their needs and
the backgrounds and interests of individual
students.
Historical context
 Socratic method
 Dialectical method - discourse between 2 or

more people holding different point of view about

a subject but wishing to establish truth through
reasonable
arguments
 Ancient teachers didn’t pursue authoritarian
techniques; but later teacher-focused education
began to dominate

 The roots of teacher-based education goes back

to Calvinists who believed wisdom was evil.

 The seventh century schools prepared young

boys for the priesthood
Social context
John Dewey believed formal schooling was
falling short of its potential. Dewey emphasized
learning through various activities rather than
traditional teacher-focused curriculum.

He believed children learned more from guided

experience than authoritarian
instruction.
Malcolm Knowles 1973
Comprehensive adult learning theory
Lange’s theory

Purpose of education - to produce rational, cultured

citizens

History of education – to help understand social,

political and cultural conditions that affect education

Teachers in politics/ no religion in education

Friedrich Diestersweg
 Diestersweg was keen to reform schooling
 Take education away from the influence of

church and politics

 Democracy in education – to help the poor
 He believed that general education should be

open to everyone: 'First educate men, before

worrying about their professional training or
class, [because] the proletarian and the peasant
should both be educated to become human
beings'.
Schleiermacher and social development

 Education concerns with social development

 It went beyond the pedagogical principles of

‘natural self-development’ to embrace an
‘education for community’

 Democracy is the condition for good education

Natorp, community and social pedagogy
 The ideas of community developed

 Community – permanent and real form of living

together, while society is transitory

 After 1st World War what was needed was a

strong sense of community and education that
encouraged this fought to close the gap
between poor and rich.
 Pedagogues and Teachers in Ancient
Greek Society
 The first pedagogues were slaves
 They were trusted and accompanied the sons of

their “masters” in the street, sat behind them at

school…
 Children were put in their charge at around 7

years and remained with them until

adolescence.
 The roles and relationships of
pedagogues
 Plato talks about 2 kind of pedagogues:

 The first to be an accompanist or companion –

carrying books and bags
 The second was to help boys learn what it was

to be men through discipline and conversation.

 Pedagogues were moral guides who were to be

obeyed.
 Rich Romans and some Jews also placed their
children in the care and oversight of trusted
slaves.
 In Roman society they were often several

pedagogues in each family, including overseers

for girls.
 Pedagogues and teachers
 Whiles teachers taught a boy his letters,
pedagogues taught him how to behave, a much
more important matter in the eyes of his parents.
 However both teachers and pedagogues could

be disrespected by
the boys because of
their low status.
The Growing Focus on Teaching
 In Europe the content of teaching developed
significantly in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.

 Didactics – For Comenius (The Great

Didactics,1648) the fundamental aims of
education generate the basic principle of
Didactics – to teach everything to everybody
thoroughly in the best possible way…
Didactics
 He developed sets of rules for teaching and set
out basic principles:
 Teaching must be in accordance with the

students stage of development.

 One should proceed from the specific to the

general, from what is easy to the more difficult,

from what is known to the unknown.
 Teaching should proceed slowly and

systematically.
Theories of teaching
 German educator Herbart (1776-1841) worked
towards a general theory of pedagogics.
 He also makes distinction between education

and teaching;
 Education means shaping the development of

character with a view to the improvement of

man.
 Teaching represents the world, conveys first

knowledge, develops existing aptitudes and

imparts useful skills.
 Before Herbart, it was unusual to combine the
concepts of education and teaching.

 For Herbart teaching is the central activity of

education.

 What Herbart and his followers achieved with this

was to focus consideration of instruction and
teaching around schooling rather than other
educational settings.
Pedagogy or didactics
 Pedagogy is about teaching
 But if take broader view, it is more than just

delivering ‘education’ It is also:

 The art of teaching – responsive, creative,

intuitive part
 The craft of teaching – skills and practice
 The science of teaching – research decision

making theoretical approach

 Simplified we can say the concerns of didactic
are:

 What should be taught and learnt (the content)

 How to teach and learn (transmitting and

learning)
 To what purpose or intention something should

be taught and learnt (the goal/ aims aspect)

 Bringing learning to life: 3 aspects
Animation – bringing life into situations. This is
often achieved through offering new
experiences.
Reflection – creating moments to explore lived
experience
Action – working with people so that they are
able to make changes in their lives/
communities’
Animation
 In the book ‘Working with experience: Animating
learning’ the authors link ‘animating’ to ‘learning’.
 The job of animators is seen as acting with learners,

in situations where learning is an aspect of what is

occurring, to assist them to work with experience.
 This description of what teachers do. They also work

with people on situations and relationships.

Reflection
 Conversation is the central practice in learning
and development

 Learning from experience encourage reflection

which leads to creating time and space where
people can come to know themselves, their
situations and what is possible in their lives and
communities.
Action
Learning is not a process that stops at the
classroom.

It is a process of joining in with people’s lives and

working with them to make informed and
committed change.