Adult Education
Roy Blumenthal
This topic is for people to engage with each other around the issues
that educators face.
Roy Blumenthal
(from http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~dschugurensky/quotes.html)
Whenever and wherever people shall have occasion to congregate, then
and there shall be the time, place and means of their education.
Alfred Kilpatrick, founder of Frontier College, (1899).
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Schools are, indeed, one important method of the transmission which
forms the dispositions of the immature; but it is only one means, and
compared with other agencies, a relatively superficial means.
John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916)
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[Adult education is] a co-operative venture in non-authoritarian,
informal learning the chief purpose of which is to discover the meaning
of experience; a quest of the mind which digs down to the roots of the
preconceptions which formulate our conduct; a technique of learning for
adults which makes education coterminous with life, and hence elevates
living itself to the level of an experiment.
Eduard Lindeman, What is Adult Education? (1925).
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Small groups of aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh
and vigorous; who begin to learn by confronting pertinent situations;
who dig down into the reservoirs of their secondary facts; who are led
in the discussion by teachers who are also seekers after wisdom and not
oracles: this constitutes the setting for adult education, the modern
quest for life's meaning.
Eduard Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (1926).
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Adult education will become an agency of progress if its short-term
goal of self-improvement can be made compatible with a long-term,
experimental but resolute policy of changing the social order.
Eduard Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (1926).
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In what areas do most people appear to find life's meaning? We have
only one pragmatic guide: meaning must reside in the things for which
people strive, the goals which they set for themselves, their wants,
needs, desires, and wishes. Even here our criterion is applicable only
to those whose lives are already dedicated to aspirations and ambitions
which belong to the higher levels of human achievement. ... Viewed from
the standpoint of adult education, such personalities seem to want
among other things, intelligence, power, self-expression, freedom,
creativity, appreciation, enjoyment, fellowship. Or, stated in terms of
the Greek ideal, they are searchers after the good life. They want to
count for something; they want their experiences to be vivid and
meaningful; they want their talents to be utilized; they want to know
beauty and joy; and they want all of these realizations of their total
personalities to be shared in communities of fellowship. Briefly they
want to improve themselves; this is their realistic and primary aim.
But they want also to change the social order so that vital
personalities will be creating a new environment in which their
aspirations may be properly expressed.
Eduard C. Lindeman, The Meaning of Adult Education (1926).
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Andragogy is the true method of adult learning ... life itself is the
adult's school.
Martha Anderson and Eduard Lindeman, Education Through Experience
(1927).
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While ... the case for lifelong education rests ultimately upon the
nature and needs of human personality in such a way that no individual
can rightly be regarded as outside its scope, the social reasons (i.e.
democracy and responsibility) for fostering it are as powerful as the
personal.
Basil A. Yeaxlee, Lifelong Education (1929).
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The technique was discovered by facing the actual situation and
planning a way by which the people of eastern Canada could be mobilized
to think, to study, and to get enlightenment. We found the discussion
circle. This did not involve any teachers. It was in line with our
whole co-operative idea. We would make people come together by
themselves and discuss their problems.
Moses Coady, The Antigonish Way (1943).
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Every social action group should at the same time be an adult education
group, and I go even as far as to believe that all successful adult
education groups sooner or later become social action groups.
Eduard Lindeman, The Sociology of Adult Education (1945).
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Learning which is combined with action provides a peculiar and solid
enrichment. If, for example, you are interested in art, you will gain
much more if you paint as well as look at pictures and read about the
history of art. If you happen to be interested in politics, don't be
satisfied with being a spectator: participate in political action. If
you enjoy nature, refuse to be content with the vicarious experiences
of naturalists; become a naturalist yourself. In all of these ways
learning becomes an integral part of living until finally the old
distinction between life and education disappears. In short, life
itself becomes a perpetual experience of learning.
Eduard C. Lindeman, The Democratic Man (1956).
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[I deeply believe] that all human beings can be aided to become
increasingly self-reliant and autonomous, that the most important
single principle is that the learner be fully engaged, and that the
main goal of adult-learning is to develop men and women who are, at the
same time, compassionately sensitive and tough-minded.
Roby Kidd, How Adults Learn (1959).
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Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon
their world in order to transform it.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970, 1995).
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Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate
the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and
bring about conformity to it, or it becomes 'the practice of freedom',
the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with
reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their
world.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970, 1995).
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Is this not the time to call for something quite different in education
systems? Learning to live, learning to learn, so as to be able to
absorb new knowledge all through life; learning to think freely and
critically; learning to love the world and make it more human; learning
to develop in and through creative work.
Edgar Faure et al., Learning to be: The world of education today and
tomorrow (1972).
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[People] can find [their] vocation and happiness only by constantly
expanding the boundaries of what [they have] already achieved. New
horizons of cognition and new spheres of activity are made the source
as well as the consequences of lifelong education.
Bogdan Suchodolski, Philosophical Aspects (1976).
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A democratic philosophy is characterized by a concern for the
development of persons, a deep conviction as to the worth of every
individual, and faith that people will make the right decisions for
themselves if given the necessary information and support. It gives
precedence to the growth of people over the accomplishment of things
when these two values are in conflict. It emphasizes the release of
human potential over the control of human behavior. In a truly
democratic organization there is a spirit of mutual trust, an openness
of communications, a general attitude of helpfulness and cooperation,
and a willingness to accept responsibility, in contrast to paternalism,
regimentation, restriction of information, suspicion, and enforced
dependency on authority.
When applied to the organization of adult education, a democratic
philosophy means that the learning activities will be based on the real
needs and interests of the participants; that the policies will be
determined by a group that is representative of all participants; and
that there will be a maximum of participation by all members of the
organization in sharing responsibility for making and carrying out
decisions.
Malcolm S. Knowles, The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From
Pedagogy to Andragogy (Revised and Updated) (1980).
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We are beginning, I am afraid, to see encyclopedia articles dating the
birth of Cultural Studies from this or that book in the late fifties.
Don't believe a word of it. That shift of perspective about the
teaching of arts and literature and their relation to history and to
contemporary society began in Adult Education, it didn't happen
anywhere else. It was when it was taken across by people with that
experience to the Universities that it was suddenly recognized as a
subject. It is in these and other similar ways that the contribution of
the process itself to social change itself, and specifically to
learning, has happened.
Raymond Williams, Adult Education and Social Change: Lectures and
Reminiscences in Honour of Tony McLean (1983).
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Now, thirteen years on from Education for a change and ten years after
Learning Liberation I return to the frontline much like a dinosaur. To
find the literature of journals and the rationale of conferences
preoccupied with the management of the education marketplace. In which
the talk is about strategic plans and targeting techniques, about
franchising and credit transfers, about twilight shifts and accelerated
degrees -delivered with the kind of tenacity devoid of passion that
characterizes automatons released from business training schemes. The
discussion is all about institutional adjustment and market forces, in
which students have become another niche market in the post Fordist
vision of flexible specialization. In which big and powerful
institutions sub-contract less prestigious work to small and struggling
institutions. And in which grey men in suits, with executive briefcases
and brightly coloured ties, skilled in business speak, manage the
decisions that deliver batches of new consumers in search of
educational commodities into lecture halls and classrooms, staffed at
the chalk face by contract labour whose terms and conditions of
employments have been so reregulated as to ensure maximum exploitation
at minimum cost... Does anyone, apart from other dinosaurs, discuss
'really useful knowledge', critical intelligence and conscionsness
raising? Or reflect upon, with any degree of precision, what it's all
about politically? ... May be others feel the same? I'd be glad to hear
from those who do. And to find some ways together of putting the
politics of resistance and transformation back onto the agenda of adult
and continuing education.
Jane Thompson, Learning, liberation and maturity: an open letter to
whoever's left (1993).
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It is useful for the adult educator to be able to work with all forms
of oppression simultaneously, facilitating the exploration of
differences.
Shirley Walters, Gender and Adult Education (1996).
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We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat
now.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Never underestimate that a small group of thoughtful, committed people
can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Roy Blumenthal
http://www.learnativity.com/learningstyles.html
This is an important article outlining how different people receive
information and learning. Take a look at it to pep up your
understanding of how to interact with different people.
Roy Blumenthal
http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-929/working.htm
This is the Eric Digest No. 77, which has a host of helpful hints on
what adult learners require. A must-read.