Dr. Timony, Author at Welcome

Pedagogy. Andragogy. Adolgogy?

I have been banging the drum for some time and will continue to do so to the end of Reclaiming the Nomenclature. The first iteration of this phrase gets a rare nod and mostly puzzled looks. Well, sure, people do not use the term nomenclature much these days but I have always been fond of it since seeing Little Murders with Elliott Gould. Enjoy. It is right around 2’23”.

In my mind are a short list of terms that are overused and abused and through this type of use have lost their meaning entirely.

Genius.

Absolutely.

Pedagogy.

I could go on. Alright, I admit, it is a long list and I have a good memory so it continues to grow at a exponential rate. In this post, I will focus on the term pedagogy. <shudder>

Pedagogy is a term that we must all understand is both antiquated and misused for the most part. We understand the connotation when it comes up, but still cringe a bit when it is used. The etymology of the word tells us that it simply means ‘child leading.’ Discussion about it usually goes like this:

‘that isn’t what I mean.’

“then why did you say it?”

Pedagogy refers, in large part, to the approach, process, and learning of teaching. By defining it, we denote the terminology and make it sound fine, do we not? In that sense, we can use pedagogy in our in-services, professional training, college courses, etc. Correct? Of course not!

We know that pedagogy is stuffy and that we are no longer in a field dominated by lecturers in the K-12 classrooms. We know that direct instruction is acceptable for some lower grades in some instances but that we should, as soon as developmentally possible, get our students involved and participating rather than “being led” but the pedagogue.

We know, thanks to Malcolm Knowles,of the term andragogy that still tricks our spellchecker even though it is a common word that has been in published materials throughout the world.

Andragogy refers, in large part, to the approach, process, and learning methods used when working with adults. It recognizes that adult learners have specific needs that must guide the development of instruction. We like to use terms such as facilitate when we do not know what else to say in regard to andragogy.

It is much more than facilitation and Men are

from Mars-style deceptive communication practices. Take some time to read up on it–by the way, by definition, andragogy doesn’t work with college students but that is another post for another day.

Returning to my battlecry,

Reclaim the Nomenclature!

What, then shall we name the set of acceptable, beneficial, necessary, and sufficient learning approaches used to educate the adolescent? Let us not fall into the poor practice of saying that other terms are good enough. Let us think differently about education. Let us be responsible. The answer to this question is not just about creating terminology, but it is about creating definitions that are both functional and accurate.

So what’s in gonna be?

Adolgogy? You heard it here first. Maybe last.

Dynamic reflection

What keeps you going? It is a common question volleyed towards teachers and is often answered with jokes and trite responses. I do not buy any of them, though I am guilty of using some of those old war horses from time to time.

Three things: June, July, and August

I do it for the kids.

blah, blah, blah

We are educators. We are trained. We are practiced. Many of us are polished and take great pride in our work. Many of us also enjoy the same self-deprecating humor. Dare I say that there are commonalities of temperament among career-educators?

In reality, it is the desire to improve and the desire to see our improvement exhibited through the achievement of others. It begins with us; it begins with you. It sounds like a joke, but it is not.

Education reform begins with you, not me. We are not capable of changing ourselves in the meaningful ways that education requires. But we can change each other and if we are successful, we can expect the same in return.

Dynamic reflection is a necessity. It is our lifeblood. It is the metacognitive practice that operates in the mind of the educator. Calibrating. Recalibrating. Examining faces, responses, reactions, non-reactions, and queries for fault and options for improvement and revision. Like an indestructible toy that keeps righting itself no matter what the obstacle, the teacher presses on through the class searching for that open window, a crack in the door; some way into that brain!

Some of these calibrating factors are common and not worthy of conversation. On a regular basis, however, the need arises for an adjustment.The educator must step outside of self and reflect with a harsh mirror. Not a

dance studio mirror, mind you, where the reflections are all long, lean,

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

and strong characters. This is not The Chorus Line rogues’ gallery filled with beauty and insecurity–muscles and legs til Tuesday. This is the mirror of the observer. The visitor. The person in the back of the room.

If the need for this kind of intervention is not common to you, or if this concept seems like one for the extreme cases or the weak…then you need to pay close attention.

Dynamic reflection requires two key components.

The first component for dynamic reflection is what is commonly referred to as cognitive load. Cognitive load is the amount of different processes that your brain can manage successfully. Consider computers that once operated in a serial manner–one process at a time. Later computers possessed parallel processors, and now are capable of running several processes simultaneously without any dip in processing speed or accuracy.

In the brain, this method of multiple processes is happening all the time. Your mind is taking in information constantly and is discriminating what is and is not important to you. Important information is processed and addressed. If it is prioritized, it may cause other lower priority processes to cease.

How many of you turn down the radio when looking for a house number or when parallel parking? Be honest. That is your executive process making decisions and prioritizing your processing power.

How does this factor into dynamic reflection? We are only able to maintain so many processes while we are teaching. The catch is here: it is likely that we need to be most critical at times when we are least capable to maintain the cognitive load. Let me say that another way–when things are going well and we are cruising through content that we could teach in our sleep, we can devote more of our cognitive capacity to reflection on the fly. This reflection will likely produce the least interesting information for reflection and change. When we are in new content that requires more of our attention, and students are asking questions or resisting the instruction in some way, we are far too occupied to consider our teaching practice with the sober and careful honesty that it deserves and requires. We may even be so happy to escape certain death, that we fail to reflect adequately at all–or simply categorize it as a total failure so anything better than that is all win. We need more than we can do alone.

That is why collegial trust is so important. Collegial trust is not about trouble or blowing smoke. Collegial trust is most importantly about getting someone who is willing to accurately and honestly report on your teaching practice. To you. I encourage you to find a brutal critic. Build up some thick skin. Stay quiet, take notes, and change. Get used to it. Learn to love it. This person will become your best friend and may even be the person who saves your professional life. It may be important, to you, to find someone who is capable of keeping the observation confidential. Whatever.

Tell me the truth.

If you want to know the answer to longevity in education, the answer is dynamic reflection. Some may argue that this is true of many industries. I do not work in many industries, so I cannot comment on that. What I am able to say is that dynamic reflection both alone and with others is something that will change you and sustain you.

Think about it. Now think differently.

The Talent scout: A protected species

Danger is not a word that you often hear when talking about talent, is it? How about cavalier? Thoughtless? You may not consider it an insult for someone to quip that it all comes to you so naturally, right? It sounds like such a lovely statement.

You were born with a gift, you are talented. I believe it in my heart; I feel it.

Microinequities is what they are. Words and phrases that sounds like compliments but in actuality, they are insults. By telling you that you are talented, a talent scout has not only gained a position of prominence by noticing, but they have discounted your hard work by claiming that this gift that they recognize already exists. All eyes are on…them.

Now, nobody would actually claim the title Talent Scout. The more you say it, the more absurd it seems–and for good reason. But it is common for students, parents, teachers, administrators, and others to claim to be able to identify it. They just know…something inside of them…they could see it.

Divining — It's here somewhere just give me a second

And who are we to question them? If we challenge them, we are the bad guy, right? We are the ones claiming that a student has no talent! We are destroying hopes and dreams and ambitions!
Or are we? What’s in it for these diviners of talent? If the student believes them, they begin a course of…lessons, practice, and study. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If they are wrong? Nothing. There is no recourse, there is no sanction placed on the Talent Scout. They are, in fact, a protected species. They may even talk about the one who got away…the one who broke our hearts when they chose to follow other interests rather than their true calling. A moment of silence, please. Ahem.

I do not have intentions of defining talent per the dictionary. When we discuss it, we are not talking about aptitude, let’s be honest.

So, why is my Irish all up about this topic? It is our influence on students that we must keep in check. We should withhold judgments that place limits on students, we should withhold statements that narrow the scope of our students prematurely. We should encourage students to choose their interests and their paths and to work hard to achieve; help them to understand that it pays off. Students should be recognized for their time spent in study, practice, and determined exercise. When their persistence is discounted as a natural skill they may not even know that they were just insulted.

If, upon reading this, you are sure that this is an issue of nomenclature I have one question: Why use terms that have the potential to harm? If you mean aptitude, interest, skill, ability, etc. why not use those terms? Wouldn’t you rather be congratulated for your hard work? Discard the antiquated, inaccurate, limiting, and damaging terms.

Personal myths-personal cages

My grandmother is a saint. My father works harder than anyone. My mother pulled herself up by her bootstraps against all odds. My uncle is a brilliant mind who retired at 50, or was it 45? My friend Matt is a fount of knowledge who never forgets anything. My wife is the most organized person I know. I only applied to one school and got in. I had a great GPA, great SATs, never had to take GREs, and wow everyone in interviews. In a few minutes, this paragraph will morph into a plug for The Most Interesting Man in the World.

Recognize that our view of ourselves, even if lofty, is a potential cage for what we could be and how others may see us.

Our personal myths seem innocuous and may even be some of our charm. Some of our friends have a walking joke about our tales. But are they harmless? Hardly. Personal myths develop into beliefs and expectations.

It is believed by some that the personal myth is an extension of the centric view of the world described by Piaget. Children go through a phase where they think that their life is the subject of a film; they are being watched and evaluated. They make faces at walls, ceilings, and other places where people or cameras may be hiding. This comes along with the development of conscience and/or guilt and passes with developmental progress.

Personal myths can overwhelm and cause issues as severe as depression. As we mature, we realize that these truths that we have known do not match the life that we understand. Myths can also be career-threatening as our experiences are inserted into the classroom. In working with pre-service teachers, I regularly stress that we cannot teach our students through the window of our experiences. Our histories have been manipulated in our memory and are unreliable. We have turned our lives into a mythology and we have to frame our remembrances as such. We provide our students with our foggy anecdotes thinking that it provides a level of connection-it may, in fact, cause them to consider that they cannot meet your expectations.

Calibration is key in our lives and our teaching.

A good friend is a successful lawyer who has recently left the city. I remember him most for one thing: When I would tell him something about myself, he would ask, “Do people tell you that, or do you tell people that?” Such an excellent question. Does my view of self come from my own perceptions and experiences or the perceptions and experience of others?

When you tell people something about yourself, do they say, “Oh, really?!” Are they surprised to hear you say that you are a hard worker, an over-achiever, and impeccably neat and orderly? Make a list, mental or otherwise, of descriptors–words that define you. Have a friend do the same with you in mind. Do they match? How do your students view you? Has the view of others been limited by the persona you profess?

Let’s think differently.