“Learning and education are synonymous with living,
and people have always organized their learning to survive,
to understand and to create.” James A. Draper
In western history, the education of adults has evolved
separately (although not entirely), from the growth of formal
education for children and youth, with much of the initiative
for the inclusion of adults into formal education coming
from individuals and groups within formal educational agencies,
religious bodies and trade unions.
In the past, adult educators largely focused their energies
in agencies and organizations distinct from formal schools,
developing not only distinct organizations but also a unique
theory of adult education and learning called andragogy.
The concept of andragogy is integral to understanding the
development of adult education as a field of practice. It
is the classical root of adult education, and also provides
a link between Western Europe and North America.
In 1833 the term andragogy was coined by Alexander Kapp,
a German grammar school teacher. The term was intended to
describe the educational philosophy of Plato, the Greek philosopher,
with the Greek root of the term intending to make a distinction
between the teaching of adults, as opposed to pedagogy, the
teaching of children.
Prior to Kapp’s time, in the 1700s and into the early1800s,
a number of factors and forces influenced the way learning
was organized: The industrial revolution and the mobility
of people from rural to urban areas to work in factories
and other non-traditional occupations; the increased technological
sophistication of navigation, war and commerce; the number
of private societies established to educate the masses of
society (mainly teaching the illiterate how to read the scriptures);
and the rise of various educational organizations established
during this time, such as the mechanics’ institutes,
cooperatives, trade unions, correspondence societies and
the development of university extension programs.
All of these activities helped to extend the educational
and literacy opportunities for the working classes of society.
In the early beginnings, the teaching done in the majority
of these adult programs paralleled the way in which children
were generally taught: authoritarian in nature, with learning
derived through lectures and rote memorization.
As the concept evolved, however, and as it was carried into
North America, it grew to represent a less authoritarian,
non-formal education, with greater emphasis on inner, or
self-directed, learning.
In his 1926 publication, The Meaning of Adult Education,
American writer and social worker Eduard Lindeman writes:
“Orthodox education may be a preparation for life
but adult education is an agitating instrumentality for changing
life. Teachers of youth assume that their function is to
condition students for a preconceived kind of conduct; teachers
of adults, on the other hand, need to be alert in learning
how the practical experiences of life can enliven subjects.
The purpose of adult education is to give meaning to the
categories of experiences, not to classifications of knowledge.”
Within the past 50 years, the development of educational
facilities for adults has been astounding. In 2001, statistics
Canada reported that 35% of adults participated in adult
education or training activities. The same study revealed
a 39% participation rate in the US. Over ten years earlier,
UNESCO reported that approximately 20% of the world’s
population was classified as students, among which an increasing
proportion were adults.
Today, the education of adults has spread through many facets
of society, including industry, commerce, health, citizenship,
and the arts and humanities. The gradual extension of formal
education to more and more people throughout the duration
of their lives has been a major preoccupation in what can
effectively be called the “educational” millennium.
Recent History
The link between learning and experience is a recurring theme
in many of the views and theories of adult learning. In the
1950s, educators were concerned with demonstrating that adults
could learn, firstly, that what they learned was of social
and economic significance and that they had a right to access
opportunities for formal education.
The result has been that learning has never before encompassed
so many individuals and groups. We seem to be just in the
process now of realizing what this means in terms of family
life, politics, health and the arts, as well as economics
and organizational innovation.
The “lifelong learning movement,” a European
movement in origin, became popular in the 1990’s. Challenging
the traditional separation between child, youth and adult
education, proponents of lifelong learning promote two major
shifts: moving the focus from education to learning; and
recognizing the increasing role of technological change.
The reality is the majority of us are involved in some form
of lifelong learning. As is often stated, learning is an
activity in itself; learning is doing. The current challenge
facing the development of adult education seems to be gaining
formal recognition for what adults learn outside of an educational
institution.
PLAR (Prior learning assessment and Recognition) is a relatively
new procedure for establishing academic credit for learning
outcomes acquired outside of formal instruction. It is recognition
of the existence of legitimate knowledge acquired outside
of “formal education” and the power of right
for the countless number of people worldwide who have received
education with no resulting academic credit. Certifying knowledge
and learning can perhaps be seen as one of the early struggles
in the development of how we perceive education in our increasingly
global world.
Significant use of PLAR (under various different names)
has been developed in Canada, France, the UK, Australia,
S. Africa and the US. Using PLAR involves challenge examinations,
demonstration of abilities and submission of a portfolio,
or body, of work to formal institutions. Challenging formal
institutions is an important individual and social liberation
as it validates legitimate knowledge acquired in a great
variety of ways.
As history shows, the discourse between learning and education
has been a constant and fundamental exchange over what the
most important knowledge is and who should, or who does,
have access to it. As Alan M. Thomas, a professor of Adult
Education at the University of Toronto, suggests: “The
inclusion of adults in education is now understood not as
a matter of privilege but as a matter of survival – collective
and individual.”
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