A word you may have heard a lot about in the context of learning is pedagogy- whether you are part of an education set up or a student or have been a student. You would have also come across this term if you were a parent being advertised to about the best a school or an institution has to offer.
Pedagogy put simply is the art and science of teaching- how one teaches. It traditionally focused on young learners.
Some of you may have also come across the word andgragogy- this traditionally related to adult learners.
These words have now evolved to refer to a theory of teaching rather than focusing on who the learner is.
Both adults and young learners can be taught with pedagogical and andragogical principles where pedagogy is instructor driven ie the teacher determines what the learner will learn, why is that relevant and how they will learn it and andragogy is learner driven where they figure out how they are going to learn it while the teacher or instructor continues to set the direction, learning goals & evaluation.
Learning, like most things in life is a spectrum and at the end of this spectrum lies heutagogy.
This refers to self-determined learning where the learner determines
What they will learn; and
How they will learn it; and
How they would determine they have learnt it ie assessment of learning
A teacher or instructor if present is only a coach offering support when the learner needs it.
This is a revolutionary idea when it comes to learning, because it is rooted in the belief in human agency.
We can determine our own paths. What we learn is who we become.
Heutagogy enables lifelong learning and that is a liberating and transformative experience.
Good news is, Internet has made it immensely possible.
I have been learning on the internet through online education sites, YouTube videos, social media threads for quite some while now and it is amazing the knowledge & skills I have acquired over the last few years- I can bake cakes, play ukulele, build a website and have had much deeper awakening around my location in society - all because I determined my own learning over the Internet.
Coming across heutagogy has fortified what I already knew- if you knew how to learn, you can learn anything.
Form this year onwards, I have become more intentional about my learning and have started making my own curriculum- a flexible, never ending list of things I want to learn. It is fun, challenging and personally rewarding. My motivation to learn is simply that I want to. It has languages, music, art, literature, tech, philosophy, dance, crafts…
I set my own goals, I find my own avenues and I evaluate my own learning.
Check out how Anand Gandhi, the filmmaker who gave us gems such as Ships of Theseus and Tumbbad, designed his own learning journey in this video
In the next newsletter, I am going to share how you can put heutagogy in action and become the architect of your own learning.
Until then, do give these questions a thought,
Want to see my responses of the last newsletter’s reflection questions, click here.
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Keep Learning!
Adios,
Avni
References on Heutagogy