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Arthur Chickering

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http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

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Mary Wollstonecraft (born April 27, 1759, London, England-died September 10, 1797, London) English writer and passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. She outlined her beliefs in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), considered a classic of feminism.

The daughter of a farmer, Wollstonecraft taught school and worked as a governess, experiences that inspired her views in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787). In 1788 she began working as a translator for the London publisher Joseph Johnson, who published several of her works, including the novel Mary: A Fiction (1788). Her mature work on woman's place in society is A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which calls for women and men to be educated equally.

In 1792 Wollstonecraft left England to observe the French Revolution in Paris, where she lived with an American, Captain Gilbert Imlay. In the spring of 1794 she gave birth to a daughter, Fanny. The following year, distraught over the breakdown of her relationship with Imlay, she attempted suicide.

Wollstonecraft returned to London to work again for Johnson and joined an influential radical group, which gathered at his home and included William Godwin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Holcroft, William Blake, and, after 1793, William Wordsworth. In 1796 she began a liaison with Godwin, and on March 29, 1797, Mary being pregnant, they were married. The marriage was happy but brief; Mary died 11 days after the birth of her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who became a novelist best known as the author of Frankenstein. Among Wollstonecraft's late notable works are Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796), a travelogue with a sociological and philosophical bent, and Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798), a posthumously published unfinished work that is a novelistic sequel to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is one of the trailblazing works of feminism. Published in 1792, Wollstonecraft's work argued that the educational system of her time deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable. She posited that an educational system that allowed girls the same advantages as boys would result in women who would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but also capable workers in many professions. Other early feminists had made similar pleas for improved education for women, but Wollstonecraft's work was unique in suggesting that the betterment of women's status be effected through such political change as the radical reform of national educational systems. Such change, she concluded, would benefit all society.

The publication of Vindication caused considerable controversy but failed to bring about any immediate reforms. From the 1840s, however, members of the incipient American and European women's movements resurrected some of the book's principles. It was a particular influence on American women's rights pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller.

The life of Wollstonecraft has been the subject of several biographies, beginning with her husband's Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798, reissued 2001, in an edition edited by Pamela Clemit and Gina Luria Walker). Those written in the 19th century tended to emphasize the scandalous aspects of her life and not her work. With the renewed interest in women's rights beginning in the later 20th century, she again became the subject of several books, including The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft (2003), assembled by Janet Todd, and Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (2015), by Charlotte Gordon.

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Mary Wollstonecraft | Biography, Beliefs, Books, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, & Facts

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Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer and passionate advocate of educational and social equality for women. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) is considered a trailblazing work of feminism. Her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, was a noted writer best known for the novel Frankenstein.

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Seymour Papert, a visionary educator and mathematician who well before the advent of the personal computer foresaw children using computers as instruments for learning and enhancing creativity, died on Sunday at his home in Blue Hill, Me. He was 88.

His death was announced by the Logo Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization that he co-founded. His wife, the Russia scholar and author Suzanne Massie, said the cause was complications of a series of kidney and bladder infections.

Dr. Papert (pronounced PAP-ert), who was born in South Africa, was one of the leading educational theorists of the last half-century and a co-director of the renowned Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In some circles he was considered the world's foremost expert on how technology can provide new ways for children to learn.

In the pencil-and-paper world of the 1960s classroom, Dr. Papert envisioned a computing device on every desk and an internetlike environment in which vast amounts of printed material would be available to children. He put his ideas into practice, creating in the late '60s a computer programming language, called Logo, to teach children how to use computers.

It was after visiting Dr. Papert at M.I.T. that the computer science pioneer Alan Kay sketched out a prototype for the laptop computer.

Colleagues and students revered him. "Seymour Papert was the first person to see that the computer could be used to support children's learning and development," Mitchel Resnick, an M.I.T. professor and a former student of Dr. Papert's, said in an interview. "He had a vision that the computer could allow children to actively construct knowledge."

Gary Stager, an educator who worked with him, said Dr. Papert's "singular genius was recognizing the power computers held as objects to think with."

Many of Dr. Papert's theories about children's education were inspired by his former colleague Jean Piaget, the Swiss developmental psychologist whose study of child development has often been compared to Freud's work in its influence on the science of human intelligence. In turn, a generation of educators and technology pioneers were influenced by Dr. Papert's work.

That work was cut short in December 2006, when, at 78, while attending a conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, he was hit by a motorcycle. The collision left him with severe brain and kidney damage. After a long hospital stay, he returned to his home in Maine, where Ms. Massie and his caregivers used techniques drawn from his own learning theories to try to return him to a normal life.

In extolling the power of computers to enhance learning, Dr. Papert was similarly outspoken about what he believed were the failings of traditional education systems.

In an article in Wired magazine in 1993, he dismissed the three R's - reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic - as outmoded.

"But looking forward," he wrote, "we can formulate new arguments beyond the imagination of 19th-century thinkers, who could hardly have conjured images of media that would provide modes of accessing and manipulating knowledge radically different than those offered by the R's."

He added, "In the past, education adapted the mind to a very restricted set of available media; in the future, it will adapt media to serve the needs and tastes of each individual mind."

He developed a theory, called "constructionism" - contrasting it with what he called "instructionism" - to describe the way in which students can build knowledge by working with concrete materials rather than abstract propositions; that is, by creating artifacts they can share.

He explained his idea by way of an anecdote in the introduction to "Constructionism," a 1991 book written with Idit Harel, an Israeli technology entrepreneur.

While working on a math project in a junior high school in Lexington, Mass., more than 20 years before, Dr. Papert said, he would pass an art class every day.

"For a while, I dropped in periodically to watch students working on soap sculptures and mused about ways in which this was not like a math class," he wrote. "In the math class, students are generally given little problems which they solve or don't solve pretty well on the fly.

"In this particular art class they were all carving soap," he continued, "but what each student carved came from wherever fancy is bred, and the project was not done and dropped but continued for many weeks. It allowed time to think, to dream, to gaze, to get a new idea and try it and drop it or persist, time to talk, to see other people's work and their reaction to yours - not unlike mathematics as it is for the mathematician, but quite unlike math as it is in junior high school."

Seymour Aubrey Papert was born on Feb. 29, 1928 , in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was an entomologist who explored the bush trails along the east coast of southern Africa studying the tsetse fly, with his young family in tow. They were often the only white people to be found in the area.

As he grew older he became repelled by apartheid, and after meeting Nelson Mandela before Mandela was imprisoned, he began a lifetime of social activism. He also displayed a talent for mathematics, which he pursued in college, earning doctorates from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Cambridge in England.

Perhaps his most critical formative period was at the University of Geneva, where, after his doctoral work, Dr. Papert spent four years exploring both mathematics and children's learning as a researcher for Dr. Piaget. In 1960, he met the M.I.T. computer science genius Marvin Minsky at a London symposium and became obsessed with technology's impact on education.

Four years later he joined the M.I.T. faculty and immediately delved into artificial intelligence research with Dr. Minsky, a partnership that would last for decades. Dr. Minsky and John McCarthy had founded the Artificial Intelligence Group in 1959; when it became an official M.I.T. laboratory in 1968, Dr. Minsky and Dr. Papert served as co-directors. As co-authors, their signature book was " Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry," a now-classic work on artificial intelligence published in 1969. (The perceptron is an artificial neural network.)

On his own, Dr. Papert also wrote "Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas" (1980), his seminal work on technology and learning. The book, translated into 22 languages, maintained that technology, rather than threatening traditional education, could enhance and support the type of learning educators believed in.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of M.I.T.'s Media Lab, where Dr. Papert was among the original faculty members, said Dr. Papert's influence on his colleagues was enormous. He referred to Dr. Minsky and Dr. Kay as "giants who stood on Seymour's shoulders."

Dr. Kay himself said of Dr. Papert in an email, "Most of my ideas about computers and education for children started with his ideas."

Dr. Papert was an adviser to Oscar Arias Sánchez, the president of Costa Rica who was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for brokering an end to civil wars in the region. When Mr. Arias became president in the mid-1980s, Dr. Papert helped him modernize the country's educational system.

He retired from the faculty at M.I.T. in 1996 but continued to work there as a lecturer and consultant to doctoral students.

After moving to the coast of Maine, Dr. Papert teamed up with Gov. Angus King to provide computers for every seventh- and eighth-grade student in the state's school system. From 1999 to 2002 he worked with the Maine Youth Center, a detention center for teenagers in South Portland, to create a model for what schools of the future might look like.

He was married four times. He married Ms. Massie, a writer and specialist in Russian affairs and culture, in 1992. She survives him, along with a daughter, Artemis Papert, from his second marriage; a sister, Joan Papert; a brother, Alan; three stepchildren; and seven step-grandchildren.

"He had the curiosity, openness and desire to learn of a child," Ms. Massie said of her husband. "He never lost that."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Seymour Papert, 88, Dies; Saw Tech as a Learning Tool. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Seymour Papert, 88, Dies; Saw Education's Future in Computers

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Seymour Papert, a visionary educator and mathematician who well before the advent of the personal computer foresaw children using computers as instruments for learning and enhancing creativity, died on Sunday at his home in Blue Hill, Me. He was 88. His death was announced by the Logo Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization that he co-founded.

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Teachers College emeritus professor Jack Mezirow, a former international community development consultant whose paradigm-changing theory of adult learning was partly inspired by watching his wife return to graduate school in middle age, died in September at age 91

At a time when adult learning focused primarily on the mastery of basic skills, Mezirow's theory of transformative learning "reached right into changes of the identity," wrote the adult education theorists Peter Sutherland and Jim Crowther. Transformative learning theory focuses on what Mezirow himself described as "a critical dimension of learning in adulthood that enables us to recognize and reassess the structure of assumptions and expectations which frame our thinking, feeling and acting." The theory has helped trigger sweeping changes and ongoing debate on fronts ranging from social activism to graduate and adult education, to human resources development. It also forms the basis for AEGIS (Adult Education Guided Intensive Study), the unique doctoral program in adult learning founded by Mezirow at TC in 1982 and since replicated worldwide.

"Jack's work has inspired a wealth of empirical case studies that have given the field of adult learning an entirely new order of theoretical legitimacy," said Mezirow's former TC colleague Stephen Brookfield, an adult learning scholar who holds the John Ireland Endowed Chair at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul. "At AEQ [ Adult Education Quarterly, where Brookfield is a consulting editor], we could fill every issue with papers critiquing, refining and developing Jack's ideas. Yet his influence extends far beyond adult learning. He was invited to speak all over the world, and his work has been used by people in medicine, corporations, social work, elementary schools and the military."

Born in 1923 in Fargo, North Dakota, John D. Mezirow earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in Social Sciences from the University of Minnesota and a doctorate in adult education from the University of California at Los Angeles. He worked as a consultant in adult literacy and community development in Asia, Africa and Latin America for the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization and the United States Agency for International Development, as well as for the Asia Foundation and World Education. After directing extension programs at the University of California, he joined the faculty of Teachers College in 1968 as Professor of Adult and Continuing Education.

By that point, John Dewey's progressive education theory had formed the bedrock of Mezirow's thinking. (He later said that the task he set himself was to "analyze what that learning experience is that people have when they learn democracy.") He had absorbed Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigms (practices that define scientific thinking during particular periods of time); Paulo Freire's theorizing of conscientization, or critical consciousness of the world; and, in particular, Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action, which holds, among other things, that the different social sciences must co-exist "under one roof" in a dialogue aimed at emancipating human thinking. He had been influenced by Herbert Blumer, an interpretive sociologist who argued that people interpret reality on the basis of previously internalized socio-cultural symbols. And he had also read Transformations, a book by the psychiatrist Roger Gould which argues thatadults develop psychologically through a "dismantling of the illusions of safety developed in childhood."

All these influences crystallized for Mezirow during the early 1970s when his wife, Edee, enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College to complete her undergraduate education. For both Mezirows, the experience was indeed transformative: Edee Mezirow (who passed away in July) went on to serve as Director of Development for both the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham dance companies and The New 42 nd Street (New York City's project to renovate Times Square). Inspired by her experience, her husband undertook a massive study of women returning to community colleges in the United States, seeking to "identify factors that characteristically impede or facilitate" their learning. Mezirow and his team determined that most of the women had undergone "a personal transformation" and delineated a series of phases of change that included a "disorienting dilemma," a "critical assessment of assumptions," "exploration of options for new roles," and "building competence and self-confidence in new roles and relationships."

In 1978, Mezirow introduced his theory to the world in a paper titled "Perspective Transformation," published in AEQ. (The most complete version appears in his 1991 book Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning.) He also presented it at that year's Adult Education Research Conference.

"He got a standing ovation," recalled Mezirow's former doctoral student Lyle Yorks (Ed.D. '95), Associate Professor of Adult and Continuing Education and current Director of the AEGIS program. "And then in five years everyone was critiquing it - but that's the academic dialogue. Jack always said that to make an impact you've got to have disciples who extend your ideas and critics who attack them, so that the disciples then address those criticisms and the theory continues to evolve."

Much of the criticism, in Mezirow's case, has come from those who feel that he turned away from the social activist implications of adult learning in favor of a focus on individual growth and development. In particular, many in the nonprofit and community development spheres took issue with the emergence of adult learning as a tool used by corporations to establish a competitive edge. Mezirow - who himself consulted with some companies, and at one point was retained by the Young Presidents Association, an organization of corporate presidents under the age of 40 - was sometimes spoken of in connection with corporate learning gurus such as Peter Senge, author of The Learning Organization. His work was also taught by Harvard business theorist Chris Argyris.

"There was a feeling in some quarters that adult education was being bought out by capitalism," says Victoria Marsick, Professor of Education and Co-Director of TC's J.M. Huber Institute, who as a graduate student helped Mezirow gather data for his study of college reentry programs. "But Jack was very much a social activist, and he took a stand that adults need to remember and put forward social justice. Certainly he recognized that if you're not literate, skilled and competent, you can't make your way in the world - so you need the scientific method. But he also believed that you must have emancipatory learning that looks at power and positionality."

To that end, Marsick points out, Mezirow helped found the International League for Social Commitment in Adult Education (now defunct). Yet perhaps a more important impact he made on corporate thinking related to how management viewed employees.

"There's been an evolution in the corporate world from 'human relations' to 'human resources,' which is the notion that we're investing in people," Yorks says. "On the one hand, that's great because it's brought about a greater interest in learning - but at the same time, when you use language like 'human capital,' you're treating people as commodities. And I remember, as a student, sitting in class one day and hearing Jack say that people shouldn't be resources for organizations, organizations should be resources for people.' So he was very much someone who put pressure on the human resource development field to focus on people and not just on the organization's performance."

Perhaps most of all, Marsick says, Mezirow felt that "there must be a communicative domain, a space for free and informed debates and dialogue that enable critical thinking." The AEGIS doctoral program that Mezirow created at Teachers College was intended as precisely such a space. Designed to serve people working in the fields of adult education, learning and leadership, AEGIS brings together, ideally in equal proportions, mid-level professionals from private industry (future chief learning and chief talent officers), health care, higher and K-12 education, and community, religious and nongovernmental organizations.

"Jack's vision was to create a highly diverse mix of self-directed learners with the capacity for critically reflective and collaborative dialogic learning," Marsick says.

"The rationale, which Jack was known for, was to bring people together to challenge their underlying assumptions, develop a more inclusive mindset and understand the experiences and perspectives of others," Yorks says.

"He loved that in AEGIS we had a brigadier general sitting next to a church-based community organizer - and that each had to look for similarities in the other's experiences while also remaining mindful of the constraints of their different contexts" Brookfield says.

"Jack was a romantic, in the sense that he truly believed that if you put people with all those differences in a room, they'd negotiate the powerful differentials of their mindsets and backgrounds and engage in a meaningful dialogue," says Jeanne Bitterman, Senior Lecturer in the AEGIS program and Mezirow's former doctoral student. "Our program is still constructed around that outlook, though we've learned over the years that it takes expertise to assist those conversations."

AEGIS was among the very first doctoral program in any field to employ a cohort model, in which a group of students stays together for the duration of their learning experience. There was no grading, an approach designed to reduce competitiveness among students and promote dialogue. The program was also groundbreaking in bringing students together just once a month, for an intensive two-day session, rather than for weekly classes.

"The fact that it was monthly immediately opened it up to people across North America," Brookfield says. "We had people flying from Tampa to Alaska, and even one woman whose husband had been posted to Saudi Arabia. That ensured a remarkable breadth of students, and it also meant that the program was designed around a great deal of individual contact between professors and students during the times between class meetings, via letters and phone calls. Typically in graduate school, you only get that kind of attention from professors at the dissertation stage, but here we were providing it from the get-go."

Also unique, Brookfield says, is that AEGIS faculty were "united by a common idea."

"In other programs, you have a historian over here and learning theorist over there, and they might work well together, but they don't share a unifying philosophical vision," he says. "In AEGIS, though, all the faculty shared the desire for people to become critically reflective about their assumptions and practices as adult educators. So in every course we'd be asking, 'What are you learning about how you make decisions?' It was very exciting."

Not that Mezirow wanted students to parrot back his ideas.

"He welcomed challenges to his theories - he never took them as an affront," Bitterman says.

"He was a joyful subversive - he loved the fun of an intellectual joust," Brookfield says.

Indeed, Mezirow continued to refine and adapt his theory, particularly in response to developments in other fields. During the 1980s he spent two years working with Roger Gould in an unsuccessful but prescient attempt to create an interactive software program that would enable people to self-diagnose emotional issues that were impeding their personal and professional growth. In more recent years, he became interested in brain chemistry. After retirement, he also spent time with academics in Italy, Greece, and other countries that have become interested in transformative learning theory.

"You'd visit his apartment and he'd be reading all these very intimidating looking books," Brookfield said. "He was thinking, 'How does this connect to a comprehensive theory of adult learning. What new things do I need to think about?' The idea of saying 'I developed this theory and now I'm done' was anathema to him."

Mezirow is survived by a son, Andrew, a professional sea captain, maritime studies instructor and federal Fisheries Policy Advisor who lives in Seward, Alaska.

Jack Mezirow's many books include Transformative Learning in Practice (2009, with Edward Taylor); Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspective on a Theory in Progress (2000, with associates); Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood, which received the 1990 Frandson Award for Outstanding Publication in Continuing Education; and Last Gamble on Education, (1975, with Gary Darkenwald and Alan Knox), a study of adult literacy programs in the United States that received the Oakes Award for Outstanding Research in Adult Education.

Later this month, TC will host the 11 th annual International Transformative Learning Conference, an event created by Mezirow in 1998. This year's iteration will feature a special session to honor Mezirow and the inaugural presentation of The Jack Mezirow Living Theory of Transformative Learning Award, inspired by its namesake's efforts to engage the field of adult education in thinking theoretically about adult learning through both research and practice.- Joe Levine
Much of the information in this story was taken from "Jack Mezirow: In Search of a Social Theory of Adult Learning Published Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014," a chapter by Victoria Marsick and Matthias Finger that appears in Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult Education.

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Jack Mezirow, Who Transformed the Field of Adult Learning, Dies at 91

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Teachers College emeritus professor Jack Mezirow, a former international community development consultant whose paradigm-changing theory of adult learning was partly inspired by watching his wife return to graduate school in middle age, died in September at age 91 At a time when adult learning focused primarily on the mastery of basic skills, Mezirow's theory of transformative learning "reached right into changes of the identity," wrote the adult education theorists Peter Sutherland and Jim Crowther.

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In 1991, Jean Lave worked with Etienne Wenger to propose the situated learning model of learning. The theory suggests that learning must involve social interaction, and knowledge should be presented in an authentic context. To create this authenticity, what is being taught needs to be aligned with the student's community of practice.

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Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy. A champion of andragogy, self-direction in learning and informal adult education, Malcolm S. Knowles was a very influential figure in the adult education field. Here we review his life and achievements, and assess his contribution.

contents: introduction · malcolm knowles - life · adult informal education · malcolm s. knowles on andragogy · self-direction · conclusion · further reading and references · links

Malcolm Shepherd Knowles (1913 - 1997) was a, perhaps 'the', central figure in US adult education in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1950s he was the Executive Director of the Adult Education Association of the United States of America. He wrote the first major accounts of informal adult education and the history of adult education in the United States. Furthermore, Malcolm Knowles' attempts to develop a distinctive conceptual basis for adult education and learning via the notion of andragogy became very widely discussed and used. He also wrote popular works on self-direction and on groupwork (with his wife Hulda). His work was a significant factor in reorienting adult educators from 'educating people' to 'helping them learn' (Knowles 1950: 6). In this article we review and assess his intellectual contribution in this area with respect to the development of the notions of informal adult education, andragogy and self-direction.

Malcolm Knowles - a life

Born in 1913 and initially raised in Montana, Malcolm S. Knowles appears to have had a reasonably happy childhood. His father was a veterinarian and from around the age of four Knowles often accompanied him on his visits to farms and ranches.

While driving to and from these locations, we engaged in serious discussions about all sorts of subjects, such as the meaning of life, right and wrong, religion, politics, success, happiness and everything a growing child is curious about. I distinctly remember feeling like a companion rather than an inferior. My father often asked what I thought about before he said what he thought, and gave me the feeling that he respected my mind. (Knowles 1989: 2)

Malcolm Knowles has talked about his mother helping him through her example and care to be a more 'tender, loving, caring person' ( op. cit.). His schooling also appears to have reinforced his 'positive self-concept'. Boy scouting was also a significant place of formation: 'the knowledge and skills I gained in the process of learning over fifty merit badges and performing a leadership role were as important in my development as everything I learned in my high school courses' ( ibid.: 4).

Malcolm Knowles gained a scholarship to Harvard and took courses in philosophy (where he was particularly influenced by the lecturing of Alfred North Whitehead), literature, history, political science, ethics and international law. Again, his extracurricular activities were particularly significant to him. He became President of the Harvard Liberal Club, general secretary of the New England Model League of Nations, and President of the Phillips Brooks House (Harvard's social service agency). Involvement in voluntary service for the latter got him working in a boys club. Knowles also met his wife Hulda at Harvard. Her father was a tool-and-die maker in Detroit's motor industry and an active unionist. 'As we talked', Knowles was later to write, 'it became clear that our values systems were identical' ( ibid.: 29).

Initially intending to make a career in the Foreign Service, Malcolm Knowles enrolled in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy when he graduated in 1934 from Harvard. He passed the Foreign Service exam - but there was a three year wait for entry. Hulda and he had got married in 1935 and he needed a job. Knowles joined the new National Youth Administration in Massachusetts. His job involved him in finding out what skills local employers were looking for, establishing courses to teach those skills, and recruiting young people to take the courses. About three months into the work he met Eduard Lindeman who was involved in the supervision of training within the NYA. Lindeman took Knowles under his wing and effectively became his mentor. Knowles read Lindeman's Meaning of Adult Education: 'I was so excited in reading it that I couldn't put it down. It became my chief source of inspiration and ideas for a quarter of a century' (Knowles 1989: 8).

In 1940 Malcolm Knowles was approached by Boston YMCA to see if he would be interested in becoming director of adult education and organizing an 'Association School' for adults. He was drafted into the Navy in 1943, began to read widely around the field of adult education, and decided to undertake a masters programme at the University of Chicago when he was mustered out. To support himself through the programme he got a job at the Central Chicago YMCA as director of adult education. His adviser at the University of Chicago was Cyril O. Houle whose 'deep commitment to scholarship and his role in modeling a rigorous scholarly approach to learning' were of great importance. Knowles also fell under the influence of Carl Rogers. Early in his master's programme he had enrolled in a seminar in group counselling under Arthur Shedlin (an associate of Rogers). 'It was exhilarating. I began to sense what it means to get "turned on" to learning. I began to think about what it means to be a facilitator of learning rather than a teacher' ( ibid.: 14).

Malcolm Knowles gained his MA in 1949. His thesis became the basis of his first book Informal Adult Education published in 1950 (see below). In 1951 he became executive director of the newly formed Adult Education Association of the USA. He attended a couple of summer sessions of the National Training Laboratories (in 1952 and 1954) and was influenced by the thinking of their founders: Kenneth Benne, Leland Bradford and Ronald Lippett - and of Kurt Lewin. Hulda and their children were also involved in the seminars - and one fruit of this, in part, was Malcolm and Hulda's joint authorship of books on leadership (1955) and group dynamics (1959). Knowles spent nine years at the Adult Education Association, and as Jarvis (1987: 170) has commented, 'he was able to influence the growth and direction of the organization'. He also started studying for a PhD (at the University of Chicago). Significantly, he began charting the development of the adult education movement in the United States - and this appeared in book form in 1962. It was the first major attempt to bring together the various threads of the movement - and while it was not a detailed historical study (Jarvis 1987: 171) it was the main source book for more than twenty years. As Jarvis (1987: 172) has commented:

He saw that the movement was, in a sense, peripheral to the dominant institutions in society and yet important to it. He recognized that the very disparate nature of the movement prevented its being adequately coordinated from a central position. [This] ... free-market needs model of adult education provision ... is a position he ... maintained even after adult education became much more established and scholars were calling for a more centrally coordinated approach... [I]implicit within this position ... is perhaps one of the central planks of his philosophy; that adult education must be free to respond to need, wherever it is discovered.

In 1959 Malcolm S. Knowles joined the staff at Boston University as an associate professor of adult education with tenure and set about launching a new graduate programme. He spent some 14 years there during which time he produced his key texts: The Modern Practice of Adult Education (1970) and The Adult Learner (1973). These books were to cement his position at the centre of adult education discourse in the United States and to popularize the notion of andragogy (see below). In 1974 he joined the faculty of the North Carolina State University where he was able to develop courses around 'the andragogical model' (Knowles 1989: 21). He also updated his key texts and published a new book on Self Directed Learning (1975).

Malcolm S. Knowles 'retired' in 1979 but continued to be deeply involved in various consultancies and in running workshops for various agencies (something he had begun much earlier in his career). He was also associated with North Carolina State University as Professor Emeritus. He had time to write further articles and books. Some nine years into his retirement he commented that he couldn't imagine 'a better, richer life' ( ibid.: 24). He died on Thanksgiving Day, 1997, suffering a stroke at his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Adult informal education

The notion of informal adult education had been around in the YMCA before Malcolm Knowles' book was published in 1950. In Britain Josephine Macalister Brew had published the first full-length treatment of informal education in 1946. However Informal Adult Education was a significant addition to the literature. Knowles was searching for a 'coherent and comprehensive theory of adult learning' - and the closest he could come to an organizing theme was 'informal' (Knowles 1989: 76). Later he was to comment that while this was surely 'an important component of adult learning theory... it was far from its core' ( op. cit.).

In focusing on the notion of informal education, Malcolm Knowles was pointing to the 'friendly and informal climate' in many adult learning situations, the flexibility of the process, the use of experience, and the enthusiasm and commitment of participants (including the teachers!). He didn't define informal adult education - but uses the term to refer to the use of informal programmes and, to some extent, the learning gained from associational or club life. He commented that an organized course is usually a better instrument for 'new learning of an intensive nature, while a club experience provides the best opportunity for practicing and refining the things learned' (Knowles 1950: 125). Clubs are also 'useful instruments for arousing interests' ( op. cit.). He contrasts formal and informal programmes as follows:

Formal programs are those sponsored for the most part by established educational institutions, such as universities, high schools, and trade schools. While many adults participate in the courses without working for credit, they are organized essentially for credit students... Informal classes, on the other hand, are generally fitted into more general programs of such organizations as the YMCA and YWCA, community centers, labor unions, industries and churches. (Knowles 1950: 23)

This distinction is reminiscent of that later employed by Coombs and others to distinguish formal from non-formal education.

Informal programmes, Malcolm S. Knowles suggests, are more likely to use group and forum approaches.

Several important differences are found between the interests in organized classes and the interests in lecture, forum and club programs. In the first place, the former are likely to be stable, long-term interests, while the latter are more transitory. In the second place, lectures, forums and club programs are more flexible than organized classes. In a program series the topics can range from pure entertainment to serious lectures, while an organized class is necessarily limited to a single subject-matter area. Third, the lecture, forum, and club types of programs generally require less commitment of time, money and energy from participants than do organized classes. As a result they are likely to attract people with somewhat less intense interest. (Knowles 1950: 24)

Malcolm Knowles was able to draw on material from various emerging areas of expertise. This included understandings gained from his time with Eduard Lindeman, Cyril O. Houle and others within the adult education field; his knowledge of community organization within and beyond the YMCA (and via the work of Arthur Dunham and others); a growing appreciation of the dynamics of personality and human development (via Carl Rogers and Arthur Sheldin); and an appreciation of groupwork and group dynamics (especially via those associated with the National Training Laboratories). He also had some insights into the relationship of adult education activities to democracy from his contact with Dorothy Hewlitt at the NYA (see Hewitt and Mather 1937).
Exhibit 1: Malcolm S. Knowles on informal adult education
The major problems of our age deal with human relations; the solutions can be found only in education. Skill in human relations is a skill that must be learned; it is learned in the home, in the school, in the church, on the job, and wherever people gather together in small groups.

This fact makes the task of every leader of adult groups real, specific, and clear: Every adult group, of whatever nature, must become a laboratory of democracy, a place where people may have the experience of learning to live co-operatively. Attitudes and opinions are formed primarily in the study groups, work groups, and play groups with which adults affiliate voluntarily. These groups are the foundation stones of our democracy. Their goals largely determine the goals of our society. Adult learning should produce at least these outcomes:

Adults should acquire a mature understanding of themselves. They should understand their needs, motivations, interests, capacities, and goals. They should be able to look at themselves objectively and maturely. They should accept themselves and respect themselves for what they are, while striving earnestly to become better.

Adults should develop an attitude of acceptance, love, and respect toward others. This is the attitude on which all human relations depend. Adults must learn to distinguish between people and ideas, and to challenge ideas without threatening people. Ideally, this attitude will go beyond acceptance, love, and respect, to empathy and the sincere desire to help others.

Adults should develop a dynamic attitude toward life. They should accept the fact of change and should think of themselves as always changing. They should acquire the habit of looking at every experience as an opportunity to learn and should become skillful in learning from it.

Adults should learn to react to the causes, not the symptoms, of behavior. Solutions to problems lie in their causes, not in their symptoms. We have learned to apply this lesson in the physical world, but have yet to learn to apply it in human relations.

Adults should acquire the skills necessary to achieve the potentials of their personalities. Every person has capacities that, if realized, will contribute to the well-being of himself and of society. To achieve these potentials requires skills of many kinds-vocational, social, recreational, civic, artistic, and the like. It should be a goal of education to give each individual those skills necessary for him to make full use of his capacities.

Adults should understand the essential values in the capital of human experience. They should be familiar with the heritage of knowledge, the great ideas, the great traditions, of the world in which they live. They should understand and respect the values that bind men together.

Adults should understand their society and should be skillful in directing social change. In a democracy the people participate in making decisions that affect the entire social order. It is imperative, therefore, that every factory worker, every salesman, every politician, every housewife, know enough about government, economics, international affairs, and other aspects of the social order to be able to take part in them intelligently.

The society of our age, as Robert Maynard Hutchins warns us, cannot wait for the next generation to solve its problems. Time is running out too fast. Our fate rests with the intelligence, skill, and good will of those who are now the citizen-rulers. The instrument by which their abilities as citizen-rulers can be improved is adult education. This is our problem. This is our challenge.

Malcolm S. Knowles (1950) Informal Adult Education, Chicago: Association Press, pages 9-10.

Malcolm Knowles saw that the quality of the experiences people members have in the government of their own groups 'influences the skills and attitudes they will carry into governing their nation' ( ibid.: 124). However, this interest was in many respects secondary to the possibility of making 'clubs, groups, and forums effective instruments of adult education' (1950: 123). For all the talk of 'laboratories of democracy', he didn't fully grasp the significance of association. This may, in part, derive from the limited extent to which he experienced adult education as a social movement. Earlier figures like Lindeman and Tawney were deeply involved in progressive politics and activities. It is difficult not to escape the conclusion that even at this stage Malcolm Knowles was more concerned with establishing the claims of adult education as a separate area of professional activity and with individual learning, than with fundamental social change.

Malcolm S. Knowles on andragogy

Knowles was convinced that adults learned differently to children - and that this provided the basis for a distinctive field of enquiry. His earlier work on informal adult education had highlighted some elements of process and setting. Similarly, his charting of the development of the adult education movement in the United States had helped him to come to some conclusions about the shape and direction of adult education. What he now needed to do was to bring together these elements. The mechanism he used was the notion of andragogy.

While the concept of andragogy had been in spasmodic usage since the 1830s it was Malcolm Knowles who popularized its usage for English language readers. For Knowles, andragogy was premised on at least four crucial assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners that are different from the assumptions about child learners on which traditional pedagogy is premised. A fifth was added later.

1. Self-concept: As a person matures his self concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directed human being

2. Experience: As a person matures he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning.

3. Readiness to learn. As a person matures his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles.

4. Orientation to learning. As a person matures his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centeredness to one of problem centredness.

5. Motivation to learn: As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal (Knowles 1984:12).

Each of these assertions and the claims of difference between andragogy and pedagogy are the subject of considerable debate. Useful critiques of the notion can be found in Davenport (1993) Jarvis (1977a) Tennant (1996) (see below). Here I want to make some general comments about Malcolm Knowles' approach. (The assumptions of the model and its overall usefulness are further explored in the article on andragogy).

First, as Merriam and Caffarella (1991: 249) have pointed out, Knowles' conception of andragogy is an attempt to build a comprehensive theory (or model) of adult learning that is anchored in the characteristics of adult learners. Cross (1981: 248) also uses such perceived characteristics in a more limited attempt to offer a 'framework for thinking about what and how adults learn'. Such approaches may be contrasted with those that focus on:

an adult's life situation;

changes in consciousness (Merriam and Caffarella 1991).

Second, Malcolm Knowles makes extensive use of a model of relationships derived from humanistic clinical psychology - and, in particular, the qualities of good facilitation argued for by Carl Rogers. However, Knowles adds in other elements which owe a great deal to scientific curriculum making and behaviour modification (and are thus somewhat at odds with Rogers). These encourage the learner to identify needs, set objectives, enter learning contracts and so on. In other words, he uses ideas from psychologists working in two quite different and opposing traditions (the humanist and behavioural traditions). This means that there is a rather dodgy deficit model lurking around this model.

Third, it is not clear whether this is a theory or set of assumptions about learning, or a theory, or model of teaching (Hartree 1984). We can see something of this in relation to the way Malcolm Knowles defined andragogy as the art and science of helping adults learn as against pedagogy as the art and science of teaching children. There is an inconsistency here. Hartree (1984) then goes on to ask: has Knowles provided us with a theory or a set of guidelines for practice? The assumptions 'can be read as descriptions of the adult learner... or as prescriptive statements about what the adult learner should be like' (Hartree 1984 quoted in Merriam and Caffarella 1991: 250). This links with a point made by Tennant (1988) - there seems to be a failure to set and interrogate these ideas within a coherent and consistent conceptual framework. As Jarvis (1987b) comments, throughout his writings there is a propensity to list characteristics of a phenomenon without interrogating the literature of the arena (e.g. as in the case of andragogy) or looking through the lens of a coherent conceptual system. Undoubtedly Malcolm Knowles had a number of important insights, but because they are not tempered by thorough analysis, they were a hostage to fortune - they could be taken up in an ahistorical or atheoretical way.

Self-direction

In its broadest meaning, 'self-directed learning' describes, according to Malcolm Knowles (1975: 18) a process:

... in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.

Knowles puts forward three immediate reasons for self-directed learning. First he argues that there is convincing evidence that people who take the initiative in learning (proactive learners) learn more things, and learn better, than do people who sit at the feet of teachers passively waiting to be taught (reactive learners). 'They enter into learning more purposefully and with greater motivation. They also tend to retain and make use of what they learn better and longer than do the reactive learners.' (Knowles 1975: 14)

A second immediate reason is that self-directed learning is more in tune with our natural processes of psychological development. 'An essential aspect of maturing is developing the ability to take increasing responsibility for our own lives - to become increasingly self-directed' (Knowles 1975: 15).

A third immediate reason is that many of the new developments in education put a heavy responsibility on the learners to take a good deal of initiative in their own learning. 'Students entering into these programs without having learned the skills of self-directed inquiry will experience anxiety, frustration , and often failure, and so will their teachers (Knowles 1975: 15).

To this may be added a long-term reason - because of rapid changes in our understanding is no longer realistic to define the purpose of education as transmitting what is known. The main purpose of education must now to be to develop the skills of inquiry (op cit).

Malcolm Knowles' skill was then to put the idea of self direction into packaged forms of activity that could be taken by educators and learners. He popularized these through various books and courses. His five step model involved:

1. diagnosing learning needs.

2. formulating learning needs.

3. identifying human material resources for learning.

4. choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies.

5. evaluating learning outcomes.

As Merriam and Cafferella (1991: 46) comment, this means of conceptualizing the way we learn on our own is very similar to much of the literature on planning and carrying out instruction for adults in formal institutional settings. It is represented as a linear process. From what we know of the process of reflection this is an assumption that needs treating with some care. Indeed, as we will see, there is research that indicates that adults do not necessarily follow a defined set of steps - but are far more in the hands of chance and circumstance. Like Dewey's conception of reflection an event or phenomenon triggers a learning project. This is often associated with a change in life circumstances (such as retirement, child care, death of a close relative and so on). The changed circumstance provides the opportunity for learning, the way this is approached is dictated by the circumstances. Learning then progresses as 'the circumstances created in one episode become the circumstances for the next logical step' ( op. cit.). Self-directed learning thus, in this view, becomes possible, when certain things cluster together to form the stimulus and the opportunity for reflection and exploration.

However, once we begin to take into account the environment in which this occurs then significant concerns arise with Malcolm Knowles' formulation. Spear and Mocker, and Spear (1984, 1988 quoted in Merriam and Caffarella 1991: 46-8) found that 'self-directed learners, rather than pre-planning their learning projects, tend to select a course from limited alternatives which happen to occur in their environment and which tend to structure their learning projects'. This is of fundamental importance. It is in this light that Brookfield's (1994) question is pertinent: 'What are the essential characteristics of a critical, rather than technical, interpretation of self-directed learning?' Two suggest themselves:

self-direction as the continuous exercise by the learner of authentic control over all decisions having to do with learning, and

self-direction as the ability to gain access to, and choose from, a full range of available and appropriate resources.

Both these conditions are, he argues, as much political as they are pedagogical and they place educators who choose to use self-directed approaches in the centre of political issues and dilemma.

There are also further problems with Malcolm Knowles' approach that he shares with other writers. These include issues arising out of the use of 'humanistic psychology'; questions around the notion of selfhood (and the cultural specificity involved); and the research base for explorations. These are reviewed in the article on self-direction).

Conclusion

Malcolm S. Knowles was responsible for a number of important 'firsts'.. He was the first to chart the rise of the adult education movement in the United States; the first to develop a statement of informal adult education practice; and the first to attempt a comprehensive theory of adult education (via the notion of andragogy). Jarvis (1987: 185) comments:

As a teacher, writer and leader in the field, Knowles has been an innovator, responding to the needs of the field as he perceived them and, as such, he has been a key figure in the growth and practice of adult education throughout the Western world this century. Yet above all, it would be perhaps fair to say that both his theory and practice have embodied his own value system and that is contained within his formulations of andragogy.

Much of his writing was descriptive and lacked a sharp critical edge. He was ready to change his position - but the basic trajectory of his thought remained fairly constant throughout his career. His focus was increasingly on the delineation of a field of activity rather than on social change - and there was a significantly individualistic focus in his work. 'I am just not good', he wrote, 'at political action. My strength lies in creating opportunities for helping individuals become more proficient practitioners' (Knowles 1989: 146).

Further reading and references

Knowles, M. S. (1950) Informal Adult Education, New York: Association Press. Guide for educators based on the writer's experience as a programme organizer in the YMCA.

Knowles, M. S. (1962) A History of the Adult Education Movement in the USA, New York: Krieger. A revised edition was published in 1977.

Knowles, M. S. (1970, 1980) The Modern Practice of Adult Education. Andragogy versus pedagogy, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge. 400 pages. Malcolm Knowles altered the subtitle for the second edition to From pedagogy to andragogy. Famous as his statement of andragogy - however, there is relatively little sustained exploration of the notion. In many respects it is a 'principles and practice text'. Part one deals with the emerging role and technology of adult education (the nature of modern practice, the role and mission of the adult educator, the nature of andragogy). Part 2 deals organizing and administering comprehensive programmes (climate and structure in the organization, assessing needs and interests, defining purpose and objectives, program design, operating programs, evaluation). Part three is entitled 'helping adults learn and consists of a chapter concerning designing and managing learning activities. In the second edition there are around 150 pages of appendices containing various exhibits - statements of purpose, evaluation materials, definitions of andragogy.

Knowles, M. S. (1973; 1990) The Adult Learner. A neglected species (4e), Houston: Gulf Publishing. 2e. 292 + viii pages. Surveys learning theory, andragogy and human resource development (HRD). The section on andragogy has some reflection on the debates concerning andragogy. Extensive appendices which includes planning checklists, policy statements and some articles by Knowles - creating lifelong learning communities, from teacher to facilitator etc.

Knowles, M. S. (1975) Self-Directed Learning. A guide for learners and teachers, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge. 135 pages. Programmatic guide that is rather objective oriented. Sections on the learner, the teacher and learning resources.

Knowles, M. S. et al (1984) Andragogy in Action. Applying modern principles of adult education, San Francisco: Jossey Bass. A collection of chapters examining different aspects of Knowles' formulation.

Knowles, M. S. (1989) The Making of an Adult Educator. An autobiographical journey, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 211 + xxii pages. A rather quirky series of reflections on becoming an adult educator; episodes that changed his life; landmarks and heroes in adult education; how his thinking changed; questions he frequently got asked etc.

References

Brew, J. M. (1946) Informal Education. Adventures and reflections, London: Faber.

Brockett, R. G. and Hiemstra, R. (1991) Self-Direction in Adult Learning. Perspectives on theory, research and practice, London: Routledge.

Brookfield, S. B. (1994) 'Self directed learning' in YMCA George Williams College ICE301 Adult and Community Education Unit 2: Approaching adult education, London: YMCA George Williams College.

Candy, P. C. (1991) Self-direction for Lifelong Learning. A comprehensive guide to theory and practice, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Carlson, R. (1989) 'Malcolm Knowles: Apostle of Andragogy', Vitae Scholasticae,8:1 (Spring 1989). http://www.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Knowles.html

Davenport (1993) 'Is there any way out of the andragogy mess?' in M. Thorpe, R. Edwards and A. Hanson (eds.) Culture and Processes of Adult Learning, London; Routledge. (First published 1987).

Hewitt, D. and Mather, K. (1937) Adult Education: A dynamic for democracy, East Norwalk, Con.: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Jarvis, P. (1987a) 'Malcolm Knowles' in P. Jarvis (ed.) Twentieth Century Thinkers in Adult Education, London: Croom Helm.

Kett, J. F. (1994) The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties. From self-improvement to adult education in America, 1750 - 1990, Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press.

Knowles, M. S. and Knowles, H. F. (1955) How to Develop Better Leaders, New York: Association Press.

Knowles, M. S. and Knowles, H. F. (1959) Introduction to Group Dynamics, Chicago: Association Press. Revised edition 1972 published by New York: Cambridge Books.

Layton, E. (ed.) (1940) Roads to Citizenship. Suggestions for various methods of informal education in citizenship, London: Oxford University Press.

Lindeman, E. C. (1926) The Meaning of Adult Education (1989 edn), Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Merriam, S. B. and Caffarella, R. S. (1991) Learning in Adulthood. A comprehensive guide, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tennant, M. (1988, 1996) Psychology and Adult Learning, London: Routledge.

Yeaxlee, B. (1929) Lifelong Education. A sketch of the range and significance of the adult education movement, London: Cassell and Company.

Links

To cite this article: Smith, M. K. (2002) 'Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy', The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/et-knowl.htm.

© Mark K. Smith 2002

Last Updated on April 4, 2013 by infed.org

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Malcolm Knowles, informal adult education, self-direction and andragogy

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contents: introduction · malcolm knowles - life · adult informal education · malcolm s. knowles on andragogy · self-direction · conclusion · further reading and references · links Malcolm Shepherd Knowles (1913 - 1997) was a, perhaps 'the', central figure in US adult education in the second half of the twentieth century.

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Most of what I've written connects in one way or another to questions about what it means to live with historical connections and traditions at a time when we can no longer be totally defined by that history.

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German car company Audi has unveiled the Aicon, an electric self-driving car, and a recent advertising campaign for the model uses Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to highlight the vehicle's various features. For example, the electric motor is highlighted as evidence of the car's naturalist intelligence, which its autonomous driving capabilities are cited as [...]

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German car company Audi has unveiled the Aicon, an electric self-driving car, and a recent advertising campaign for the model uses Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to highlight the vehicle's various features. For example, the electric motor is highlighted as evidence of the car's naturalist intelligence, which its autonomous driving capabilities are cited as [...]

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Paulo Freire, dialogue, praxis and education. Perhaps the most influential thinker about education in the late twentieth century, Paulo Freire has been particularly popular with informal educators with his emphasis on dialogue and his concern for the oppressed.

contents: introduction · contribution · critique · further reading and references · links

Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia). Freire was able to draw upon, and weave together, a number of strands of thinking about educational practice and liberation. Sometimes some rather excessive claims are made for his work e.g. 'the most significant educational thinker of the twentieth century'. He wasn't - John Dewey would probably take that honour - but Freire certainly made a number of important theoretical innovations that have had a considerable impact on the development of educational practice - and on informal education and popular education in particular. In this piece we assess these - and briefly examine some of the critiques that can be made of his work.

Contribution

Five aspects of Paulo Freire's work have a particular significance for our purposes here. First, his emphasis on dialogue has struck a very strong chord with those concerned with popular and informal education. Given that informal education is a dialogical (or conversational) rather than a curricula form this is hardly surprising. However, Paulo Freire was able to take the discussion on several steps with his insistence that dialogue involves respect. It should not involve one person acting on another, but rather people working with each other. Too much education, Paulo Freire argues, involves 'banking' - the educator making 'deposits' in the educatee.

Second, Paulo Freire was concerned with praxis - action that is informed (and linked to certain values). Dialogue wasn't just about deepening understanding - but was part of making a difference in the world. Dialogue in itself is a co-operative activity involving respect. The process is important and can be seen as enhancing community and building social capital and to leading us to act in ways that make for justice and human flourishing. Informal and popular educators have had a long-standing orientation to action - so the emphasis on change in the world was welcome. But there was a sting in the tail. Paulo Freire argued for informed action and as such provided a useful counter-balance to those who want to diminish theory.

Third, Freire's attention to naming the world has been of great significance to those educators who have traditionally worked with those who do not have a voice, and who are oppressed. The idea of building a 'pedagogy of the oppressed' or a 'pedagogy of hope' and how this may be carried forward has formed a significant impetus to work. An important element of this was his concern with conscientization - developing consciousness, but consciousness that is understood to have the power to transform reality' (Taylor 1993: 52).

Fourth, Paulo Freire's insistence on situating educational activity in the lived experience of participants has opened up a series of possibilities for the way informal educators can approach practice. His concern to look for words that have the possibility of generating new ways of naming and acting in the world when working with people around literacies is a good example of this.

Fifth, a number of informal educators have connected with Paulo Freire's use of metaphors drawn from Christian sources. An example of this is the way in which the divide between teachers and learners can be transcended. In part this is to occur as learners develop their consciousness, but mainly it comes through the 'class suicide' or 'Easter experience' of the teacher.

The educator for liberation has to die as the unilateral educator of the educatees, in order to be born again as the educator-educatee of the educatees-educators. An educator is a person who has to live in the deep significance of Easter. Quoted by Paul Taylor (1993: 53)

Critique

Inevitably, there are various points of criticism. First, many are put off by Paulo Freire's language and his appeal to mystical concerns. The former was a concern of Freire himself in later life - and his work after Pedagogy of the Oppressed was usually written within a more conversational or accessible framework.

Second, Paulo Freire tends to argue in an either/or way. We are either with the oppressed or against them. This may be an interesting starting point for teaching, but taken too literally it can make for rather simplistic (political) analysis.

Third, there is an tendency in Freire to overturn everyday situations so that they become pedagogical. Paulo Freire's approach was largely constructed around structured educational situations. While his initial point of reference might be non-formal, the educational encounters he explores remain formal (Torres 1993: 127) In other words, his approach is still curriculum-based and entail transforming settings into a particular type of pedagogical space. This can rather work against the notion of dialogue (in that curriculum implies a predefined set of concerns and activities). Educators need to look for 'teachable moments' - but when we concentrate on this we can easily overlook simple power of being in conversation with others.

Fourth, what is claimed as liberatory practice may, on close inspection, be rather closer to banking than we would wish. In other words, the practice of Freirian education can involve smuggling in all sorts of ideas and values under the guise of problem-posing. Taylor's analysis of Freire's literacy programme shows that:

.. the rhetoric which announced the importance of dialogue, engagement, and equality, and denounced silence, massification and oppression, did not match in practice the subliminal messages and modes of a Banking System of education. Albeit benign, Freire's approach differs only in degree, but not in kind, from the system which he so eloquently criticizes. (Taylor 1993: 148)

Educators have to teach. They have to transform transfers of information into a 'real act of knowing' (op cit: 43).

Fifth, there are problems regarding Freire's model of literacy. While it may be taken as a challenge to the political projects of northern states, his analysis remains rooted in assumptions about cognitive development and the relation of literacy to rationality that are suspect (Street 1983: 14). His work has not 'entirely shrugged off the assumptions of the "autonomous model"' (ibid.: 14).

Last, there are questions concerning the originality of Freire's contribution. As Taylor has put it - to say that as many commentators do that Freire's thinking is 'eclectic', is 'to underestimate the degree to which he borrowed directly from other sources' (Taylor 1993: 34). Taylor (1993: 34-51) brings out a number of these influences and 'absorbtions' - perhaps most interestingly the extent to which the structure of Pedagogy of the Oppressed parallels Kosik's Dialectic of the Concrete (published in Spanish in the mid 1960s). Here we would simply invite you to compare Freire's interests with those of Martin Buber. His concern with conversation, encounter, being and ethical education have strong echoes in Freirian thought.

Further reading and references

Key texts: Paulo Freire's central work remains:

Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Important exploration of dialogue and the possibilities for liberatory practice. Freire provides a rationale for a pedagogy of the oppressed; introduces the highly influential notion of banking education; highlights the contrasts between education forms that treat people as objects rather than subjects; and explores education as cultural action. See, also:

Freire, P. (1995) Pedagogy of Hope. Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum. This book began as a new preface to his classic work, but grew into a book. It's importance lies in Freire's reflection on the text and how it was received, and on the development of policy and practice subsequently. Written in a direct and engaging way.

Biographical material: There are two useful English language starting points:

Freire, P. (1996) Letters to Cristina. Reflections on my life and work, London: Routledge. Retrospective on Freire's work and life. in the form of letters to his niece. He looks back at his childhood experiences, to his youth, and his life as an educator and policymaker.

Gadotti, M. (1994) Reading Paulo Freire. His life and work, New York: SUNY Press. Clear presentation of Freire's thinking set in historical context written by a close collaborator.

For my money the best critical exploration of his work is:

Taylor, P. (1993) The Texts of Paulo Freire, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Other references
Kosik, K. (1988) La dialectique du concret, Paris: Plon.

Street, B. V. (1984) Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Torres, C. A. (1993) 'From the "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" to "A Luta Continua": the political pedagogy of Paulo Freire' in P. McLaren and P. Leonard (eds.) Freire: A critical encounter, London: Routledge.

Links

Lesley Bentley - Paulo Freire. Brief biography plus lots of useful links.

Catedra Paulo Freire (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Sao Paulo) - click for English version.

Blanca Facundo's critique of Freire's ideas, and reactions to Facundo's critique - interesting collection of pieces.

Paulo Freire Institute - a wide range of material available about current work in the Freirian tradition. Click for the English version.

Daniel Schugurensky on Freire - consists of a collection of reviews of his books and links to other pages.

Q&A: The Freirian Approach to Adult Literacy Education, David Spener's review for ERIC.

Acknowledgement: The image of Paulo Freire is by chhhh/flickr.com. It is reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence. [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/chhhh/2973802038/]

How to cite this article: Smith, M. K. (1997, 2002) 'Paulo Freire and informal education', The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. [ https://infed.org/mobi/paulo-freire-dialogue-praxis-and-education/. Retrieved: insert date]

© Mark K. Smith 1997, 2002

Last Updated on April 4, 2013 by infed.org

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Paulo Freire: dialogue, praxis and education

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contents: introduction · contribution · critique · further reading and references · links Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997), the Brazilian educationalist, has left a significant mark on thinking about progressive practice. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed is currently one of the most quoted educational texts (especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia).

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PBS Online: Only A Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers

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John Dewey was the most significant educational thinker of his era and, many would argue, of the 20th century. As a philosopher, social reformer and educator, he changed fundamental approaches to teaching and learning. His ideas about education sprang from a philosophy of pragmatism and were central to the Progressive Movement in schooling.

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http://infed.org/mobi/jerome-bruner-and-the-process-of-education/