Tom--

Thank you for your note.  We still need to change the name.  Any  
suggestions?  From you or anyone else?  It really should be changed.

Andrea

On Oct 17, 2008, at 2:44 PM, tsticht at znet.com wrote:


> Katrina: Here is a longer note I wrote a couple of years ago that  

> addresses

> some of the differences between pedagogy and andragogy.  

> Unfortunately, when

> I put the piece on discussion lists in 2006 most of the comments  

> centered on

> the idea of “andr” as referring to “man” and hence in some folks  

> minds this

> excluded women and was a sexist put down of women. There was not much

> actual discussion of the differences in educating children versus  

> adults.

> If you overlook the sexist language of “andragogy” and focus more  

> on the

> distinctions among children and adults as learners this might be more

> helpful for your work. Tom Sticht

>

> Note: The term andragogy was originally formulated by a German  

> teacher,

> Alexander Kapp, in 1833. He used it to describe elements of Plato's

> education theory. Andragogy (andr- meaning 'man') could be  

> contrasted with

> pedagogy (paid- meaning 'child' and agogos meaning 'leading').  

> Following is

> a long two part note that makes distinctions between the cognitive  

> processes

> of children and adults and the reasons why teaching methods for the  

> former

> may not be generally transferable to adults across the years. The  

> first

> note calls attention to how the present federal and state government

> activities are pushing adult education more and more into the mold of

> childhood education. The second note illustrates with the National

> Assessment of Adult Literacy that it is not valid across the age  

> range from

> 16 to 90 years. The human cognitive system changes dramatically  

> with age and

> this is one reason why approaches to education based on children's

> approaches are not transferable across the life span. As children  

> grow into

> adulthood pedagogy should be transformed into andragogy (andr-  

> considered

> now as meaning "adult" rather than "man" in keeping with the idea that

> language constantly changes and new functions are found for old  

> forms).

>

>

> Part 1. In Adult Literacy Education: Must Andragogy Recapitulate  

> Pedagogy?

>

> In many industrialized nations today there appears to be a movement  

> in adult

> basic skills education to have andragogy, defined as theories and  

> methods

> for teaching adults, recapitulate pedagogy, defined as theories and  

> methods

> for teaching children. This is suggested by many ideas and actions  

> that

> are being initiated in adult literacy education.

>

> For instance, in many cases adult literacy education is thought of  

> as a

> "second chance" at learning what should have been learned in the  

> primary

> grades of school. In this case, then, it seems to be assumed that  

> adults

> should be taught the "3 Rs" in the same way that children are  

> taught them.

> Indeed, in the United States the National Institute for Literacy

> (www.nifl.gov) includes web pages on the "scientific basis" for  

> teaching

> adults to read that are based primarily on research in the K-12 grade

> school system. The focus is on teaching alphabetics  

> (phonemics,phonics,

> decoding, word recognition) and reading comprehension in the same  

> way that

> children are taught.

>

> The U. S. Department of Education has created a National Reporting  

> System

> for adult literacy education that has requirements for programs to  

> show how

> adults learning literacy progress upward through levels of  

> proficiency with

> each level being about equal to two "grade levels" of proficiency, as

> though adults in literacy programs are recapitulating grade school.  

> Such an

> approach is also found in the United Kingdom with adults in basic  

> skills

> education expected to progress up to the same sorts of skills as  

> children

> in the primary grades acquire.

>

> Further, adult literacy programs are often asked to measure  

> progress in

> adult learning in their programs using standardized tests that are  

> based on

> methods used in measuring progress in the grade schools. In some  

> cases,

> adult literacy development is stated in terms of gain in reading grade

> levels, as if adults were going to school for six hours a day for  

> 180 or so

> days a years to make a year's gain in reading or other basic skills.

>

> One consequence of this belief that andragogy should recapitulate  

> pedagogy

> is that a great misunderstanding of adult literacy education  

> occurs. In

> particular, there is a tendency for policymakers and funding  

> agencies to

> think that adult literacy education is the same as children's literacy

> education and that may lead to the idea that, instead of investing  

> much by

> way of resources into adult literacy education, we will be better  

> served by

> "stopping the problem at the source" and focusing instead upon young

> children to prevent adult literacy problems.

>

> However, such an approach fails to recognize that, in thirty years of

> trying, and after spending over a trillion dollars in preventing  

> reading

> failure in the public schools, recent data from the U. S. National  

> Center

> for Education Statistics for the years from 1971 to 2004 show that  

> reading

> scores for 9, 13, and 17 years old have remained about the same,  

> with some

> up and down fluctuations over the years. So up to now, at least in  

> the U.

> S., there has not been much success in "stopping the problem at the

> source."

>

> Also, the belief that andragogy ought to recapitulate pedagogy in  

> literacy

> education fails to recognize that while the teaching of basic  

> skills as

> abstract "skills" may follow the same practices as for adults, the

> "content" in which the basic skills instruction is embedded should  

> not be

> the same as for children. Over one hundred years of adult literacy  

> practice

> has provided professional wisdom indicating that adults should be  

> taught in

> a "functional context," meaning that the content used to teach  

> reading,

> writing, and arithmetic ought to reflect the kinds of daily needs that

> adults face.

>

> This showed itself in the Freedman’s Schools following the Civil  

> War, the

> Moonlight Schools of Kentucky in 1911-30, in World Wars I and II  

> during

> which time soldiers were taught to read using materials that  

> embedded basic

> skills instruction with important military information. This type  

> of taking

> account of adult's functional contexts does occur in many adult  

> literacy

> programs today where

> materials of importance to adults, such as what to do in case of  

> spousal

> abuse, what kinds of health problems adults might be facing with  

> themselves

> or their children, how to deal with consumer fraud, workplace  

> demands for

> basic skills, and on and on are used to teach literacy.

>

> The fact that the "content" of adult literacy programs is so  

> different from

> that of primary grade children reflects attention to andragogy. But  

> when

> the focus is on abstract "skills" devoid of any particular content,

> literacy instruction for adults begins to recapitulate the pedagogy of

> children.

>

> There is a need today for adult literacy educators to stand up for  

> andragogy

> and to insist upon the rights of adult literacy students to have their

> education focused upon their current life circumstances. There is  

> evidence

> to suggest that this will not only make adult literacy learning more

> desirable and palatable for adults, it can also lead to greater  

> rates of

> participation, retention, better learning, and greater transfer  

> from the

> classroom to the world in which the adults live outside the classroom.

>

>

> Part 2. Fluid and Crystallized Literacy Assessment and Development  

> With

> Adults: Challenges to the Validity of the 2003 National Assessment  

> of Adult

> Literacy (NAAL)

>

> The distinction between the "skills' and "content" aspects of  

> education has

> revealed itself in psychometric research on intelligence over the  

> last half

> century. This research has resulted in a trend to draw a  

> distinction between

> the knowledge aspect and the processing skills aspects of  

> intelligence.

> Beginning in the 1940s and continuing up to the 1990s, Raymond  

> Cattell and

> various collaborators,

> and later many independent investigators, made the distinction between

> "fluid intelligence" and "crystallized intelligence." Cattell stated,

> "Fluid intelligence is involved in tests that have very little  

> cultural

> content, whereas crystallized intelligence loads abilities that have

> obviously been

> acquired, such as verbal and numerical ability, mechanical  

> aptitude, social

> skills, and so on. The age curve of these two abilities is quite  

> different.

> They both increase up to the age of about 15 or 16, and slightly  

> thereafter,

> to the early 20s perhaps. But thereafter fluid intelligence steadily

> declines whereas crystallized intelligence stays high" (p. 23).

>

> Cognitive psychologists have re-framed the "fluid" and "crystallized"

> aspects of cognition into a model of a human cognitive system made- 

> up of a

> long term memory which constitutes a knowledge base ("crystallized

> intelligence") for the person, a working memory which engages various

> processes ("fluid intelligence") that are going on at a given time  

> using

> information picked-up from both the long term memory's knowledge  

> base and a

> sensory system that picks-up information from the external world that

> the person is in. Today, over forty years of research has validated  

> the

> usefulness of this simple three-part model for thinking about human

> cognition.

>

> The model is important because it helps to develop a theory of  

> literacy as

> information processing skills (reading as decoding printed to spoken

> language) and comprehension (using the knowledge base to create  

> meaning)

> that can inform the development of new knowledge-based assessment  

> tools and

> new approaches to adult education.

>

> The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), the National Adult  

> Literacy

> Survey (NALS) of 1993 and the new 2003 National Assessment of Adult

> Literacy (NAAL) all used "real world" tasks that are complex  

> information

> processing tasks that engage unknown mixtures of knowledge and  

> processes.

> For this reason it is not clear what they assess or what their

> instructional implications are.

>

> Colleagues and I used the simple model of the human cognitive  

> system given

> above to analyze performance on the NALS. It was concluded that the  

> NALS

> places large demands on working memory processes ("fluid  

> intelligence") and

> that is what may account for some of the large declines in

> performance by older adults. To test this hypothesis, an assessment of

> knowledge ("crystallized intelligence") was developed and used to  

> assess

> adult's cultural knowledge of vocabulary, authors,

> magazines and famous people.. The results showed clearly that  

> younger adults

> did better on the NALS with its heavy emphasis on working memory  

> processes

> ("fluid literacy") and older adults did better than younger adults  

> on the

> knowledge base ("crystallized literacy") assessment .

>

> Given the differences between younger and older adults on "fluid  

> literacy"

> and "crystallized literacy" there is reason to question the  

> validity of

> using "real world" tasks like those on the Prose, Document and  

> Quantitative

> scales of the IALS, NALS, and NAAL to represent the literacy  

> abilities of

> adults. In general, when assessing the literacy of adults, it seems  

> wise to

> keep in mind the differences between working memory or "fluid"  

> aspects of

> literacy, such as fluency in reading with its emphasis upon  

> efficiency of

> processing, and the "crystallized" or knowledge base aspects of  

> reading.

>

> It is also important to keep in mind these differences between  

> fluid and

> crystallized literacy in teaching and learning. While it is  

> possible to

> teach knowledge, such as vocabulary, facts, principles, concepts, and

> rules, it is not possible to directly teach fluid processing.  

> Fluidity of

> information processing, such as fluency in reading, cannot be directly

> taught. Rather, it must be developed through extensive, guided,

> practice. Though I know of no research on this theoretical framework

> regarding the differences between fluid and crystallized literacy and

> instructional practices in adult literacy programs, it can be  

> hypothesized

> that all learners are likely to make much faster improvements in

> crystallized literacy than in fluid literacy, and this should be  

> especially

> true for older learners, especially those over 45 to 50 years of a

>

> Note: For information on Functional Context Education see the  

> following

> reports:

>

> 1. Functional Context Education: Making Learning Relevant (1997  

> edition).

> Eight chapters including The Power of Adult Literacy Education, Some

> Challenges of Diversity for Adult Literacy Education, Views On  

> Contemporary

> Cognitive Science, Introduction to Functional Context Education,  

> Functional

> Context Education and Literacy Instruction, and four case studies in

> applying Functional Context Education to the design of programs that

> integrate (or embed, contextualize) basic skills and vocational or

> parenting education (workplace literacy, family literacy).

> http://www.nald.ca/library/research/context/context.pdf

>

> 2. Functional Context Education: Making Learning Relevant in the 21st

> Century (2005 edition). Functional Context Education (FCE) materials

> available online in several nations, the AdultLiteracy and Life Skills

> (ALL) survey, National Adult Assessment of Literacy (NAAL) survey,  

> FCE in

> historical perspective, (1860-Present) including Paulo Freire and  

> Learner

> Centered, Participatory Literacy Education. Methodologies used in  

> adult

> literacy research for determiningwhat is relevant to youth and adult

> learners; five case studies illustrating the application ofFCE in

> parenting, vocational training, and health literacy.

> http://www.nald.ca/library/research/fce/FCE.pdf

>

> For references to fluid and crystallized intelligence see Beyond 2000

> by Thomas Sticht downloadable online at

> http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/beyond/Beyond.PDF

>

> Thomas G. Sticht

> International Consultant in Adult Education

> 2062 Valley View Blvd.

> El Cajon, CA 92019-2059

> Tel/fax: 96190 444-9133

> Email: tsticht at aznet.net

>

>

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