The Foundations of Adult Education

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Pedagogy - Adult Education, grade: A, Atlantic International University, course: The Foundation of Adult Education, language: English, abstract: This piece of work was an opportunity for us to view Adult Education from the historical point. Indeed, we tried to define what adult education is and how it emerged, developed through time and space. About time and space, we moved to the French speaking Africa, particularly to Ivory Coast to present how Adult Education, particularly Andragogy is perceived by the people and by the government. Then we tried to show how Andragogy should be understood and why it is important and urgent to incorporate andragogic principles to teachers' training. At this information technology age, continuing to be submitted to pedagogic principles refers to refuse development, but we preferred the option of progressive changes. That is why we first proposed collaboration between Andragogy and Pedagogy as a transition for all the educative community to know better andragogic principles and be prepared for the change. In order to prepare them for the change, future teachers must be exposed to the new principles that consist in learning how to learn rather than being taught. We hope that this will prepare future teachers' minds for the real change for a fully learner-centered, self-directed and auto-learning! The full use of andragogic principles must be perceived as a democratization of knowledge. To use Mark Esposito's words (2007), continuing with Pedagogy means that we decide to rely on others to tell us "what to learn", "how to learn it" and also "when to learn". How and why can we accept to be so dependent? When are we going to take the responsibility to "kill our masters", the pedagogic teachers and be our own masters, meet our own learning needs, and demand all training providers to do the same?