Thoughts on Andragogy and Pedagogy, Part II

The maturity fallacy

Adults do differ from children, but not in the ways you want to believe. Adults are goal-oriented; but then again, so are children. To a significant level, adults are more intrinsically motivated than children, as a result of having developed a concept of self-identity. However, I would argue that extrinsic motivation is still the highest motivator of adults as well; a need to succeed at a career is extrinsically motivated by factors such as being higher in the social hierarchy, attractiveness towards potential mates, and economic security. Most adults are too distracted, by the struggles of maintaining their status in the economic and social system, to learn simply for the sake of expanding their own knowledge. Their everyday reality is one in which they must provide value in return for compensation; the focus of their learning will be to increase the value they are compensated for.

Theories of learning and instruction for adults must not be based on the idea that adults are rational and fully mature- and thus somehow profoundly different from children. I call this the Maturity Fallacy. This is because most adults are either 1) stalled in their emotional, social, and cognitive maturity; 2) still maturing; or 3) have reached a “normal” level of maturity. Furthermore, the idea of multiple intelligences must also be acknowledged; children, as well as adults, have varying levels of the three maturities. Just as a secondary school teacher must adapt to the diverse group of ever-changing children, the teacher of adults is in a very similar environment. A teacher’s job is to help a child mature through education; I believe that this process is the same with adults. It is through active learning experiences that an individual is able to grow and to change, and thus, mature.

The stunting of high school

In my experience in educating adults (after educating high schoolers), I have observed a trend that the social, emotional, and cognitive maturity of many adult professionals is virtually unchanged from high school; they still function in many ways as children, regardless of advanced education and life experience.

As a high school physics teacher I worked obsessively to craft, not lessons, but learning experiences for my students. The great thing about physics is that it is a science built entirely around understanding and then building knowledge upon fundamental concepts of how physical reality operates. If all I had one day was some rubber balls and meter sticks, I could still create an interactive and engaging lesson about a multitude of concepts such as speed, velocity, momentum, force, and gravity. Luckily, I always had more than those two items! The point is, I crafted lessons where the student was actively engaged in the construction of their learning. This is how I always introduced a new concept; I rarely started with lectures and notes.

Children are more engaged and more interested in learning this way; learning through doing. Adults are the same! However, there is one thing that the high schoolers hated: During these lessons, I never answered student questions directly; I only asked probing questions and guided the children to find the answers themselves. When I began teaching adults, I also designed “learning through doing” lessons. During these lessons, my guided questioning approach is also the same. Do you know what else is the same? The adults hate it! In fact, in my work with adults I have heard greater and more pitiful protestations-a variation of “just give us the answers!,”- than I had when working with children.

Self-directed learning is difficult, even for professionals. This is why consultants exist; they want answers, not the struggle of learning! But research shows that true transformational learning occurs through the struggle of active learning; a process of trying, failing, and adjusting until the desired results are reached.

In my experience as a high school teacher, I recognized three critical contributors to this phenomenon of adults as high school-level learners: high school as pre-college, education through the neoliberal lens, and Newtonian understanding of systems.

I'll dive deeper into these three critical contributors in the final post.