Andragogy Assignment Essay Research Paper ANDRAGOGY ASSIGNMENT

Andragogy Assignment Essay, Research Paper

ANDRAGOGY ASSIGNMENT. Title:”Children at school often fail because they are subject to a prescribedre-gime of education, determined by adults (cf. John Holt). The Adult,however, en-tering Higher Education enters a new experience of learningwherein there is a greater reliance on self.” Discuss.”Lying on your back in the dark. Imagine! Imagine an educational systemthat does not discriminate against class, creed, age or ability. Imagine asystem that operates without political interference or control. Where thetransfer of knowledge is a two way process. A place where people congregateto experience from one another. A system that teaches love and theacquisition of knowledge. Not for power and control, but to admire,appreciate and sustain the beauty of this planet. Imagine!This essay will suggest at the reasons why some children in edu-cation fail. Why Higher Education is suited for the adult learner and the varyingconcepts within education. It is suggested (Marou, 1982) that throughouthistory societies have sought to educate their people. Philosophers haveinvariably recognised the educational value of intel-lectual exploration andconcrete experimentation. The term education has had a variety ofdefinitions. The traditional view of education is that of a formal setting,to be carried out by the educational establish-ments. Perhaps a moreaccurate view of education is that of a life long process that includes bothformal instruction and the broad range of other experiences, including themedia, relationships, peer groups and the family to mention but a few. Theseless formal educational experi-ences usually occupy more time and often exertmuch more powerful influences than the formal approach. There are a variety of approaches to formal education. Educa-tors havedebated over different approaches since education as a con-cept was”developed in Egypt and Sumer as early as the beginning of the 3d millenniumBC” (Marrou 1982). Conservative educators regard the teacher as the one whoknows and the student as someone who does not know but needs to. Progressiveeducators regard the student’s in-terests as the beginning point in theireducation. The subject matter should consist of activities that enable thestudent to draw on their own experiences. The humanistic educator perceivesthe student as an equal. The student is the best judge of his or heremotions, perceptions and experiences. The humanist educator, however,requires the student to check and verify this personal knowledge against theperceptions of others and the legacy of the past. This begs the question,which is the most appropriate educational approach for people in society . To establish the best approach for an educational system it is necessary toconsider the successes and failures of established educa-tional systems. Thedifficulty with judging success and failure is that, a persons perception ofsuccess can be another persons perception of failure. The attempt to measureand compare the achievements and failures of cultural and social diverseindividuals, has caused much dispute in educational circles (Sergeant 1975). However, statistics collated meas-uring the final achievement of pupils fromdifferent social back-grounds, clearly indicates the success of the middleclass culture in education. See table 1. (Jackson 1952. Cited Sergeant1975). Table 1. People in society have been known to refer to instances of the working classboy / girl becoming socially upwardly mobile. i.e. the ‘rags to riches’story. However, such instances do not demonstrate that equality of opportunity in education exists. No more than the fact that one doctormurders his wife indicates that doctor’s wives are highly vulnerable tomurder. An American sociologist Herbert H. Hyman discovered three maindiffer-ences between the working class and the middle-class value system: Members of the working class have a lower emphasis on education. They placea lower value in occupational mobility. Finally, the working class believethat there is less opportunity for personal advancement. One other factor inyoung people failing in education is money. A family on a low income willfind it hard to provide their children with the same educationalopportunities, as a family on a higher income. (Sergeant 1975). Thestatistics available from formal education in Britain clearly indicate thatsocial class origins are strongly and clearly implicated in educationalsuccess or failure (Haralambos 1992). Jones, (1983) indicates that theeducational system exists to sustain the status quo within society. Theruling classes dictate the educational systems and thus oppress the othersocial classes:”……stressed the class character of the state institutions: they werethere to defend and reproduce the existing order……” (Jones 1983). A far reaching work on class and education has been under-taken by Halsey,Heath and Ridge, (1980). Halsey et. al.’s work is a study of over 8,500males born between 1913 and 1947. They consid-ered, amongst other things, aboy from the service class compared to a boy from the working class, ashaving a forty times greater chance of attending a Public School and a threetimes greater chance of attending a Grammar School. Halsey et. al. definesthe ’service class’ as profes-sionals, administrators and managers and’working class’ as manual and agricultural workers. They also found, a boyfrom the service class, compared to his working class peer, was four times a