Difference Between Pedagogy and Andragogy

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Objective: To highlight the key differences between Pedagogy and Andragogy

Reading Duration: 2 minutes

 Etymologically, the two words can be read as: 

Pedagogy: Paidi (child) + ago (guide)
Andragogy: Andras (man) + ago (guide)

Pedagogy (teaching children) is in many ways very much different from Andragogy (teaching adults). To understand the difference, we can use a simple analogy. How different is it to fill an empty container versus to replace the content of a container that is already full of different articles? 

Swami Vivekanand once said, "Education is the manifestation of the divine perfection already existing in man." And Aristotle said, "Education is the process of creating a sound mind in the sound body." If I don't lean towards philosophy, Swami Vivekanand's definition seems to be more about Andragogy whereas Aristotle's definition has more to do with Pedagogy. But of course, this is my personal view. 

 Image courtesy: Google Images
Pedagogy 
Andragogy
Children are innocent and are mostly ignorant of the new information fed to them. They have little to no experience, hence are completely dependent on the instructor.

Because children are innocent, they don’t really think of the benefits of learning. They are more into how much fun they can have in the process. Hence, pedagogy shouldn’t involve the children in calling out the objectives / outcomes / benefits of the training.

 Learning is like creating from scratch for children as they are learning everything for the first time.
Adults have a whole lot of knowledge and experience that they have accumulated throughout years. As a result, adults add new perceptions to training. They help each other in the learning process.

 Adults are self-directed and self-motivated when they know how the training outcome is going to be of beneficial for them.

 Adults have a perception about every learning. Hence, learning is like reconstruction for adults. The theory of Unlearning and Relearning plays a big role in Andragogy.

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