Introduction
As diving into the philosophical foundations of education for the first time, I was immediately engrossed in Eduard Lindeman’s work, The Meaning of Adult Education (1926), especially struck by his statement, “The whole of life is learning, therefore education can have no endings” (p. 6). I have always had a special affinity with the concept of life-long learning ever since I pursued my profession in education; however, after reading the first chapter of Lindeman’s (1926) work, it became concrete that my philosophy of education has been greatly influenced by ideas found within progressivism.
Affirming my realization, the Philosophy of Adult Education Inventory (PAEI) results revealed that I predominantly hold progressive philosophy of adult education, scoring at 92, and that it was closely followed by the behaviorism philosophy, at 87. In fact, if it weren’t for the opportunity to take the PAEI, I would not have recognized that I identify with behaviorist philosophy in some ways as well. In the following sections, I will discuss which aspects of progressive philosophy align the most with my philosophy of adult education; my philosophy of adult educators and learners’ roles within progressive and behaviorist philosophy; and my engagement in practice based on the two philosophies.
Aims of Adult Education
I cannot ignore my experience as a third culture kid (TCK), a person who spent a significant part of my life in a culture different to that of my parents’ (Pollock and Van Reken, 2009), that has inspired my philosophy of education for adults. Living in a multitude of continents, I realized, as Lindeman (1926) stated, “knowledge and fact are relative to situations” (p. 26). In some countries, being “street smart” is meant as a compliment to one’s trait; whereas, other countries deem it as an insult. It is not right or wrong; nor is it a truth or a lie. I learned that knowledge is contextual. However, with the hegemonic “forcing-method” (Lindeman, 1926, p. 12) of education, which is books and information on the media being the authority of our knowledge, it is my belief that disparity in society is inevitable and would only continue to grow as long as people continue to “receive” the “one-way” dialogue education. The pervasiveness of technology in our daily lives, information being easily accessible at our fingertips, seems to perpetuate such a propensity.
Factual information that is true in the present time and context may not be true in the future. Especially in the current era of immigration, urbanization, and globalization, challenges constantly shift, and people may encounter them in their career or daily lives more so than ever. Taking such an issue into account, and with the inert change of education method in public schools, education for adults should be focused on enhancing individual effectiveness and full potential in society. In fact, the main purpose of education for John Dewey, one of the leading proponents of progressivism in education, was for individuals to achieve freedom by developing skills and “master[ing] the tools of learning that are available” (p. 56) for future growth. I believe that it is imperative for adult learners to be taught the skills and strategies to think, act, and reflect critically and contextually, and aim them to be divergent thinkers and socially aware citizens that find best answers to modern-day real-life problems.
Student-centeredness
As a response to the limitations of traditional and authoritarian models of education, progressivism places the learner at the center. Progressive education respects individuality and focuses on the whole person as of primary importance. Learning content is derived from learners’ interest by starting from attending individuals’ needs, interests, and goals. Influenced by my teaching experience, my philosophy of education for adults strongly identify with this aspect of progressive philosophy.
As an adult English as a Foreign Language (EFL) educator, my teaching topics and goals varied every week. On any given day, I was perhaps teaching how to perfect the standardized “American” accent for those who aspire to be international entrepreneurs, the unspoken rule and manners in email interaction with University professors, or academic English writing skills for doctoral students. Each student had different needs; everyone had different learning disposition, leading to different learning problems; everyone had different purposes in life, in that some were more eager to practice outside of class for quicker improvement. From my experience, when it comes to teaching adult learners, each of them has their own unique history and future goals, and each situation requires a different set of skills. I believe that for a democratic society, it needs to begin with a democratic environment where adult leaners’ learning is about them, specifically by focusing on skills and matters that are necessary for their own meaning of life. In Dewey’s account, “a democratic education will produce a society that is constantly in a state of greater growth and development” (p. 55).
In addition, one of the biggest challenges that my students and myself, as both an adult learner and adult educator, encountered was finding motivation to commit the energy to learn the skill and keep up with it for life-long. Let my experience as a bilingual be an example. I realized that my language skills do not improve or maintain itself without constantly challenging yourself to learn and practice. They needed to be “updated” continuously. However, it was difficult to do so without the help of spontaneous thrust of motivation, be it from my workplace or interactions with my international friends. To have a skill to last a life time, I believe that the aim of adult education has to be to help adult learners genuinely seek and construe meaning in their experiences of learning by centering the learning matters on their needs and interests. As progressives emphasize, “energy for learning” (p. 64) need to be sparked. Since traditional public education has been known to encourage students to “find meaning in identical goals, ends or aims,” (Lindeman, 1926, p. 13) typically for pecuniary gain, it would be crucial for adult education to help adult learners “break the habits of slovenly mentality” (p. 13) and increase their intrinsic motivation to willingly devote themselves to learning.
Experiential learning
The progressives put prominence on how “the interaction of the individual with the environment” (p. 62) provides an educative experience for adult learners. Dewey’s belief was that the combination of interaction and reflection build experiences that positively influences on future experiences. Distinct from rote memorization or didactic learning, in progressive education, knowledge is constructed through “doing,” specifically reflecting on doing. One of the biggest reasons why I advocate progressive philosophy of education is because of its emphasis on experiential learning.
With the constant change of my educational experience in different countries, my way of knowing was by actually experiencing the subject or matters myself. Since my knowledge is highly contextual when delivered through the form of language – as a simple example, if a teacher was teaching me about ‘school buses,’ my schema was not depicting a yellow school bus, but a greyhound, earth tone tour bus –, there were limits to verbal instructions for me. I learned best if I were actually placed in the situation to first-hand observe, experience, reflect my own knowledge, and practice to apply my previous knowledge to a new context.
In addition, I observed the benefit of students learning through their own experiences in my own classes. When I was teaching business English concepts and rules to adult learners, a mock experience, simulation exposed them to somewhat of an authentic situation where they could fully make sense of the materials they had learn. They were able to practice it in a safe environment to apply and perhaps learn from their mistakes, and reflect it to successfully utilize it in future real-life situations. Furthermore, with certain concepts that they deemed unimportant to their life, the opportunities allowed them to experimentally verify them and realize its practicality and usefulness in real-life situations. Thus, from a micro level to a macro level of experiential learning, I believe that adult learners learn best when they experience what they are learning. As stated by Lindeman (1926), “experience is the adult learners’ living textbook” (p. 9-10), and in Knowles account, adult’s experience “provide a rich learning resource” (p. 63).
Social Interaction
One of the key tenets of progressive philosophy, and in experiential learning, is social interaction. As human are social creatures, I believe that learners learn best through interacting in real-time activities with other people. Though highlighted based on children’s interaction, Lev Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development (ZPD), a concept that refers to students’ ability that cannot be done unaided gradually being developed following a skilled teacher or a peer, and eventually functioning without assistance, illuminated students’ capability in social settings. Noting Vygotsky’s conception of ZPD, social interaction could provide opportunities for learners to reflect, as well as discover more experiences for learning. Vygotsky’s (1987) quote, “what the [learner] is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow” (p. 211), resonates with me, in that I am confident of my belief in the effects of progressive education.
Life-long learning
Life-long learning is the fundamental objective of my philosophy of education. Progressivism posits that “education is not restricted to schooling, but includes all those incidental and intentional activities” (p. 61) to transmit culture and societal structure. For an adult to continually grow in the mind, progressives emphasize that education should “include the work of many institutions of society: family, workplace, school, churches, and the entire community” (p. 61). I value student-centeredness for people to be a life-long learner; I encourage experiential learning for learners to develop life-long learning skills. To help citizens be self-sustainable, whether it being for personal or professional development, I believe the purpose of adult education should ultimately be for the pursuit of life-long learning.
The role of adult educators
For adult learners to become intelligent problem solvers and socially aware citizens, as Dewey emphasized, educators should not be the authority, but rather an organizer, a guide for the learners’ learning, and a collaborative partner. The educator should let students “do for themselves” (p. 68) by organizing experiential activities that provides educative experiences, stimulate reflection, and instigate learning; by guiding “interactions between persons and the environment” (p. 63); and by planning learning subjects with students for intrinsic value. For those adult educators advocating progressive philosophy, there are manifold of roles that they need to exercise in order to ensure lasting lessons of meaning and relevance. To successfully carry out such roles, I believe Dewey’s account of the relationship between teachers and learners to be reciprocal is crucial. Adult educators should become a learner and both the learner and the educator should “plan and learn from each other” (p. 68); adult educators should participate in experiential learning for themselves as well.
To build a curriculum that prioritizes learners’ needs and interests, I believe that educators should get to know about their learners in a personal level. Sharing personable experiences with the learners, for instance, could allow them to value the teacher’s role in their learning, but also build intrinsic motivation for self-directed learning. To achieve this, another significant element is for teacher-student relationship to base on trust and guidance, and for the teacher to be a role model. In my experience, since majority of my adult learners had a distinctive learning disposition, which was to “receive” knowledge from the teacher, sharing my own challenges as an English learner with my students reconstructed my learners’ perception of me as an absolute authority or source of knowledge to a role model and a facilitator for their learning. By liberating them from the restrictions, they were able to approach their learning in their own capacity, independently.
However, perhaps due to my profession in evidence-based and competency-based practice, in teaching EFL, my philosophy of education with teachers’ roles is also influenced by behaviorism. In an adult English as a Second Language (ESL) or EFL classroom, I believe that teachers should also be able to predict and direct learning outcomes in order to “design an environment that elicits desired behavior towards meeting [learning] goals” (p. 93). For instance, going back to my experience in creating mock situations for a business English class, majority of my students were experiencing anxiety that hindered their participation in the mock situation. It was important for me, as behaviorists underlined, to control the environment with positive reinforcement to bring about desired behavior for their maximum learning experience. Considering the nature of ESL/EFL programs, which is for students’ performance to be measured objectively and precisely, I believe the teachers should be at least held accountable for providing apt learning and development opportunities.
Such a mock situation, as an example, however, suggests the demand of progressive educator’s quality as well. Since experiential learning has the propensity of producing spontaneous learning situations, I believe that educators should also have “varied experiences and wider horizons” (p. 70) to flexibly move with the lessons that the group needs. Especially in a language teaching classroom, it is vital for the instructor to have this quality before imparting their “mastery” knowledge of rules and concepts of the language. As the organizer and the guide of the learning experience, educators should “aid learners in removing some of the emotional block to learning” (p. 71) and redirect it to where learning is genuinely meaningful. It is crucial for educators to find the appropriate balance of these roles.
The role of adult learners
Despite the educator’s efforts and commitment in organizing a conducive environment for learning-through-doing, its outcome would be promising only if there is students’ full cooperation. That is, students should be active and responsible learners, as opposed to passively “receiving” knowledge and depending on their teachers. They should be capable of actively engaging in problem solving, interacting with others, experimenting new ideas, and take responsibility for finding meaning in their experiences. More important, I believe that learners should have agency to discover their individual inquiries within group learning and work independently for their own success. Analogous to the aforementioned roles of adult educators’, learners’ roles in my philosophy of adult education should also include a blend of progressive philosophy and behaviorist philosophy.
Practice based on progressivism
Originating from Pragmaticism, progressivist philosophy promotes “the scientific method of arriving at knowledge” (p. 65). To engage in practice based on this philosophy, I have been focusing on helping students develop problem-solving skills, ranging from basic real-world skills to higher levels of investigation and analysis, that will enable them to adeptly function in a competitive, ubiquitous society. I believe it is my job as an educator to integrate educative methods that stimulates a milieu of learning and that promotes social responsibility. To ensure learners’ freedom to explore and learn from different activities, I have always employed problem-centered curriculum in my classrooms.
“Intelligence performs its function in relation to actualities, not abstractions” (Lindeman, 1926, p. 9). Despite my specialty in language-related objectives, which is to help learners build the kind of skills to prepare for real-world interactions, I focus on drawing attention on social problems that learners are interested in and on real-life problems that affected their daily lives. For instance, case studies that revolve around problems like sexism in workplace and discrimination of disabled citizens, which were relevant to their current positions, needs, and interests, were activities that I chiefly incorporated. Through the context of English language, they are to learn more about the world, and to comparatively analyze the issues and suggest solutions both in domestic and global perspectives. As progressives emphasized on “how” (process) than “what” (product), the activities were heavily focused on group discussion, cooperative learning (i.e. jigsaw activities), poster presentations, and individual reflective journals. Overall, these activities would aid learners to develop critical thinking skills, and disseminate their knowledge and skills in the community through their jobs or other roles in their community.
Conclusion
My TCK upbringing and experiences in education has taught me that nothing is absolute, and that all knowledge is relative. What works as useful to one becomes the truth. In an era that open ears to all voices and truth, the most vital skill of human being to practice is to think critically and reflect on multicultural and ever-changing challenges in life, and to evolve without the limitation of resources and restriction of environment. “Every effort [have] to be made to make life educative” (Elias & Merriam, 2005, p. 59). The purpose of adult education should be to provide opportunities for learners to discover fruitful leisure (Lindeman, 1926) than having humanly skills as simply “decorative or conversational” (p 8), and to equip with skills necessary to be a healthy, productive citizen for a democratic society. As Lindeman (1926) stated, adult education should provide a setting that constitutes “the modern quest for life’s meaning” (p. 11).