If you can’t convince them; confuse them. – Harry S. Truman
Pedagogy is defined as either the function or work of a teacher or as the art or science of teaching. As such, it probably seems a bit extreme to hate the word. Whilst I’ve always disliked it for its clunky, unlovely sound that neither here not there. I’m not going to rail against its pronunciation but rather its usage. It has become, I contend, a weasel word.
When people talk about pedagogy, what do they really mean? Why do they choose the word over, say, teaching? Teachers teach – do we really need a special word to make us feel more important about what we do? I think there might be two main reasons for its use. The first is an entirely forgivable urge to sound clever. I really understand this and sometimes have to struggle against my desire to sound impressive by using abstruse or specialist phrasing. There’s a time and a place for this type of vocabulary, but it isn’t when you want your audience to understand what you’re on about. I try to take as my maxim words often put in Einstein’s mouth: that any explanation should be “as simple as possible but no simpler”.
The second and more troublesome usage of pedagogy is where it becomes a baffle. It can sometimes seem when listening to, or reading the work of an ‘expert’ that there’s a distinction drawn between ‘pedagogy’ and ‘just teaching’. Pedagogy can be used to conceal the inconsistencies in the unintuitive, the abstract, the complex and the plain confused. Don’t understand what I’m talking about? That’s because it’s pedagogical! It leads people to says things like, “Pedagogy is about guiding the learner to own their learning process.” That sort of statement appears significant, but what does it actually mean? I instinctively distrust those who use the word and suspect it’s there to suggest that they have knowledge and expertise you don’t. Maybe it’s used to obfuscate the fact that they don’t actually know anything worth saying?
One of my favourite pieces of feedback I sometimes get after speaking to teachers is that what I’ve said is ‘common sense’ or ‘obvious now you’ve said it’. That’s not to say that everything worth doing has to be common sense or obvious, it really doesn’t. As I outline here, ignorance and uncertainty can be good for us. But it does suggest that complexity for complexity’s sake is to be avoided.
Now, I accept that all this is blind prejudice on my part. A word is just a word. Maybe there are a whole host of excellent reasons for sometimes using ‘pedagogy’ instead of ‘teaching’, but having had a bit of think about it, I can’t immediately see what those reasons might be.
UPDATE
Between them, Sam Twisleton and David Weston have convinced me that the word might be useful when discussing the distinction between subject knowledge and subject pedagogy or pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Maybe sometimes it is useful to have a word which helps us distinguish between the what and the how of teaching. Mea cupla. This does not excuse the majority of usages however.
Or just theory would do? Ah but then theories can be proven wrong whereas pedagogy is seen as immutable truths….
That’s an interesting point, thanks
Can I add ‘methodology’ to the hate list? Usually people just mean ‘method’ but they want to sound terribly professional and / or intellectual.
You can add it, sure. But I think it’s far more neutral than the leaden unloveliness of pedagogy
I like Robin Alexander’s definition from “Essays on pedagogy”:
“pedagogy is the act of teaching together with its attendant discourse of educational theories, values, evidence and justifications. It is what one needs to know, and the skills one needs to command, in order to make and justify the many different kinds of decision of which teaching is constituted.” (Alexander 2008, p. 47).
In this view, it’s not just teaching…
As for methodology, I agree it is widely misused. As a PhD supervisor, and reviewer for academic journals, I have lost track of the number of times I have pointed out to people that when you are describing what you did, then that section should be called “Method.” But when you are discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of different methods for a particular research project, then I think you do need the word “methodology”.
I agree that the world *can* be used thoughtfully and Alexander’s definition is as good as any other, but it’s the usage not the word I’m really railing against.
And then we have that difficulty of the Swedish language where teacher/teach/ learn are lärare/lära/lära. I think you Dylan said it was the same in Welsh. So we uselhet verb “undervisa” (compare the Dutch), but there is no good noun version for the person doing it. This is where pedagogy/pedagog sneaks in as a way out of the dilemma…
Sara
Ah, in the old days it was an ‘instant bullshit detector’, according to my colleagues.” No teacher EVER uses the word pedagogy, only CPD bullshit artists!” Then I had to do some work with Charles Clarke, who always used pedagogy, AND with hard ‘g’s, so I became inured.
It still CAN be a bullshit word, but as David Weston observed I also think it is generally used to describe the science, keeping the word teaching for the activity. On the whole I think this is a GOOD THING 🙂
And at least Charles Clarke maybe pronounced it oddly, but knew what it meant, unlike Nick Gibb, who does everything oddly and thinks it means instruction.
🙂
When I started reading this blog post David I was with you, and then I read the comments below and now I’ll have to think about it! My issue is that we use so much terminology without actually defining it – half the time people are using words that have such broad definitions that I spend half my time thinking, ‘Hang on… wait a minute… are we discussing the sam thing?’
The word I hate with a vengeance is ‘deliver’. It just seems to belittle what we do.
You’re dead right Thom – this is a debate about semantics and semantics is always important. Your point is precisely what I was trying to articulate – people over and use the word thoughtlessly and inappropriately. As for ‘deliver’, I have no problem with calling what I do delivery, but I understand the squeamishness.
I disagree with Sam and David here. You could just say ‘subject teaching’ and ‘knowledge of how to teach your subject’. I think PCK is not actually a very useful idea – it obfuscates.
Well, I do take that point Michael – I certainly think you can discuss the what and the how without resorting to pedagogy, Because PCK is relatively obscure, it’s rarely used to discuss teaching and so at least has the merit of being less widely abused.
When I moved from secondary to higher education I was dubious about speaking about ‘pedagogy’ rather than ‘teaching’ – but I realised in time that the more august term drew from a wider semantic field, as Dylan Wiliam suggests.
How are you actually meant to pronounce pedagogy anyway? If you pronounce the end like you would ‘doggy’, it sounds a wee bit daft, alternatively, if you pronounce the end like you would the letter ‘G’, it sounds like the end of the word has become caught in a mangle.
I am just moving from science to ‘scientific teaching’ The problem with pedagogy, as an academic discipline, seems to be the lack of any evidence for any of the philosophies espoused.
Its one thing to discuss blended learning, active learning, and teaching philosophies. But without any empirical quantitative evidence for better student learning, it is all just fluff.
I am sure there are people doing good work on the most effective teaching strategies, but most people hide behind their philosophy…Show me your philosophy works….
I have been helping my daughter who is doing a degree in early childhood education. She needs some help with spelling grammar and use of language. Some of her lecture notes, are bizarrely confounding and difficult to read!!! Liberal use of the word pedagogy, replacing simple terms like classroom with “structured learning setting” and lots of other bah blah blah… is surely getting in the way of good learning. Despite the recent trend for professionals to reduce the crap and move to plain language, why is the teaching profession trying to shroud itself in convoluted language. It smacks of professional insecurity.