Stop Teaching Teachers Like Children: A Practical Guide to Andragogy

🧠 The Problem: Why Most Staff Training Fails

Imagine this: It’s 3:00 PM on a Tuesday. You’re in the school library for a mandatory professional development (PD) session. You have a stack of papers to grade and two lessons to plan for tomorrow. The presenter is clicking through a 90-slide PowerPoint on a new “paradigm.” You’re physically present, but mentally, you’re a million miles away.

This scenario is all too common. Much of the training designed for educators fails because it ignores one fundamental truth: adults do not learn like children. We treat highly-educated, experienced professionals like passive vessels, forcing them into a pediatric model of learning. The solution is to shift our approach. The solution is andragogy.

💡 The Solution: What is Andragogy?

Andragogy is the science and practice of adult learning. It’s a term popularized by educator Malcolm Knowles, who outlined a set of principles that distinguish adult learners from children (whose study is “pedagogy”).

Unlike children, who are often blank slates learning foundational subjects, adults are self-directed, experienced, and motivated by immediate, real-world problems.

🛠️ The How-To: Applying Andragogy to Your Next Training

How do we use these principles to design training that educators actually value? We “Show, Give, and Inspire.”

• Honor Their Self-Concept (Show you respect them): Instead of a rigid, top-down agenda, frame the session around a shared goal and offer choices. Ask participants about their biggest challenges and adjust the session to focus on those challenges.
• Leverage Their Experience (Give them a voice): Use participants’ experience as the primary text. Use discussion protocols, think‑pair‑share activities or case studies from their own classrooms. Ask, “How have you tried to solve this before? What happened?”
• Focus on Readiness and Problems (Inspire with immediate value): Make learning immediately relevant. Instead of presenting theory, guide participants to build a tool or strategy they can use tomorrow to solve a current problem.

✅ The Mini-Result: Your Andragogy Checklist

• Problem: Does my session solve a specific, immediate problem my colleagues are facing?
• Experience: Does my plan include activities that draw on the experience of the participants?
• Activity: Are participants active (discussing, creating, solving) for at least 50% of the ses
• Application: Will every person leave with a concrete tool, template, or strategy they can use tomorrow?sion?