Group 1Adult Education – Challenges

In A Postmodern World

What are the changing roles of a contemporary adult educator?

What opportunities and resources are available for an adult educator?

What are possible threats and dangers that educators’ work can compensate for today?

What are the ways to educate and motivate adults for the permanent changes (ways to overcome anxiety caused by uncertainty, etc)?

How can we really make adult education

accessible for everyone?

What are the changing roles of a contemporary adult educator?

A contemporary adult educator:• Creates conditions for adults to share their

experience and learn; • Creates psychological security for learning;• Is flexible in his teaching practice;• Inspires adults to learn;• Is well-trained for andragogical practice;• Is a learner himself (self-education);If you want to get your students learning to have to

be learner yourself.• Is a navigator (leading his learners to different

sources of information)• Is using new ICTs, knowing foreign languages;

What are the changing roles of a contemporary adult educator?

• Performs 4 major roles:– Teacher – an expert of his subject,– Facilitator,– Trainer/coacher;– Counselor.

• Adult teaching methods are different from those of teaching children and young learners.

• European and national documents require changing role of a teacher for all educational levels.

• Teachers of children and young people should also be trained for teaching with lifelong learning perspective.

What opportunities and resources are available for an adult educator?

• International experiences. • Knowledge about European funding opportunities and

people possessing project writing skills (‘Brussels English’)

• Infrastructure, e.g., video conferencing facilities – for international communication;

• Professional associations for teachers – to foster learning, growth and exchange of experience;

• Strong national umbrella organizations to allocate different resources, negotiate with state institutions, to strengthen national positions in the EU, etc.

• Inspiration can come from culture, poetry - this is very important in the society that is so cruel.

What are possible threats and dangers that educators’ work can compensate for today?• Understanding of psychosocial development of adults

may help in solving inner stress and other problems of adults.

• The dynamics of the process and the result: the result of learning is that a learner learns certain things, while the process itself may be pleasant or painful.

• The state is more interested in the external balance: to keep individuals employed, communicative, to prevent them from criminal actions, etc. While educators may work more for inner balance: for integration and psychological security.

What are possible threats and dangers that educators’ work can compensate for

today?

• Individuals come to learning with their own problems, experience and stories while adult educator has to train, lead and help him to pursue his goals by using his variable roles as a teacher.

• One of the threats is the loss of motivation for adult teachers if the state fails to provide necessary support.

• Not to forget learning to be and learning to live together while working on the learning to know and learning to do.

What are the ways to educate and motivate adults for the permanent changes (ways to overcome anxiety caused by uncertainty, etc)?

• To help them to forget their negative school experience (a la Peter Jarvis)

• Advertising and marketing for LLL is needed. LLL is to be perceived as natural as school education for children. May be adults do not want to learn because they really do not know about learning.

• Government should give more stimulation for the companies to do training.

• It is important to create secure psychological conditions for learning so that an adult would not loose his social status.

• Tax reinbursment or other kind of financial state support for learning.

• Establish links between learning and pay rise.

How can we really make adult education accessible for everyone?

• Removing psychological barriers of age perception (I’m too old to learn..’)

• Providing learning possibilities for small groups, in time and place convenient and familiar to the learners (e.g. grandparents / grandchildren)

• Top-down support and bottom-up initiative. • To raise taxes to provide finances for free LLL.• To work on creating traditions for LLL.• Every educational/learning institution should

offer courses.• To train teachers to work with adults.