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Leadership Learning Methods Part 1
It’s been well-said that the goal of teaching is to make learning possible. In order to educate pastoral leaders well, it’s not enough for them to merely read books, listen to lectures, write papers, and take tests. Mark Twain once said, “College is a place where a professor’s lecture notes go straight to the students’ lecture notes, without passing through the brains of either.”
We’ve seen so far that in order for a leader to develop well and holistically, the leader must be led into a life- changing, lifelong process of ongoing reflection and action as they learn how to apply God’s truth to their personal lives and ministry in the context of doing ministry in a church – normally under the oversight of a mature church leader.
To develop as a mature, effective church leader, you must be part of a life-long leadership development process. This is the model that we are surveying in this course called the Leadership Development Model and these are the five components. In the last session we examined the first two of five components in an effective leadership development process, the leader profile and the concept of leader assessment.
In this session we’ll be examining more deeply the leadership learning methods components in this leadership development model as well as how does particular methods can best result in the desired learning outcomes of the development of personal competencies
Effective learning methods must be based on sound educational principles. In the field of education today, great advances have been made in the principles and practices and methodologies of effective education of adults.
In fact, a new word has been popularized for adult learning during the end of the 20th century by educator and author Malcom Knowles and that word is called andragogy. The word is a combination of the Greek ἀνδρός (andros) “man” and ἄγω (ágō), meaning “to lead”: meaning, “to lead a man” literally. More specifically andragogy, though, is the science of understanding and supporting the lifelong education of adults as opposed to the more traditional, short-term education of children.
The word arose from the practice of pedagogy to address the very specific needs in the education of adults as opposed to the education of children.
The word pedagogy is a derivative of the Greek παιδαγωγία (paidagōgia) which is a combination of παιδός (paidos) “child,” and ἄγω (ágō), “to lead”: hence, “to lead a child.’’ The word was originally used in reference to a slave who escorted Greek children to school.
Andragogy is intentionally less “content/teaching-centered” and more “learner/learning- centered” than pedagogy with a strong focus on engaging adult learners within the context of their learning experience.
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