How do you define pedagogy? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as ‘the profession, science, or theory of teaching’. Other definitions of pedagogy extend this to cover the practice and process that underpin the activity of teaching. For example, Popkewitz develops a broad based definition of pedagogy:
Pedagogy is a practice of the social administration of the social individual. Since at least the 19th century pedagogical discourses about teaching, children, and learning in schools connected the scope and aspirations of public powers with the personal and subjective capabilities of individuals. This administration of the child embodies certain norms about their capabilities from which the child can become self-governing and self-reliant. (Popkewitz 1998, p.536)
Bernstein picks up on this notion of pedagogy as process, defining it as:
A sustained process whereby somebody(s) acquires new forms of develops existing forms of conduct, knowledge, practice and criteria, from somebody(s) or something deemed to be an appropriate provider and evaluator. Appropriate either from the point of view of the acquirer or by some other body(s) or both. (Bernstein 1999, p.259)
The key principle that can be drawn from these definitions is that pedagogy is both a ‘practice’ and a ‘process’ through which certain things can be acquired or through which certain capabilities can be developed. In both definitions, references are made to something ‘outside’ the obvious context of an educational exchange (i.e. a teacher and pupil). In Popkewitz definition, this is seen in the phrase ‘scope and aspirations of public powers; in Bernstein’s by ‘an appropriate provider or evaluator’.
This leads us to a second question. Where would one find ’pedagogy’? Is it something that one would find within a curriculum framework or associated guidelines? Or is it something that teachers, or pupils, possess? This is not a simple question to answer. But, by way of a partial answer and as a way of leading to our third key principle, consider the following quotation from another great educational thinker, Jerome Bruner:
In theorizing about the practice of education in the classroom (or any other setting, for that matter), you had better take into account the folk theories that those engaged in teaching and learning already have. For any innovations that you may wish to introduce will have to compete with, replace, or otherwise modify the folk theories that already guide both teachers and pupils. … So your introduction of an innovation in teaching will necessarily involve changing the folk psychological and folk pedagogical theories of teachers – and, to surprising extent, of pupils as well. (Bruner 1996, p.46)
Bruner’s argument about the importance of ‘folk pedagogies’ implies that pedagogy relates to a set of beliefs or values about teaching that individuals (including pupils) have and which can be challenged, change and develop over time. They can also collide together and conflict with each other within a teaching context if there is a lack of sensitivity on the part of the teacher or pupil.
The third key principle is that skillful teachers embody a skillful pedagogy. It places the onus of responsibility clearly within the teacher’s role. They are responsibility for its development and application. As part of this, to be sure, a consideration of the ‘folk pedagogies’ or alternative learning styles or contexts that pupils exhibit will need to be considered, maybe approved or perhaps rejected. But this is part of the overall skillful pedagogical approach that an effective teacher will bring to their classroom. This skillful pedagogy will need to have been developed at some point. In what follows, the ideas and practices of developing a pedagogical approach to cross-curricular teaching and learning may well, in Bruner’s terms, ‘compete with, replace, or otherwise modify’ your current pedagogical thinking and practice. But it is more than that. As Bruner points out, the pedagogies that we adopt as teachers will impact on our pupils as well.