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Many current ideas about workplace learning build on foundations laid by Malcolm Knowles. His theory of andragogy describes the art and science of helping adults learn.
Malcolm S. Knowles died last Nov. 27 at the age of Sq. When the news filtered through training and adult education circles, an outpouring of tributes laced with fond reminiscences wasn't far behind. Knowles, considered the father of adult education, introduced practitioners to the theory of andragogy, the art and science of helping adults learn.
But to anyone who had ever met him or learned from him-which amounted to quite a few people over his 6o-year career-he was known simply as "Malcolm," and he evoked heartfelt responses in death, just as he had in life. Both TRAINING Magazine (www.trainingsupersite.com) and the American Society for Training and Development (www.astd.org) opened pages on their Web sites where people could read and write tributes to the man and his work. His friends and acquaintances remembered his warmth, his humility, his influence on their careers, his ever-present bolo tie and turquoise clasp.
While Knowles might have been abashed at the heaped-up praise, he certainly would have approved of the participative nature of the electronic tributes that encouraged readers to post their own remembrances rather than simply reading someone else's. An enduring quality of his professional life and work (they were inseparable; he excelled at practicing what he preached) was his belief that adults need to be active participants in their own learning.
Many current ideas about workplace learning-the assumption that employees are fully capable of being self-directed learners, the attempt to build "learning organizations," the desirability of nurturing "communities of practice" that allow for informal learning-owe much to foundations laid by Knowles. Anyone who delivers training and performance support through electronic media now assumes that employees want to learn, master necessary tasks, learn from each other, and control their own learning-all principles Knowles articulated and spent a lifetime proselytizing. While electronically delivered instruction still often falls short of those ideals, the instructional philosophy at its core is pure Knowles.
Training veterans not only remember Knowles as the father of adult learning, but also as the author of 19 books, most notably 1973's The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species (now in its 4th...