Why study Pedagogy? 10 keys that you should value

The Pedagogy is a discipline that is in charge of researching and offering intervention options in one of the pillars on which any society is based: education.

As much as educational systems may be criticized or questioned, teaching models are factors that have a direct impact on the values ​​that we internalize, the thought patterns that we prefer to adopt and the way in which we we relate. That is why opting for a college degree related to Pedagogy is, on many occasions, the favorite option of a large number of young people (and not so young) who plan to build a professional career in this area.

What you need to know before studying pedagogy

As is the case in practically all university degrees and modes of master's and postgraduate trainingBefore deciding to study Pedagogy, a series of factors must be taken into account in order to decide with the maximum possible knowledge.

These are some of the points to consider.

1. What is Pedagogy?

Pedagogy is the science that studies education to be able to direct it through certain designs and strategies towards the achievement of certain goals. It has a strong philosophical component, since it must explore what are the priorities of education and in what way it will benefit society, but it also has a scientific-technical component, since through it it is investigated about which methods and theories can be better understood and intervened in a more effective way on the education.

2. Education goes beyond the classroom

Learning and teaching have long been seen as going well beyond facilities specifically designed for teachers to teach. Education is increasingly understood as a collaborative network In which teachers, the management of the educational centers, the parents and the family in general of the students participate and, in many cases, psychologists and social workers.

3. Pedagogy is an interdisciplinary science

Many social sciences go hand in hand within Pedagogy which, together, provide a basis for studying, understanding and better intervening in education. This means that it has multiple communicating vessels with other disciplines, which allows directing interests towards specific areas of other sciences.

4. Pedagogy and Psychopedagogy have differences

Although they are closely related, these two disciplines are not the same and contain many differences. While Pedagogy studies the phenomenon of teaching and education in general terms and in relation to many other social sciences Like Sociology or Anthropology, Psychopedagogy focuses on the pedagogical area related to the psychological theories that explain the development of mental faculties and that use psychological tools for measurement and intervention to improve attention to students.

5. It doesn't have to be an easy race

In some countries, university careers linked to education give the image of being very easy. However, this depends on political-administrative criteria, on each region and each university, on the one hand, and on the capacities and interests of each person, on the other. A science or discipline is not easy in itself, it depends on the strengths of each student and of the filters that educational entities are willing to put in order to demand a minimum degree of skills and preparation.

6. Pedagogy is not only in charge of teaching

A person with training and experience in Pedagogy can be a teacher and instruct students, but it does not necessarily have to be that way. You can also dedicate yourself to the other side of the coin: learning, and understanding how it occurs. From that follows the following point.

7. Pedagogue and teacher are not synonymous

Pedagogues can work away from classrooms and without acting as teachers to students, working in research teams. They have relative freedom of choice in this regard, as their scope of work is broader than work that is basically done in a classroom.

8. Pedagogues do not teach children and young people

Traditionally, there has been a tendency to believe that education is something that only concerns young people and their teachers, but this is not the case. Education is a phenomenon that occurs in all ages, which is increasingly demonstrated by the need for adults to recycle and educate themselves to continue expanding their skills and areas of training.

In some way, this profession puts in value the fact that behind the basic work with students there is a great amount of research and intellectual work that must also be valued as an integral and important part of the educational process.

That is why what is done in schools, academies and universities does not start from arbitrary criteria or the whims of educators, but of methodological principles that seek to establish useful learning techniques and effective.

9. Pedagogues are not psychologists

Although both sciences are in contact and exchange knowledge, there are clear differences between the two. Pedagogy focuses on education, while Psychology studies behavior and mental processes in general, being a bridge discipline between biology and neurosciences, on the one hand, and social sciences, on the one hand other.

At the moment of truth, learning is still one of the behaviors that can be studied by psychologists, but pedagogues specialize in this and not in others.

10. Pedagogy is not about knowing how to transmit information to the student

Education is currently considered to be a process in which students should be active agents in their own training and development of skills. That idea of ​​classrooms as places where teachers recite and students memorize is considered outdated: today we try to get students to participate in classes at least as much as teachers.