Self-direction And Teacher Facilitation

Malcolm Knowles was a world-famous adult educator in the United States in the 20th century and he devoted himself to the adult education all his life. He had been working in the adult education administration for a long time, gained and accumulated rich managerial experience of adult education. While he was working as a teacher in the university, he was fearless to reform the teaching and change the teaching model of pedagogy. After his retirement he still devoted himself to the promotion and construction of adult education, and never stopped his effort until he died.Knowles wrote diligently and composed 17 educational works and more than 200 educational papers. Some of them had already become the adult education classic in US, and even in the world. On the base of summarizing and absorbing his and others'teaching experiences and theory researches, he proposed many significant theories of adult education, and his contribution to andragogy was especially prominent.Knowles believed that the mission of adult education was to cultivate the talented people and the first and most important goal of adult education was to train the free man. He also thought adult education was the core of lifelong education system, which could promote the individual self-realization and social progress. Knowles's learning theory is the most theoretical and most characteristic content of his adult education thoughts. He believed that learning was a kind of internal procedure; the adults were able to learn; the adult learners had their unique characteristics and the most important characteristic of their learning was self-direction. He also believed that the learning ways and methods of adults were diverse; the teaching process had some certain procedure and the, teaching principles were the essential requirements that the teachers must follow in the course of teaching because they were summed up according to the adult learners'characteristics. Knowles argued that the number of adult education workers was so large and their functions were so diverse that they should play different roles and have good accomplishments. He carried on a more thorough discussion to adult education organization and management and made a more thorough analysis of the atmosphere and structure of adult education organization, the adult learner, the education organizations and agencies, the determination of society's interests and demands as well as goals, the design management and the appraisal of the plan on the base of his rich managerial experiences. This is one of his adult education thoughts essences. He believed that the university was the most important while there were so many organizations and agencies to help the adults to learn.Knowles'adult education thoughts are very rich, in which there is a clue throughout. That is:the adult learners have their own characteristics, whose learning is self-directed. So the teachers and other adult education workers'duty is to help the Abstractadults to learn and to promote their learning skills.