Pedagogy is associated with the transmission of knowledge.
The word pedagogy has its origin in the ancient Greek paidagogós . This term was composed of paidos ( «child» ) and gogía ( «to lead» or «to carry» ). Therefore, the concept referred to the slave who took children to school .
Nowadays, pedagogy is the set of knowledge that is oriented towards education , understood as a phenomenon that intrinsically belongs to the human species and that develops socially.
Pedagogy, therefore, is an applied science with psychosocial characteristics that has education as its main area of study.
Importance of pedagogy
In this regard, the aforementioned discipline is so important that for some years now, in all public educational centres that form part of the Spanish Education Network, there has been a pedagogue who is not only in charge of supporting the work of the teachers but also helps the students who need it in certain areas.
More specifically, this figure has clearly defined functions in any school or institute, such as the following: guidance and school organization service, programming of specific methodologies, advising teachers, developing specific therapies, study techniques, student diagnosis, etc.
It is important to highlight that pedagogy is nourished by the contributions of various sciences and disciplines, such as anthropology, psychology, philosophy, medicine and sociology.
However, it should be noted that there are authors who maintain that pedagogy is not a science, but rather an art or a type of knowledge.
Famous pedagogues
There have been many educators throughout history who have put forward their theories about education, however, among them there are figures such as Paulo Freire. He was an educator of Brazilian origin who has become a reference within this aforementioned science.
Techniques that facilitate learning are part of pedagogy.
Specifically, he established a series of twenty fundamental maxims in the field of Pedagogy from his point of view. We are referring, for example, to the fact that teaching always requires knowing how to listen, that we all always learn, or that studying is not a process through which ideas are consumed but that studying is precisely the creation of those ideas.
However, alongside this figure, we should highlight the many other colleagues who, like him, have presented their theories and visions about this science based on education. This would be the case of Robert Gagné, Jürgen Habermas or Iván Petrovich Pavlov.
Types of pedagogy
Pedagogy can be categorized according to various criteria. It is common to speak of general pedagogy (linked to the broader field of education) or specific pedagogies (developed in different knowledge structures according to events perceived throughout history).
It is important to distinguish between pedagogy as the science that studies education and didactics as the discipline or group of techniques that promote learning . Thus, it can be said that didactics is merely a discipline that forms part of a broader dimension such as pedagogy.
Pedagogy has also been linked to andragogy , which is the discipline of education that is dedicated to permanently training human beings, in all stages of development according to their social and cultural experiences.