What Constitutes an "Adult"?

Now, granted those who know me well may think by the title of this post that I am kidding, but truly I pose this as a real question for education. I deeply appreciate the comments to previous posts around that point in particular, as it is lovely to engage around a great question.

I have to preface my remarks with the disclaimer that I am about to share my opinion - gasp! I will not have references, and can't do much name-dropping (well, I'll try a little on this one), but I do have a strong personal sense of this idea of when is a learner a "child" and when is a learner an "adult".

To begin, I think that perhaps the discussion is better served by substituting the term "adult" with "independent learner". I personally believe that the academics that began struggling with the differences in learning approaches between children and adults got a bit too stuck on the Latin roots when they went with "andra" to counter "peda" as a means of differentiating their ideas. To me the core idea lies not in the age of the learner but in the approach the learner takes to their learning. I also believe that some learners reach levels of independence far before their peers, just as some lag far behind. In short, once again, individual differences in learners is the key.

To follow this idea I would propose that independent learning does not occur all at once, like a switch. I think that learners phase in and out of this orientation around subject matter, or even mood, over time until they hopefully, arrive at independence, at which point the tenets of andragogy are more appropriate guides than those of pedagogy. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment to an earlier post, I believe that for some, this transition occurs in middle school, and sadly, for some it hasn't yet occurred and they are somehow in professional school!

I believe my strongest connection to these ideas is that at some point my job as a "teacher" is to give that job to the "student". I don't follow my learners throughout their professional lives, yet they must continue to learn. How can I expect them to be successful if at somewhere along the journey they were not scaffolded and guided into evaluating and assessing their own learning needs and strategies? Yet, sadly, I see that there is very little obvious work in the direction of taking explicit steps to that end. Yes, in every professional program there is the salute to "critical thinking" and "life-long learning", but I don't always see the HOW that will accomplish those goals. I believe the how lies primarily in the informal curriculum. While that has worked, obviously, as we have compete professionals all around us, I would like to see this important aspect of learning moved to a more obvious place in the formal curriculum.

Ideally, in my view, aspects of the tenets of "adult" learning would be introduced very early, so as to ease the transition from depending on an expert to becoming one's own expert. I'd love to hear what Karen has to say on this, being in the middle school trenches as she is. I believe that she could confirm that some of her students are capable of evaluation and planning at the level andragogy expects. Regardless, I would believe there would be value in bringing these concepts to the learner as early as is feasible.

I'll admit that perhaps that last bit is highly selfish, as I will confirm that there are times when I am sick to death of prying the spoon from the lips of my "adult learners", especially when they scream and cry when I attempt to give them their own control. I can't blame the students though. They have been conditioned to need my approval to confirm that they have learned. They have been taught over and over to ask what is on the test as a means of determining what I think is important. I have to practice patience as I hope to work towards putting more weight on the students' own beliefs of importance, which if I've done my job right, will have direct relevance to their current and future learning needs.

So, not entirely sure if I've answered what is an adult, or where should andragogy appear in education. But I am rather sure I've given a clearer picture on my own thoughts on the topics. What are yours???