ODE TO JOHN

1. We admitted we were powerless over andragogy--that our learning process had become unmanageable without it.
2. Came to believe that only a power as great as the teachings of Malcolm Knowles could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will, our lives, and our degree programs over to the care of adult educators as we understood them.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of all evidence that adults learn differently than children.
5. Admitted to Dr. Henschke, to ourselves, and to every other human being who would listen the exact nature of our andragogical practices.
6. Were entirely ready to have all the defects of pedagogy removed from us.
7. Humbly asked the gods (university administrators) to overlook our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all adult learners we had harmed through pedagogy, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to these learners wherever possible, except when to do so would change their GPA's or challenge the values of the institutions of higher learning where they had received their degrees.
10. Continued to take personal inventory of our individual learning contracts and, when we failed to accomplish all of our goals, promptly admitted it in our learning portfolio at the end of the semester.
11. Sought through prayer, meditation, reflective study and small group learning teams to improve our conscious contact with adult learning assumptions as we understood them, seeking only for an understanding of theory to practice and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had an educational awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to pedagogues everywhere, and to practice these principles in all our learning experiences.

    ©2000. Rosanne Vrugtman, St. Louis, MO, xun@gte.net. These principles shamelessly adapted from the "Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous." All rights reserved.