"Pedagogy": What's in a word?

[Click here for pronunciation of “pedagogy”]

In preparation for launching Inviting Abundance, we asked friends to test our website and offer feedback on the language we used to present our services. Two of these friends commented that they had to look up the word “pedagogy,” and, because of that feedback, we decided to swap out that word for “education” or “teaching” wherever it appeared on the site.

This got me (Will) thinking. The word “pedagogy,” which refers today to both the study of teaching and methods for teaching well, is not one that students regularly learn. Does this mean that teachers hide something crucial from their students, namely the very methods they use to impart information? Is there anything special about this word, or is it beneficial to swap it out for something more common? What’s in a word, after all? My answer is that “pedagogy” is an important word, and that knowing what it means opens the door to more exciting and student-driven learning.

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