Abstract
Sexual harassment or violence creates a hostile working environment characterized by low employee morale, low productivity or even worse for an organization, the expensive lawsuits that may ensue. Keeping sexual harassment away is the concerted effort of the employers or management. The Federal government in its Antidiscrimination Laws describes sexual violence and the consequences that would follow for the offenders. In addition to these laws and the state laws, organizations seek to develop policies and programs to prevent incidences of sexual violence at their workplaces. In so doing, they ensure high employee morale and hence productivity as well as keeping the risks of lawsuits low. One of the most effective ways used by organizations to prevent sexual harassment is the training of the employees and management staff. As the training process emulates an education process, it is vital that the trainers identify the most appropriate techniques to use while training. Andragogical and pedagogical methods are both teaching techniques. Although the former is used in the education of adults, some aspects can be borrowed from the pedagogical technique as seen in the following discussion.
Key Words: Andragogical, pedagogical, sexual violence
An ally of both internal and external issues affects the current American organization setting. According to recent research, one of the emerging problems in the industrial workplace environment is the rise of sexual harassment cases. Sexual harassment is a complicated matter that ought to be addressed in the management of human resource. One of the most efficient ways is through the education of the employees to increase their awareness of sexual harassment as well as help them deal with harassment complaints. Pedagogical and Andragogical methods are teaching approaches that the human resource can adapt to educate the employed on the issue. As such, this paper seeks to establish the differences and similarities between the two approaches. Additionally, the research will define the principles used in either of the approaches and select the best concerning teaching the organizational employees on appropriate ways top deal with sexual harassment.
Traditionally, the term pedagogy described the instructional learning methods used to teach. However, the realization that children and adults require different teaching methods brought about the need to distinguish between adult and child education. As such, the term andragogy was used to describe the teaching of adults and pedagogy the teaching methods of children (Werner, J.M & DeSimone, 2012). According to researchers, children and adults require different teaching approaches and techniques, which brought about the pedagogy vs. andragogy debate. The following is a contrast and comparison analysis of the two teaching methods.
The most fundamental difference between pedagogy and andragogy is that the former refers to the teaching practices used in the teaching of children while the latter the methods used in the teaching of adults. In the andragogy teaching technique, the learners are independent of the teacher. The learning environment is cooperative and allows for the exchange of ideas between the teacher and the students (Good & Cooper, 2016). Contrary to this, pedagogy uses a more dependent principle in teaching, where the students (young) are reliant on the teacher for knowledge. For this reason, the learning process is one way and less cooperative.
According to Knowles (1999), the founder of the two learning approaches, adults are better placed to bring experience and new ideas to the learning environment as opposed to children. When it comes to the authority of education, in andragogy, the adult learners have absolute control of what they learn. In most cases, they require a motive, in this case, eradication of sexual harassment (Good & Cooper, 2016). Finally, when it comes to laying importance on the learning process, in an andragogy technique, less emphasis is put while much seriousness and importance is employed in pedagogy.
In as much as the adult learning and youth, learning is different, the fact that the variable involved in making the difference is age means that there are similarities between pedagogy and andragogy. To begin with, both teaching techniques use a simple to complex approach to teaching. The instructors seek to ingrain knowledge in the learners, which they can apply later. Secondly, in both methods, the principle is to teach from the known to the unknown. In this case, the instructors adopt simple methods of identifying and explaining ideas that are more complex (Werner & DeSimone, 2012). For instance, while educating employees on new ways to handle sexual harassment cases, a facilitator would use the already known approaches to go the new methods. Lastly, both methods require the instructor to seek the learners' feedback. The feedback allows for evaluation of the effectiveness of the learning process.
As mentioned in the introduction, sexual harassment in organizational workplaces is a real issue with both legal and financial consequences for the organization. Constant education of both the staff and the management is essential to managing this problem and ensuring it has no adverse effects on the organizational reputation and existence. Researchers continue to develop new ways to help organizations deal with the problem. Some of the conventional approaches to the problem are employee training and monitoring of the workplaces. However, staff training has proven a more effective method of countering the problem. However, a question arises concerning the teaching approaches (andragogy and pedagogy) that should be used to increase the awareness of sexual harassment as well as help the management learn the most appropriate methods of dealing with sexual violence complaints.
Without objection, andragogy is the best-suited approach in teaching the employees various issues relating to sexual harassment such as the consequences of harassing co-workers. Unlike pedagogy, andragogy allows for the exchange of ideas between the learners and the instructor. In this way, the employees would open up and discuss incidences of sexual harassment in the organization (Carmody, 2010). Secondly, the teaching method would allow for employees to seek different information and experiences at will concerning the matter. However, the training program can borrow some aspects of pedagogy. One of this is seeking feedback. Through this, the trainers can evaluate the effectiveness of the learning process while addressing any misconceived ideas. Additionally, as in both approaches, there is a need that the organization motivates the employees to undergo sexual harassment training programs (Werner, & DeSimone, 2012). This can be accomplished in different approaches, for instance, by including fun activities in the learning process.
As a conclusion, sexual harassment is a real problem in most American organizations in the present day. Since the perpetrators falls under the jurisdiction of the human resource, it is the responsibility of the latter to develop effective strategies to train their employees on the matter. Although Andragogical teaching technique applies better to be used in this type of employee training, some aspects can be borrowed from either to enhance the training process. Evaluation of the learning process is one aspect that can be borrowed from pedagogy to enhance the effectiveness of training employees regarding sexual harassment. Constant evaluation and monitoring of the workplace situation after a training program would allow the trainers identify how much success was achieved.
References
Werner, J. M., & DeSimone, R. L. (2012). Human resource development. Mason, OH: South-Western.
Carmody, M. (2010). Sexual Violence Prevention Educator Training. Preventing Sexual Violence. doi:10.1057/9781137356192.0012
Good, L., & Cooper, R. (2016). ‘But It's Your Job To Be Friendly': Employees Coping With and Contesting Sexual Harassment from Customers in the Service Sector. Gender, Work & Organization, n/an/a. doi:10.1111/gwao.12117
