A few weeks ago, I gave an impromptu lecture on andragogy – adult learning theory. One of the assumptions of andragogy is that adults have experience (including making mistakes) which provides a basis or foundation for learning. In other words, you don’t always have to start at the very beginning when you’re teaching adults. If you can make a connection for adult learners, they’re off and running.
Since that impromptu lecture, I’ve been thinking about andragogy as applied to gardening in general and weeding in particular. I get a lot of questions about weeding – more than about watering or planting or plant identification. I mentioned this to a couple of friends one night over a glass of wine, and they were only too happy to brainstorm some analogies (similies, actually) for weeding.
“Weeding is like cleaning your house,” one woman said, “You should do it once a month, top to bottom, making sure to look in every nook and cranny.” “Weeding is like laundry,” said another. “It’s never done.” “Weeding is like shaving your legs,” said a third. (I confess to spewing some wine across the lawn at this one.) “You hate doing it, and it’s sometimes painful, but it looks so good afterward!” Brava.
How about it gardeners? What’s your favorite gardening or weeding analogy?
2 comments:
What comes to my mind is not so much an analogy as it is a slogan: "Once and Done!" Meaning once a week and I'm done. Once a week I go out to my half acre gardens with my bucket in hand and pull any intuders. By doing it once a week I stay ahead of those unwanted guests and can enjoy my gardens for the remainder of the week. "Once and DOne!"
There are as many kinds of weeders as there are learner styles, personality types or "what color is your parachute" kinds of classification systems. That's my analogy. Me, I'm an ADD gardener one day. Totally distracted, losing all my tools and forgetting where I was going to work. At other times, I work diligently when listening to podcasts and or audio books - thereby being controlled by a minimized distraction setting.
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