Pedagogy is a discipline that is in charge of researching and offering intervention options in one of the pillars on which any society is based: education .

As much as education systems may be criticized or questioned, teaching models are factors that have a direct impact on the values we internalize, the thought patterns we prefer to adopt, and the way we relate. That is why opting for a university degree related to Pedagogy is, on many occasions, the favourite option of a large number of young people (and not so young) who plan to carve out a professional career in this field.

What you need to know before studying pedagogy

As is the case with practically all university degrees and master’s and postgraduate training modes, before deciding to study education, a number of factors must be taken into account in order to make the best possible decision.

These are some of the points to consider.

1. What is Pedagogy?

Pedagogy is the science that studies education in order to direct it through certain designs and strategies towards the achievement of certain goals. It has a strong philosophical component, since it should explore what the priorities of education are and how it should benefit society, but it also has a scientific-technical component, since through it one investigates about which methods and theories can be better understood and intervene in a more effective way on education.

2. Education goes beyond the classroom

It has long been considered that learning and teaching go far beyond facilities specifically designed for teachers to teach. Education is increasingly understood as a collaborative network involving teachers, school management, parents and the family in general of students and, in many cases, psychologists and social workers.

3. Pedagogy is an interdisciplinary science

Within Pedagogy many social sciences shake hands, which together provide a basis for studying, understanding and intervening better in education. This means that it has multiple communicating vessels with other disciplines, which allows for directing interests towards specific areas of other sciences.

4. Pedagogy and Psychopedagogy have differences

Although closely related, these two disciplines are not the same and contain many differences . While Pedagogy studies the phenomenon of teaching and education in general terms and in relation to many other social sciences such as Sociology or Anthropology, Psychopedagogy focuses on the pedagogical area related to psychological theories that explain the development of mental faculties and that use psychological tools for measurement and intervention to improve student attention.

5. It doesn’t have to be an easy race

In some countries, university courses linked to education are seen as being very easy. However, this depends on political-administrative criteria, on each region and each university, on the one hand, and on the capacities and interests of each person, on the other. A science or discipline is not easy in itself, it depends on the strengths of each student and on the filters that educational entities are willing to put in place to demand a minimum degree of competence and preparation.

6. Pedagogy is not just about teaching

A person with training and experience in pedagogy can be a teacher and instruct students, but this does not necessarily have to be the case . He or she can also devote himself or herself to the other side of the coin: learning, and understand how it happens. From this, the following point is derived.

7. Pedagogue and teacher are not synonymous

Pedagogues can work far from the classroom and without teaching students , working in research teams. They have a relative freedom of choice in this aspect, since their scope of work is broader than the work that is basically done in a classroom.

8. Pedagogues do not teach children and young people

Traditionally, there has been a tendency to believe that education is something that only concerns young people and their teachers, but this is not the case. Education is a phenomenon that occurs at all ages , which is increasingly demonstrated by the need for adults to retrain and educate themselves in order to continue expanding their skills and areas of training.

In a way, this profession values the fact that behind the basic work with students there is a great deal of research and intellectual work that must also be valued as an integral and important part of the educational process .

That is why what is done in schools, academies and universities is not based on arbitrary criteria or the whims of educators, but on methodological principles that seek to establish useful and effective learning techniques.

9. Pedagogues are not psychologists

Although both sciences are in contact and exchange knowledge, there are clear differences between them . Pedagogy focuses on education, whereas psychology studies behaviour and mental processes in general, being a bridge discipline between biology and neurosciences, on the one hand, and social sciences, on the other.

At the moment of truth, learning is one of the behaviours that can be studied by psychologists, but pedagogues specialise in this and not in others.

10. Pedagogy is not about knowing how to transmit information to the student

Education is now seen as a process in which students should be active agents in their own training and competence development. This idea of classes as places where teachers recite and students memorize is considered outdated: today it is intended that students participate in classes at least as much as teachers .