Pedagogy

Pedagogy is a science. Pedagogy is about how to properly educate and teach children and young people. The word pedagogy comes from the language of the ancient Greeks. It means something like "guiding a child". Today, the German term Erziehungswissenschaften is also often used, which emphasises that it is a science. However, there is disagreement as to whether Erziehungswissenschaft should mean the same as Pädagogik.

A sub-area of pedagogy is didactics, which deals with what knowledge should be imparted to children and young people. In other words, it is about the content of learning. Again, didactics includes methodology. This subject area is concerned with how knowledge is taught to children, i.e. how lessons are organised.

However, pedagogy is subdivided into further areas: Special education, for example, deals with the education and support of children with learning difficulties. This can go as far as a learning disability. Pre-school education is concerned with children of pre-school age. There are other areas of specialisation.

Pedagogy overlaps with other sciences. For example, pedagogy also requires some knowledge of psychology. Pedagogy is also related to sociology. This is the science that deals with how people deal with and behave towards other people.

Pedagogy can be studied as a subject at a university or university of teacher education. You study this subject together with didactics if you want to become a teacher. Youth workers also study pedagogy, but here rather in connection with sociology and other subjects. Educators do not study it, but they learn a lot about pedagogy during their training. In some federal states in Germany, pedagogy is taught at the Gymnasium.