Implementing

He trains like this: concentrating the mind I will breathe in, he trains like this: concentrating the mind I will breathe out.

"Blondy points out both uses and challenges to each of Knowles principles of andragogy. For example, 'Cheren stated that while learners may express a desire to be self-directed in their learning, most lack the required understanding of learning necessary to be self-directed and thus need guidance and encouragement in the learning process.'"

Actually, Cheren's view is that "being self-directed" isn't an on-off switch (either you have it or you don't), but more of a continuum, so, he speaks for example of "highly self-directed learners". He offers advice on how an educator can help a learner become more self directed, but doesn't say that they then "are" self-directed. It's a subtle distinction!

But what would it mean to be self-directed, or to be more self-directed? Considering that the mind is sensitive to its context, and is always providing feedback on things to do, problems, solutions, joys, sorrows, etc., "self-directed" seems like a somewhat iffy predicate to bear. What about being in tune with one's surroundings?

Perhaps being "more" self-directed means that one does not so much rely on other people (at least explicitly) to decipher these surroundings, and tell one what to do. In other words we would expect a "more self-directed" person to be "more in tune with their surroundings", as well as their goals and sentiments and so forth.

So a steady mind would be quite the boon here, if becoming "more self-directed" was the goal. But why would it be? Certainly, one cannot always turn to others for help -- sometimes they are unavailable or inaccessible, or they have better things to do than to guide you. (Which is probably why educators typically get paid: there is an opportunity cost to their time.) So, in these moments, will you feel lost and confused, or will you feel with it, productive (if that is your ambition), collected, and reasonably happy?

Developing powers of concentration and responsiveness would seem to be useful in these circumstances. Of course, these abilities can be cultivated in a social context and applied solo -- and vice versa, cultivated in a solo context and applied socially.

He trains like this: freeing the mind I will breathe in, he trains like this: freeing the mind I will breathe out.

(He trains like this: freeing the mind from excessive ferver ... hate ... delusion ... conceit ... wrong views ... doubt ... sloth and torpor ... agitation and worry ... lack of conscience ... and shamelessness I will breathe in, etc.)

"The first paragogical principle says that instead of focusing on how learners see themselves (e.g. as 'self-directed' or 'dependent' or something else), we should be asking how the learning context shapes what learners are actually able to do. Note that this includes looking at ways in which learners can contribute to reshaping the learning context."

Since we are thinking of learning as adaptation, it makes sense to focus on what adaptation is -- and communicate this clearly with students or peer learners. Adaptation is what we're here to do, and maladaptive patterns and strategies only get in the way of this.

That doesn't mean that maladaptivity should be paddled out of students (which would presumably only be additional maladaptivity on another level) -- rather, I think the goal would be to lead (pedagogically) people to draw attention to their own sense of what is maladaptive and what is adaptive behavior -- or else (paragogically) to enact "adaptation" and see if other people follow this good example!

Well, that might be over simplifying things, but it does bring up this question: is there really such a thing as "paragogical teaching"? Maybe peer learners need to agree to some basic axioms in the first place (e.g. "learning is adaptation") and then there won't be any particular need to missionize them and bring them on board.

Furthermore, if we agree that this is the axiom, then it works the other way as well ("adaptation is learning"). So that even "maladaptive" patterns are learned. Accusing someone of doing something "maladaptive" really means saying that they have learned something that puts them out of tune with their environment. This doesn't mean that paragogy is aiming to homogenize people: being in tune doesn't mean everyone playing the same note or even the same style. This musical metaphor presumably only goes so far, but it does have a fairly well established history in the philosophy of state-craft. It would be nice to say more about what this means -- inner conflict, interpersonal conflict, wasted resources, versus inner peace, interpersonal harmony, good use of resources, etc. -- clearly these are very qualitative and almost "aesthetic" judgements.