Blog Introduction

     The word ‘formal’ is defined as something that is authorised, official, validated and certified (Oxford, 2022). When applied to learning these words give a notion of legitimacy and superiority, which has meant that formal learning has been viewed as more credible and valued than informal learning (Eaton, 2010).This blog is going to discuss formal and informal educational settings, looking at the nature and philosophy of both. It will focus on the pedagogical experiences that take place in these settings and look at the role that whānau and the wider-community has in shaping educational experiences for the learner. These posts do not set out to establish whether one is better than the other, as Eaton (2010) states “ all learning is good and all learning is valuable.”

    Formal and informal learning are often pitched in direct opposition to each other, separate ends of a binary scale. However, there is some debate as to whether instead of being binary opposites the two terms fall somewhere on a continuum; informal learning can occur within the formal structures of schools and non-formal learning can act as a bridge between them both (Zürcher, 2010). Rather than being seen as value laden opposites, the learning that happens in both contexts should be equally values and seen as complementary to each other; valuing, acknowledging and utilising the learning that happen incidentally and outside of the classroom, can help to maximise the learning that takes place inside (Bourke et al., 2018b).   

Learning by taking care of pet rabbit. Copyright Gail Abbitt