The 3 Ps - The professional, personal, and private pedagogue

The pedagogic role can be split into three dimensions: the professional, the personal, and the private.

  • The professional pedagogue helps you explain and understand the child's behav-iour through the use of law, policy, research, practice evidence and theory. The professional pedagogue supports and protects you in having a professional & per-sonal relationship with the child; it helps you make sense of the child's actions and reactions, relating them to various theories and using professional concepts to di-rect and reflect your own practice.
  • The personal pedagogue represents what you offer to the child in your developing relationship with them. This is based on reflections: you know what you aim to achieve through the relationship, why that will help the child/young person do what in the relationship, and you know that it requires authenticity and may involve some thought out self-disclosure used in the relationship with a child.
  • The private pedagogue sets the personal boundaries of what is not shared with those you work with and should therefore not be involved in the relation with a child you care for or work with. The private pedagogue is who you are with those closest to you, and the experiences you have had that may have shaped who you are but which you do not share with a child.

The 3Ps are constantly in play during practice. Social pedagogues are aware of the inter-play between each P and use the 3P model in supervision and on their own to reflect upon practice, understand the impact the child/young person may be have on them and in the search to improve practice and the relationship with the child.

Although the Private P is something which social pedagogues do not share with the child or young person, it may well be impacted upon by a child or other's behaviour; it is im-perative that practitioners are:

  • able to recognise when their reactions to a child may have something to do with what is private to them, and
  • able and open to discussing this in professional supervision so that a deeper under-standing of self is gained and practice is improved.