Education as an experience of shared presence

Connected to this is the fundamental element of every school education: taking responsibility for this world. And the feeling for this world is built up in the “(there) between”. “The world lies between people,” emphasized Hannah Arendt in 1959, when she received the renowned “Lessing Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.”(6) In relation to the child, according to Arendt, teachers take it upon themselves, so to speak, “to represent the adults who tell him and show him in detail: This is our world.”(7) It is not primarily about building “our own worlds”, but about the ability to participate in a common world and to make sense of it find; that is the educational function of the school.

“Coming to yourself in others”

Schulz’s writing is an analytical book, not a brochure with recipes. It stimulates thought and action. That’s what makes his thoughts so valuable. It’s about a return to the real and essential nature of school and lessons, to education about being human. This is also expressed in a stirring text by the writer Lukas Bärfuss; Schulz rightly places it at the beginning of his essay. Teachers should (again) reflect on one of their important tasks: to show children and young people “how this could work / this game / to become a person”. (8th)

“Coming to oneself in the other” – and thereby gaining a distinctive identity, as the philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel defined the essence of education – in the game of becoming a human being: with shared responsibility for this world.

____________

[1] Nils B. Schulz (2023), Criticism and Responsibility. The wrong paths of digitalization and perspectives for a lively pedagogy. Munich. Claudius Publishing. 152 pages

[2] Hans Blumenberg (1961), “World Images and World Models”, in: Writings on technology. Edited by Alexander Schmitz and Bernd Stiegler. Suhrkamp, ​​2015, pp. 126-137, here: p. 136.

[3] See Jonathan Haidt (2023), Cell phones out of school!, in: Schweizer Monat. The author’s magazine for politics, economics and culture. Issue 1111/9, November 2023, p. 10ff.

[4] Schulz (2023), p. 39.

[5] Hartmut Rosa (2016), Resonance. A sociology of world relations. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​p. 157.

[6] Hannah Arendt (2019), thoughts on Lessing. About humanity in dark times, in: This. (2019), People in Dark Times. 5th edition edited by Ursula Ludz. Munich: Piper Verlag, p. 12.

[7] Schulz (2023), p. 30.

[8] Ibid., pp. 5 and 122. The text is published in: Lukas Bärfuss (2018), Ode to the Teachers, in: Style and Morals. Essays. Munich: btb Verlag, p. 152ff.