This book examines the European discussion about alternative schooling in the 20th century. It refers to a stream of concepts that are often described as New Education, Progressive Education, Education Nouvelle or Reformpadagogik, and discusses a range of different models of alternative schooling. Exploring the works of a range of continental educational philosophers, including Lietz, Blonsky, Kerschensteiner, Freinet, Decroly and Petersen, the book offers a unique insight into texts not yet translated into English. These educational models are presented with regards to the biographical background of the authors; the crucial elements of their construction; the historical interconnections between schooling, society and culture; and finally their connection to today's discussions in educational sciences. The book will be highly relevant for researchers and advanced students working on the theory, history and practice of schooling, particularly those with a focus on alternative schooling and the philosophy of education.

This book introduces six pedagogues from the German context to an English-speaking audience, and demonstrates their significant contribution to the field of alternative education. First and foremost, the authors emphasise the importance of understanding the history of education, to realise that in fact what we understand as 'normal' today is by no means the only course history could have taken. The quest for alternative ways of schooling goes back to the late eighteenth century, where educational thinkers advocated various approaches in the face of rapid societal change. The chosen six thinkers are not well known in the English-speaking scientific community, and some are even infrequently cited in the German context. In offering an historic and systematic introduction to concepts that can frame Alternative Education in different ways, this book allows the reader to critically reevaluate present forms of education by using the past as a mirror.

This volume examines Otto Friedrich Bollnow's philosophical approach to education, which brought Heidegger's existentialism together with other theories of what it is to be "human." This introduction to Bollnow's work begins with a summary of the theoretical influences that Bollnow synthesized, and goes on to outline his highly original account of experiential "educational reality"--namely, as a reality alternately "harmonious" or "broken," but fundamentally "guided." This book will be of value to scholars and students of education and philosophy, especially those interested in bringing larger existential questions into connection with everyday educational engagement.

"Dealing with the unfamiliar" plays an even stronger role in the social context today than it did in history. The global horizon of our everyday perception presents the challenge of constantly rethinking the relationship between I, you and others. In school lessons, dealing with the unfamiliar is a very personal challenge, as it happens in adolescence all about the formation of a social self-mediated by learning processes. The Federal Republic is a migration or post-migration society. Students experience this fact in their everyday life. In addition, the digital world breaks through the supposedly safe boundaries between near and far, here and there, familiar and unfamiliar. The ability to practice "dealing with the unfamiliar" yourself can be an important building block for a respectful coexistence in an increasingly complex world. The booklet is divided into four thematic complexes: Biblical pictures on dealing with strangers and strangeness; Social theories on dealing with strangers and strangers; Die there - the near foreign, the foreign closeness; We - conceptions of the encounter. The main idea of the present series consists in the thesis that young people can learn to think politically with religion and ethics. Thus, the use of the materials is not limited to religion, values or ethics lessons.