JDMcDsblog

I came across some interesting words on school reform when looking up something on the philosopher Karl Popper:

“School reform must be the result of centuries of research done by first rate thinkers and should have respect for the practical needs of the time..there must be a complete transformation, but it must not be done at once; it should be gradual, continual and coherent in order to conserve what is valid. Its objective should be to turn out (men ) who are brave, just, morally sound and eager to work. Children should study and practice joyfully..The new education discovers the child, discovers the parent and discovers the teacher. One must make use of the child’s abilities and relate to his experiences..”

These were the thoughts of the Austrian educator Otto Glockel, writing in 1923. He continued,

“in the first five years teaching is not broken up, but constitutes a logical whole” and he believed that the principle objective of school is not the drilling of facts but the acquistion of notions and knowledge, so that a student will know what to do when he needs to find out something new.. pupils should be exposed to stimulating writing by authors like Schiller, Goethe, Raimund and Schonheer.”

(adated from Popper’s Vienna, by Dario Antiseri)

I find it illuminating that such thinking, with an apparently child centred focus on learning and a curriculum architecture that recognises the interrelationship of subjects, not dissimilar to our Curriculum for Excellence were being considered in post Hapsburg Austria and doubtless in other European countries, too. For a historian of education, such books as the one mentioned above make fascinating reading; I would love to have the time and the capacity to explore the changing approaches to education in European education, particularly comparing our own Scottish system with a country like Germany where I used to work.