HEGELIAN BILDUNG AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO ACTIVE LEARNING IN CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

ABSTRACT

This study aims to critique the concept of active learning in childhood education based on Hegelian Bildung. We have defined childhood education from the perspective of Hegel’s Bildung in The Phenomenology of Spirit. We describe childhood education as a ‘primary Bildung’ having the aim of ‘entering into the conceptual world’. This aim indicates that children can and are required to express their experiences in conceptual language. Finally, we critique the conceptual components of active learning from the Hegelian point of view and suggest three alternative components: ‘child-educator interaction’, ‘understanding historical knowledge’, and ‘addressing concrete-abstract affairs.’ We suggest that the concept of active learning needs to be replaced by ‘Communicative-Interactive Learning (CIL)’. CIL takes both objectivity and subjectivity into account during the process of knowledge formation in education.

Keywords:

• Hegel’s Phenomenology
• Bildung
• Childhood Education
• Interaction
• Active Learning
• Communicative-Interactive Learning (CIL)

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Although it is Rousseau who first became aware of and realized the qualitative differences between adults and children, it is not deniable that it is due to the research of thinkers such as Piaget that human knowledge in this regard has significantly increased (Barrow and Woods, 2006, p. 117).

2 Although active learning has been criticized and re-conceptualized by scholars such as Dall’Alba and Bengtsen (2019), Liszka (2013), and Kane (2004), it has not been examined from the viewpoint of Hegelian Bildung. Therefore, we aim to redefine Hegelian Bildung and education in childhood in order to review and reconstruct active learning.

3 By The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel introduces himself as a philosopher distinct from all his contemporaries and he is recognized as a post-Kantian idealist philosopher. The reason for the importance of this work is that Hegel continues to use the ideas he expresses in The Phenomenology of Spirit until the end of his life and defends them in his other works (Stern, 2002). Hegel worked as the headmaster of a gymnasium from 1808 to 1816. During this period, he wrote specifically on education in his letter-reports to his friend Niethammer, who was the Commissioner of Education in Munich (Hegel, 1984). Hegel also wrote on Bildung in his Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (Hegel, 1971) and Philosophy of Right (Hegel, 2001). These texts are not directly mentioned in this study because it seems that The Phenomenology of Spirit itself can provide a philosophical basis for other works on education by expressing Hegel’s theory of the formation of knowledge.

4 In addition to the general meaning discussed here, Bildung also has a particular meaning discussed in the chapter of the Spirit -spirit alienated from itself- in The Phenomenology of Spirit which is not directly considered in this research. Therefore, we organize the research according to the general meaning.

5 Hegel’s account of Bildung is different from other German thinkers. For instance, Herder considers Bildung to be one’s organic growth, like a plant, which is internal and relies on the inner abilities of the individual and does not come from the outside. So, Bildung for Herder is self-Bildung. In contrast, for Humboldt, Bildung is a harmonic growth and development that is achieved by interaction with the outer world. In addition, an educated person is the one who has developed all his abilities in an equal way, and a person who has developed only one of his abilities prominently is not considered educated (Danner, 1994).

6 Although Fichte’s three-step method including thesis, antithesis, and synthesis affected Hegel, he does not use these terms to describe his phenomenology; rather, he uses them only in his description and critique of Kant’s philosophy because Kant has also used this triple (Inwood, 1992, p. 81).