ABSTRACT
Professor Katrin Hjort is fighting for an education system that stimulates students' personal development, which is also crucial for their motivation. The Nordic tradition has been challenged by global trends starting to influence our understanding of education and education management. The clear-cut competence goals do not just contradict the Nordic understanding of education as preparation for democracy. The five-year plans in the Soviet Union were made by people who were convinced that they were striving for a good cause. Research in neuroscience education and neuropsychology is developing rapidly at the moment, and teachers must have the prerequisites for understanding and interpreting it. But they also need the opportunity to develop personal skills, which are necessary for making professional choices when they are confronted by the many tremendous ethical challenges in daily life that are increasingly apparent in educational work. The description of the relationship between motivation and learning is illustrated in neuro-psychology by the very mundane example of ball games.
