ABSTRACT
In the opening chapter of the book I argue that the most central and most fundamental educational concern is not about learning or development but about how we try to exist as human beings in and with the world. It is, in other words, about the question what we will do with what we have learned and how we have developed in the face of what we encounter in our lives. I argue that education, as a form of intentional action, is about the question what the sitting generation shall do with the new generation. Answers to this question change over time in response to historical situations and developments. I suggest that in our time we still live in the shadow of Auschwitz, that is, in the shadow of the real possibility of turning human beings into pure objects, rather than to be concerned for their own existence as subject. There is therefore an important task for education to secure and protect the possibilities for children and young people to exist as subjects of their own life. I show how the subsequent chapters of the book address this challenge.
