Forgotten Pedagogues of German Education

Book excerpt: 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.