Interruption as a crisis. Discourse and practices of progressive education

Abstract

Jena-Plan pedagogy has a particular impact on the educational practices in schools of the 21^st century. Educational practices of schooling and teachings in German primary schools are driven by individualization, self-assessment, decentralized positioning of the teacher, problem-solving tasks and self-reflection, and at the same time by an estimation of collectivity processed throughout peer learning and the rehearsal of democracy. These various practices can be traced back to a genealogy and ideas of Progressive Education of the early 20^th century. While positioned as a marginalized discourse in the 20^th century Progressive Education nowadays can be seen as the answer for current social problems and is expected to correspond well with the actual challenges of the school. The institution faces diversity of cultural and social backgrounds of their pupils and expectations of just and equal chances of learning within a globalized and thus competitive and marked driven world. The article presents extracts of an ethnographic study of a so called socio-problematic, inner-city primary school where the concept and ideas of Progressive Education and in particular of Peter Petersen have been renewed to open up possibilities of learning, education and Bildung throughout the institution.