Humanities pedagogies derive their standards for education from practice. The things you encounter in practice should be interpreted as a theory of education. I will also tell this article the criticisms of this pedagogy.
Educational reality and hermeneutic pedagogy
The meaning of education must be sought in education itself (just as the meaning of a text must be extracted from the text), not in, for example, a (religious) worldview. The issues found in educational practice must be interpreted as a theory of education. It is the task of pedagogy to put educational practice into theory.
Spiritual Science:
Acquiring knowledge of reality (just like natural science), but with its own scientific approach with a question about human and historical-cultural reality.
Criticism
The criticism of humanities science on normative pedagogy is also normative. The difference between these two is in the origin. Origin of normative pedagogy: religious or political philosophy. Origin of humanities: seeking educational reality in normativity. Humanities pedagogy sees itself as the theory of practice
- Historical – hermeneutic: understanding the meaning of the educational practice given as historical reality.
- Hermeneutic – pragmatic: the insight acquired can help to act better.
Education is an independent cultural area, just as economics, art and religion are an independent domain of culture. Previously, these areas were closely intertwined through ties with the church. Since emancipation, each area has pursued its own goals. Afterwards , the state has a crucial role in establishing unity and cohesion between different areas, but the state may not coerce and dominate these areas.
Education is a relatively autonomous (independent) domain. This independence lies in the pedagogical relationship: abolition of oneself (in the relationship between educator and education). Pedagogical relationship: antinomic structure. Antinomy: tense relationship between two poles that must remain in balance. If one of the poles becomes out of balance, the antinomy is gone and with it the education.
Several antinomies characterize educational reality:
Antinomy ideal – reality
Educator must focus on the child’s reality, but also on possibilities for the future (ideal). Too focused on the ideal: child has to constantly walk on toes. Too much focus on reality: child is not challenged to learn something new.
Antinomy freedom – bondage
This antinomy is discussed with reference to Langeveld’s book Concise theoretical pedagogy. Phenomenological: interpreting the phenomenon from itself (Langeveld). How does the child experience his world? There is education in interaction between children and adults. Pedagogically preformed field: area where education can emerge from interaction at any time. Langeveld: goal of education, self-responsible self-determination. Antinomy: freedom and solidarity. Too much focus on solidarity (pedagogical optimism): leaving nothing to the child, lack of confidence in the child. Too much focus on freedom (naturalistic optimism): creating an unsafe and anxious situation for the child by relying too much on the child.
Antinomy subject – objective culture
Subjective mind: this refers to man, objectification/exteriorization: people create culture, objective: observable to others, resubjectivation: process of understanding the objective mind. Kultur (culture) stands for objective spirit, but is also subjective. Bildung (formation) stands for subjective. Educator is a mediator between culture and child, educator wants to introduce child to culture.
In the 1960s there was a lot of criticism of humanities pedagogy through critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy is a (socially) critical continuation of humanities pedagogy.