The Educator’s Diary: Arendt and Kierkegaard on the Educational Relation

A question that continually confronts us in education is the question of how we can educate our children to become independent and critical beings, while at the same time making sure that they do not become so critical that they will have nothing to do with us when they grow up. By rooting this question in a generational tension Hannah Arendt in her seminal essay The Crisis in Education presents us with a practical and theoretical challenge. It is the challenge of reconciling ourselves with the world and with the challenge of having brought a new generation into the world. She does however leave us very few clues as to how it might be lived out in practice, the psychological and practical elements of the educational process if you will.