German has two words for the English word “education.” Erziehung describes the school system, and the mechanics of what is taught and conveyed from the world of adults to that of children in order to “bring them up.” Focus is on skills adults need like literacy, numeracy, history, and the factual basis citizens need to understand to participate socially, culturally, and economically in society. The German education system is designed to educate all children in such basic skills. It is something that is done for children, and leads to practical apprenticeships/schooling which many German youth begin at ages 15 or 16, i.e. after completion of 9-10 years of schooling and in turn lead into the workforce. This type of schooling makes for a very disciplined and skilled workforce, which is able to produce engineering wonders like Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Siemens that power Germany’s modern export-led economy.
But there is another word in German for education, which is “Bildung,” which is a more important quality, and the one which is more highly valued even though it is not aimed directly at workforce preparation. Bildung it is tucked into the programs of the primary, secondary, and really kicks in at the university level, including at Leuphana University where I am currently a guest professor. Bildung roughly means “cultivation of the intellect.” Unlike Erziehung, such cultivation is not something that is done for you, rather it is a quality that you as an individual cultivate as a matter of intellectual habit. This is why primary and secondary schools in Germany have a curriculum in music, art, history, religion, the social sciences, philosophy, and so forth. Famous German philosopher-types have written about this word and emphasize the quality of “cultivation of the intellect.” Related to this, Germany prides itself on being the land of “poets and thinkers.” Besides BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Siemens, think also Luther, Goethe, Hegel, Schiller, Brothers Grimm, and Max Weber. And in music, it’s Beethoven and Bach just for starters. Indeed, in a country where political and military achievements are looked at with skepticism, bemusement, and sometimes disgust, cultivation of the Bildung is critical to a sense of adult identity. The result for the education system that children are expected to develop habits of intellectual cultivation for their own sake–and to appreciate the cultural resources which are the product of such habits. By the time they reach university, students are expected to do this on their own, without a lot of prompting from university professors like me.
To illustrate, here is a quick email I received from a student in my Post Colonial Theory class at Leuphana University last week, with a question about her term paper. I know her well because she came to my classes for the last 14 weeks, even though there is no grade or “incentive” given for attendance; indeed the paper is the only graded work she will do for me this semester, and it is due after a six week writing period in which there are no classes. As a full-time student, she will be completing 5-6 such papers during this period. She wrote:
Dear Mr. Waters,
you suggested to me to use Fanon and Wallerstein for my term paper about (Country X), but I would rather like to use Said and Spivak if possible. It seems pretty difficult to apply Fanon’s and Wallerstein’s theories on (Country X), since they are more focused on race, ethnicity and the relations between 1st and 3rd world or rather colonies which were overseas. It seems like Said and Spivak might fit better, also since (Country X) literature and articles about a postcolonial (Country X) refer to their theories. I still would like to refer to Fanon a little bit too. But of course I would like to know what you think about this?
Best regards,
Leuphana Undergrad in Culture Studies
What do I think? After 15 years working at a mid-level American university, I think cool—go for it. I mean an email like this from an undergrad is really cool! I wonder how you could work in three languages (English, German and Language X), and where you came to have such a wide interest in social theory. My students in America would have taken my cookie-cutter advice about using Wallerstein and Fanon, and left it at that. But if the Language X literature leads to Said and Spivak, and you’re game to read that—go for it! And I am really looking forward to learning something from your paper about both Country X, and new ways of applying post-colonial theories.
The student’s years of cultivating the habits of the mind that are German Bildung in primary and secondary school are what prepared her to write such an email as a second year university student. She has habits of reading widely, questioning sources, and engaging creatively. What is more, she assumes that such things are normal educated humans do, as indeed it is among my students here. The funny thing for this US American professor is that any number of my students here in Germany could have written such an email—this is just the one that was handy.
But, I have rarely in my years of teaching in the US received an email like this. Rather the focus of the US American student is on the formula that will get a good grade on my paper—And, truth be told, I give it to them: Have a clear introduction with a thesis, illustrative examples in the body, and a good conclusion to tie things off. In other words mechanics and process are the issue I my conversation with US students.
Which brings me back to the subjects of Erziehung, Bildung, and what is now my new pet peeve, Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) Seven Practices of Good Undergraduate Practice. In my personnel file at Chico State, I repeatedly reflected on these seven principles at the behest of administrators concerned that I earn my keep, i.e. be “accountable.” As I wrote previously, I think that the insistence of US American administrators on using these “best practices” have over-emphasized process at the expense of what is in essence, Bildung.
Before I finish this blog, here are the Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) seven processes which administrators claim underpin high quality undergraduate teaching. Note that little of this refers to student learning or acquisition of Bildung. Rather it is about the faculty can be supervised on, and therefore held accountable for by administrators. Good Teaching Practices include:
1. encourages contact between students and faculty,
2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
3. encourages active learning,
4. gives prompt feedback,
5. emphasizes time on task,
6. communicates high expectations, and
7.respects diverse talents and ways of learning.
By and large, these are great principles of educational process. But indeed they leave out Bildung. Nowhere in these seven principles is there any mention of thinking, reading, capacity to think abstractly which is what my student’s email demonstrated. Nothing in Chickering and Gamson (1987) for the land of poets and thinkers! Rather it is designed for the land of process engineering—the world Frederick Taylor imagined when in 1911 he published The Principles of Scientific Management. (Note to American students reading this: If you don’t know who Frederick Taylor was, check out his Wikipedia entry).
One consequence are email from German students like the one above who, by the way, has had little personal feedback from me during the semester, nor do I have any clue about how much “time on task” she has spent on any assignment. But she does have high expectations for herself, and she learns and writes in German, English, and Language X which is certainly diverse, though perhaps not in the way Chickering and Gamson were thinking of diverse learning styles. What she has are habits of the mind that are what the German system somehow cultivates. I guess this could be called active learning, though I have no idea what I did as a Professor to encourage it. Which of course brings me back to Professors Chickering and Gamson (1987), and their Seven Principles.
What would happen if instead of addressing their seven principles on my next course syllabus, I was to melodramatically tell my US American students: Give me Bildung (Habits of Mind), or Give me Death!
I write about Bildung and other such improbabilities in the US American K-12 education system in my new book Schooling, Bureaucracy and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child. Request it from your library, or if you have enough money, order a hardcover (or Kindle) copy from your favorite bookseller!
Originllly posted at Ethnography.com, February 2014.
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania. In the past, his main interests have been international development and refugees in Thailand, Tanzania, and California. This reflects a former career in the Peace Corps (Thailand), and refugee camps (Thailand and Tanzania). His books include: Crime and Immigrant Youth (1999), Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan (2001), The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life Beneath of the Marketplace (2007), When Killing is a Crime (2007), and Schooling, Bureaucracy, and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child (2012). His hobby is trying to learn strange languages–and the mistakes that that implies. Tony is a prolific academic, you can read more of his work at academia.edu.or purchase one (or more!) of his books from Amazon.com.