Dr. Lars Knudsen | Dept. of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark
Friday, November 24, 2017 | 12:30 – 2:00 pm | Scarfe 310
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Abstract
The recent school reform in Denmark (2013) included what was called the ‘open school program’. The basic idea was to make all schools and all teachers cooperate with the local community such as museums, businesses, associations, clubs etc. to make teaching more relevant to students and to integrate the schools better in society. These forms of corporations are not new and the benefits to the students outcome are well known, but it has mostly been organized by teachers who by their own initiative wanted to move their teaching out of school. The new school reform has now changed that by making partnerships compulsory and allowing non teacher educated persons be responsible for teaching too. But the increase in numbers of people and institutions that are now more or less involved in open school has also led to a confusion of; what is it? I have found at least four different and competing interpretations and view them as different strategies to overcome a basic paradox in that occurs in numerous ways in open school: In Greek school means ‘free from production’, but the open school program joins school and (in a broad sense) production. So can we characterize Open School and benefit from the diversity it covers and invites us to?
Short Bio
Lars Emmerik Damgaard Knudsen (1976) is MA in philosophy of Education, Ph.D. and associate professor at Aarhus University, Dept. of Education, Denmark. Link to reseach and activities. Research unit on Open School program link.