Learning between time and eternity

What role does 'time' play in pedagogy? Time is usually understood here as a purely structural element - think, for example, of timetables, grades and the rhythmic use of different methods and social forms in lessons. Beyond that, however, time can also be attributed a qualitative dimension that refers to transcendence. Education and upbringing then ultimately aim at the realisation of a positively associated future within the world, but also in transcendent 'eternity'. Furthermore, the demand for 'timeliness' of education, which is usually made in the public discourse on education, takes on a 'sacred' character when the keyword givers of the debates see the realisation of their respective pedagogical concepts as the all-important turning point towards an education for a better future. Against this background, the contributions in this volume discuss the different facets of 'sacred' time in pedagogy on the basis of the media and methods of the respective concepts. The topics range from the rhythmisation of religious education in missionary pedagogy, but also in the Protestant infant schools of the 19th century. The topics range from the rhythmisation of religious education in missionary education, but also in the Protestant infant schools of the 19th century, the self-education of the subject in relationship to God, as in the Ignatian retreats or in the Quickborn movement, to the educational consequences of sacred understandings of time in Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner and Hermann Lietz, to the 'secular-sacred' educational utopias of the 20th and 21st centuries.