“It Takes a Village” – (Catholic) Education in the 21st Century

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Borrowing from the proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” Hillary Rodham Clinton published a book entitled It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us in 1996, which was answered in 2005 by Rick Santorum with his It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good. The question of who raises and educates our children is not only an American debate, but is asked all over the western world. This is not only due to the results of PISA, but also prompted by our changing societies and, especially, the decline of traditional families. Today learning and education are not “leaving” schools, but families. Schools, teachers, social workers, and also co-students have to take over more and more responsibilities formerly hold by parents and grandparents thus forming the proverbial “village”. Peer learning, learning by doing, and self-education, play an important role in this new system. Using an example from Germany’s small but growing private school sector – Catholic schools and their pedagogical concept called “Marchtaler-Plan” – this article focuses on one possible way to create a productive learning environment for students in the 21st century.