Hi, Armend here. In this video, I want to turn to another German author this time of the 20th century named Wolfgang Klafki, who has written about Bildung and has enhanced our understanding on Bildung and how it can be operationalized, so that individuals develop and enrich their inner Bildung. Of course Bildung is a 250 year old concept and thousands of scholars have written about it. We certainly invite you to check out our resources to deepen your insights into Bildung and to enhance your understanding of it from our resources. Klafki has been very influential in looking into Bildung as an evolving concept that constantly needs updating for the times and context that we're living. Therefore, we should remember that when he wrote about Bildung, he had in mind the state of the world after the World War II. For example, at that time when he wrote he emphasized the role that the promotion of peace needs to play in societies. He pointed out that peace was a duty of our moral Bildung. I'm sure you'll be able to observe connections of ideas between Klafki and Humboldt and Shiller that we're referencing our videos. Klafki was an educator so he wrote about Bildung with the applications of Bildung into education in mind. Klafki defined Bildung as a human capacity for self-determination, co-determination and solidarity. Self-determination is about decisions on our own, becoming an autonomous rational person. This relates to the enlightenment era philosophy. Klafki says that Bildung is to be understood as a qualification for reasonable self-determination and autonomy for freedom, for individual fault and for individual moral decisions. Co-determination on the other hand, is about becoming a team player and cooperating with others to achieve common goals. Klafki said that each and every member of the society has the right, but also the responsibility to contribute together with others, to the cultural economy and social and political development of the community. The third concept or the third capacity that Klafki wrote about in relation to Bildung is solidarity, which is about reaching out to others who don't have our privileges so that we give back and contribute to others, and thus to the world. According to Klafki, solidarity means that the individual right to self determination and opportunities for co-determination can only be represented and justified, if it is associated not only with the recognition of equal rights, but also with the active power for those whose opportunities for self-determination and co-determination are limited or are nonexistent due to social conditions or lack of privilege or political restrictions or oppression. Klafki says that Bildung must be now understood also as a political Bildung, as a capability for active participation in the process of ongoing democratization and democratization being one of the goals for developmental societies. These three human capacities self determination, co-determination, and solidarity of Bildung, prepare us for the unknown as they help us know ourselves better. Our responsibilities, our freedoms and the communities and the context that we interact with and we are part of. Also very important our contribution to the world so that we help transform the world for the better. Klafki, similar to Humboldt, rightly points to the cultural, economic, and social and political environments as crucial aspects that influence our opportunities to go through the Bildung process and achieve it as an outcome. Above all, Klafki says that Bildung means awakening of a self-determined, moral responsibility, a readiness for moral action and the capacity for more action. Since the turn of the 21st century, Bildung authors and Bildung scholars and researchers have attempted to update it further, and preparation to participate in and engage with the plural and diverse world has been identified as the core capacity of Bildung for the present times. Seems the only way in which we can leave it our lives is with others. Bildung is about creating our place in the world and the meaning we ascribe to our experiences. But also about recreating our place and the meaning-making in the super interconnected world that we are part of. As we are all aware, we are part of the world that is full of differences and diversity. We can understand Bildung as an intervention to develop ourselves into an educated, cultivated, and enlightened individuals who are fully aware of their place in the world and help engage in. Bildung helps us to get outside of our heads and see the bigger picture, understand the dynamics and the interrelations that shape the world around us. In turn, this helps us develop the courage and the capacities to reshape and transform those dynamics and interrelations for the better. Bildung is about creating and recreating deep and meaningful connections with ourselves and those around us, in order to focus our energy on what truly matters to us and to the world around us. If we accept Bildung as a lifelong task for learning, for becoming and transforming, here are some questions that I would like to ask you: In what ways can we use Bildung for enhancing our capacity for self determination, co-determination and solidarity? Second, how can we connect with others to tackle problems collectively as teams, as groups? What can we all do together, for example, to tackle climate change, which is one of the more pressing challenges nowadays? What can we do to ensure that others who do not have our privileges have increased opportunities for self-determination and co-determination, so that they also fully participate in the world, and they so too achieve their inner Bildung and becoming awakened, self-determined and moral persons able for moral action? As an exercise related to this lesson, I would like to invite you to complete one or more of the following actions. First, attempt a local political meeting and engage the local politics on issues that are relevant to you and that you can, and if possible, it would be great if you can convince another friend to join you to the meeting. Second, write a letter to a local newspaper applying Bildung concepts to a local irrelevant issues that you care about. Third, write a short essay on how Bildung concepts, that we have covered in this and the other lessons in this module, apply or could directly apply to your life at this point in time.
