Bilder–Bildung–Weltbild

Abstract

The German word for “picture” as well as for “image” is Bild which is one of the connotations of a core concept of educational theory: Bildung. In correspondence with traditional reasoning I define: Bildung is the process in the course of which specific human beings acquire the general characteristic human features. This works as an operational definition that is to organize the processes of selection and shaping of the content of instruction. For this we need to have a concept of humanity in its entirety. For the purpose of instruction in school we organize this in a structured set of pictures and in tales and stories that depict what is human life in the respective society. The curriculum can be seen as a picture of the universe humans live in and it serves as a means to help young human beings to gain a concept of their world–a Weltbild. I'm going to introduce and to discuss two famous documents within this theoretical framework: Johann Amos Comenius’ Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658); and Johann Bernhard Basedow's Elementarwerk (1774/85). I furthermore argue that the pictures and the descriptions or stories which correspond to them are documents of different didactical concepts based in a different “Weltbild”: In both cases the composition of pictures and tales aims at conveying a picture of the world: knowledge about what is true or false and what is right or wrong–and to impart motives which make the readers act accordingly in the world.