We’re facing a mental health crisis that particularly affects teenagers. Smart phones take part of the blame, but maybe we have made things worse by the way we educate?
Instead of setting teens in front of computers, we should inspire them and give them meaningful challenges that allow them to take responsibility, to prove themselves, and to reflect on who they are and want to be.
Postmodern education has ruined the pursuit of what is good, true, beautiful, and deep. But teenagers crave it and they need cultural frameworks for their many new emotions they cannot quite handle yet.
Teens are ready for big ideas, lofty ideals, and something great to fight for. Some go woke, others identitarian, and many become fanatics. What should be encouraged is personal character, a rich inner world and tolerance.
Bildung to the Rescue
We are currently i the process of developing a youth program. Please contact us if you would like to cooperate around it.
The Nordic countries have more than 150 years of experience, paricularly with youth education, and with the kind of education we need in the 21st Century: Bildung.
Since 2020, we have been involved in the Erasmus+ project BILDUNG where we delivered the first Intellectual Output in 2021: the booklet What is Bildung? The Bildung project is a collaboration among 11 European organisations dedicated to support adult education and learning.
DVV International is the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (DVV), which represents the interests of approximately 900 adult education centres (vhs); they are the project coordinator. Among the project partners are The European Association for Education of Adults (EAEA) and the Danish umbrella organization for education of adults (DFS).
FORWARD is a program under the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, RMIT, for future skills and workforce transformation. Nordic Bildung was invited on board when it started in 2022 along with contributors from around the globe.
FORWARD: https://medium.com/rmit-forward
In January 2022, we joined the #LearningPlanet Festival; 2023, Lene Rachel Andersen will be on one of the official panels, and we are exploring further collaboration. Learning Planet was started by the Learning Planet Institute and UNESCO.
Learning Planet: https://www.learning-planet.org/
2023 Festival: https://festival.learning-planet.org/
De Bildung Academie in Amsterdam was started by students who felt that university was missing something: bildung. They started in 2015, and we have been good friends and colleagues since before Nordic Bildung was started in March 2018.
https://en.debildungacademie.nl/