Conclusion

Abstract

The preceding chapters have made a case for cross- and transcurricular teaching and contributed to developing a didactic framework for it. In conclusion, we would like to stress the following key points and lessons that have emerged: The ideas, cases, and findings presented in the chapters almost invariably support the notion that Bildung can serve as a foundation for such a framework and help to unify different approaches, as we argued in Chapter 3. This shows both the relevance and strength of a Bildung-oriented approach and the need for subject teaching educators and subject didactics researchers to further familiarize themselves with, and apply, this approach. Chapters 4 and 5 illustrate how Bildung already functions as a guideline or model for crosscurricular didactics and (in Chapter how crosscurricular teaching can support Bildung-oriented goals by being non-affirmative, problem-based, and empowering, and integrate an emphasis on innovation with a concern for ethics. Chapter 6 describes how attempts to promote a truly dialogic classroom and teaching style can foster personal qualities central to Bildung, like personal engagement, reflection, and self-expression. It also illustrates how a concern for transcurricular learning goals like these is compatible with teaching subject-specific content. Further in line with the inclusive Bildung approach laid out in Chapter 3, Schaffalitzky points out in Chapter 6 that dialogic teaching can support both instrumental and noninstrumental goals. We made clear from the outset that the framework outlined in the book should not be seen as fixed, but as subject to further development. Several chapters argue for a need to either emphasize certain elements of Bildung more strongly or expand or revise the very notion of Bildung. Chapters 7 and 8 attempt to correct the widespread notion that Bildung and crosscurricular teaching are mainly about “bookish” learning, arguing that physical activity and fostering student wellbeing are central to Bildung, which is concerned with the whole person and all human powers. In Chapter 7, Kuokkanen, Gutierrez, Enkvist Snellman, and Romar also show how physical movement can be integrated in teaching in gradually more comprehensive and sophisticated ways, thus demonstrating that crosscurricular teaching must not be very demanding or revolutionary. A more gradual, steadily expanding and merely complementary approach is also possible (compare the notion of a “double focus” on subject teaching and more general Bildung aims introduced in Chapter 3). The potential of physical activity is further highlighted in Chapters 11 and 12, on drawing and craft. Both chapters demonstrate how movement and sensory experience is integral to personal development and aesthetic expression, again confirming ideas that are central to the classic notion of Bildung. Several authors attempt to correct typical narrow understandings of crosscurricular teaching and Bildung as intellectualist or “bookish” by calling for a heightened awareness of non-human nature and materiality. This is very pronounced in Chapters 13 and 14 on sustainability and climate change; in Chapter 13, Laugesen and Elf contend that the Bildung-oriented didactics of Klafki and others have suffered from an anthropocentric bias that must now be overcome in light of the climate crisis. The significance of supporting students’ experience of materiality is also highlighted in Chapter 12 on craft. The plea for embracing unpredictability made by Höglund and Jusslin in Chapter 10 on arts-integrated poetry teaching can likewise be seen as an attempt to understand Bildung as a more open, experimental, and deliberately risk-taking process than it is usually taken to be. Although it can be argued that both the concern for non-human nature and an acknowledgment of the unpredictability of learning processes were already central to the classic notion of Bildung, such accentuations may be needed to correct recent more one-sided understandings of Bildung, which have tended to overemphasize intellectual skills and focused more on culture and society than on nature. It remains an issue for further discussion whether the climate crisis requires a more radical break with the humanistic orientation of the Bildung approach. It seems likely, however, that teaching must maintain a particular focus on human beings, particularly students, in their capacity as learners and potential agents of climate change. The extent to which crosscurricular teaching should have a critical orientation is also discussed throughout the book. Hobel’s emphasis on the nonaffirmative and deliberative aspects of Bildung in Chapter 4 is a typical attempt to correct what may seem like a more conformist tendency in the classical notion of Bildung, by giving more weight to empowerment and critical attitudes of students. Hobel’s proposal remains squarely within the Bildung tradition, however, he makes clear that student empowerment must be fostered through engagement with content and epochal key problems. His and many other chapters exemplify the need for a permanent search and adjustment process aimed at finding an appropriate balance between freedom and criticism, on the one hand, and socialization, enculturation, and qualification, on the other hand: a balance that must be continuously readjusted in response to the specific circumstances. 3. Several chapters likewise demonstrate that it can be advantageous or even necessary to broaden the understanding of existing concepts, to support genuinely crosscurricular teaching and the aims of Bildung. For example, a relational view of mathematics as socially embedded may be preferable to an instrumental view, as Röj-Lindberg, Braskén, and Berts argue in Chapter 9. Similarly, Rautiainen, Hiljanen and Tallavaara urge in Chapter 15 that democracy should be understood as a general form of life rather than merely a process of political decision-making. Laugesen and Elf point out in Chapter 13 how sustainability teaching has been dominated by the natural and social sciences. In Chapter 16, Mård and Wägar identify a narrow, commercially oriented, and a broader, life skills–oriented and creativity-oriented views of entrepreneurship education. The latter more naturally supports and can be supported by crosscurricular teaching, just as it conforms more closely to the Bildung approach. Similarly, in Chapter 18, Hansen, Hachmann, and Dohn distinguish between an understanding of computational thinking that focuses narrowly on the integration of subject-specific skills and one that addresses wider aspects of learning, including affect and institutional setting. They suggest that computational thinking should be understood as a framework that enables students to develop a both general and detailed understanding of narrative and argumentative structures and processes of problem identification and solving, thus highlighting its relationship to both hermeneutics and critical thinking. These examples all show how existing concepts, methods, and courses can be appropriated and modified to facilitate crosscurricular teaching. 4. Many argue that Bildung-oriented crosscurricular teaching should be driven not only by a concern for the personal development of individual students, but also for the ongoing development of the teachers themselves, of teacher collaboration, the teacher–student relationship, and classroom and whole school culture. Nor is crosscurricular teaching mainly about “curriculum integration,” in the narrow sense of combining subjects and contents; it is just as much about shaping collective practices and learning environments. Höglund and Jusslin describe in Chapter 10 how working with arts integration, and the experience of letting students work in unpredictable ways, can bring teachers to reflect on and change their teaching habits and professional self-understanding. In Chapter 5, Mård and Hilli characterize teacher collaboration as a process in which individual freedom is negotiated while developing shared ideas and responsibilities – in other words, as a process that exemplifies key elements of Bildung. Rautiainen, Hiljanen, and Tallavaara likewise argue in Chapter 15 that teaching for democracy entails developing a more democratic school culture, and that this includes challenging established teacher self-understandings and fostering a more collaborative mindset. Hence all these authors illustrate, in various ways, how crosscurricular teaching also contributes to the transformation and development of teachers and school culture. a. The collective and mutual nature of the Bildung processes fostered by crosscurricular teaching is also highlighted in Chapter 8 on wellbeing, which suggests that the ability to maintain and improve wellbeing should be seen as a collective competence. Teaching for wellbeing involves a concern for the emotional climate in the classroom, class group dynamics, and even parental involvement; and the teacher’s own wellbeing also needs tending to. 5. The chapters also show how crosscurricular teaching remains challenging and so the need for still further didactic development, in some cases for caution and adjusted ambitions. For example, Forsman, Bendtsen, Björklund, and Pörn point out in Chapter 17 that the theoretically attractive idea of teaching simultaneously for both content and language objectives has proven to be difficult to carry out in practice. They do not argue that it should therefore be abandoned, but that it shows a need for strengthening teachers’ competences in this field and for enhanced cooperation between language teachers and non-language subject teachers. They suggest that content teachers offer students the use of second language as a possibility rather than forcing it upon them, giving priority to the use of authentic and functional subject-specific language. This is an instructive example of the realism and concern for balance and the diverse goals and aims of teaching characteristic of the inclusive Bildung approach. 6. Nevertheless, most of the findings reported in the book indicate that crosscurricular teaching does not make it more difficult to attain the subject-specific learning goals or maintain a sufficiently high level of student achievement. Nor must it be particularly demanding or resource-intensive. Most of the recommendations are for ways of modifying existing teaching rather than something that requires additional activities.