Perspectives

Three Dimensions of Education

Physical development, academic and cultural education, and character formation can be distinguished from one another. In learning, they often overlap. Practical examples explore how these connections take shape.

Adib Reyhani ·

When the physical activity ends, the session is not over yet. At Life Goals, an education programme run by the Austrian association Breaking Grounds, the sporting activity is followed by a group conversation. The children talk about what they experienced and what these experiences might mean in their everyday lives. The exercises deliberately create situations that call for personal and social skills – such as working together or dealing with setbacks.

Two educational processes meet here. The children use their agility, strength and coordination. At the same time, they reflect on how they respond to difficulties and how they treat others. The shared reflection makes this second dimension an explicit focus of learning. Questions arise such as: What helped us? How did we support one another? What would we do differently next time?

The German word Bildung covers both without making the difference particularly clear. It refers to acquiring knowledge, developing physical abilities and forming judgement and character. In conversations about the aims of education, it is therefore easy to reach agreement even though those involved mean different things. Distinguishing three dimensions helps to look more closely.

The first is physical education. It concerns the development and use of the body, its health and the ability to look after its needs. This includes movement, nutrition and managing exertion and recovery. Here, education appears as a process that also depends on provision: a body needs food, sleep and protection in order to develop. Teaching cannot replace these preconditions.

The second is academic and cultural education. It covers language, scientific thinking, art, technical skills and an understanding of how society works. With it, people open up a world that others have already shaped, and gain the means to take part in shaping it themselves. This dimension goes beyond individual intellectual achievement. The ability to organise institutions, to produce knowledge together or to develop cultural forms of expression also belongs to it.

The third is character education. This means developing qualities such as truthfulness, compassion, a sense of justice and reliability. It concerns the values that guide action: which concerns someone takes seriously, how they treat others and what they use their abilities for. German has the common expression “Herzensbildung”, education of the heart, for this, provided it also includes judgement and action. Compassion can be a feeling; listening attentively to someone and taking their view into account in a decision also requires a conscious effort.

This threefold division is a conceptual perspective on education, not a division into three independent subjects. It is precisely their connections that become visible in concrete learning opportunities.

At the GemüseAckerdemie, an education programme run by the association Acker, children grow vegetables together with their teachers. The programme combines work in the field with questions of nutrition and food growing. Seen from the perspective of physical as well as academic and cultural education, two approaches meet: the children move and engage with what they eat; at the same time, they gain knowledge about plants and the conditions they live in. Their own bodies and an understanding of biological processes become the subject of the same activity.

The connection lies in the alternation between experience and explanation. Caring for a plant makes observations possible that a text alone cannot provide. Knowledge in turn helps to interpret what has been observed. Why does something grow better in this spot than in another? What changes when there is no water? Questions like these turn a physical activity into an investigation. How far this connection goes depends on whether lessons allow time for observation, forming concepts and explanation.

Academic and cultural education can in turn be combined with character education. In its programme “Lesen mit Wirkung” (reading with impact), the foundation Stiftung Lernen durch Engagement describes reading projects for younger children: pupils practise expressive reading in class, choose suitable books and prepare visits to a nursery or primary school. Afterwards, they discuss what helped the younger children understand.

The language task now involves responding to another person. Reading fluency and text comprehension remain learning objectives. Added to this is the question of whether the readers notice what their listeners need. Patience and attentiveness may be called for, as well as the willingness to adapt what they have prepared. The younger child is a person with their own interests, whose response matters. Read this way, reading aloud combines language education with an opportunity to put care into practice.

In a different social setting, the Colombian education organisation FUNDAEC works on a related connection. In its programme Preparación para la Acción Social, learning groups carry out joint projects after sections of study. The organisation mentions, among other things, activities on waste disposal and environmental care as well as information events on health issues. Local residents are to be involved in planning and implementation.

Here, too, the connection between academic and cultural education and character education can be examined. Subject knowledge is needed to understand a matter and to present it clearly. At the same time, collaboration requires taking the knowledge and concerns of others seriously. Anyone who wants to prepare something for a community must work out with it what is actually needed. The ethical question thus also lies in how knowledge is applied and who has a say in its application.

At Life Goals, the conversation after the physical activity is part of the session. The physical experience is looked at once more from a different perspective: How did I deal with a difficulty, and what role did the others play? Physical abilities and one’s attitude towards oneself and others remain distinguishable. In the shared reflection, their connection becomes visible.

Sources and notes

Programme descriptions

All four examples are based on the organisations’ own descriptions. They show how the programmes are designed, not what effects they have. Studies of their outcomes were not reviewed for this text.