Mollenhauer and the pedagogical relation: A general pedagogic from the margins

My interest in Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing, was evoked in the early 90’s when I as a graduate student read my supervisor, Stein Wivestad’s, preliminary Norwegian translation of the first chapters. Some years later, as a teacher of undergraduate students in pedagogic I introduced Klaus Mollenhauer’s almost impenetrably complex thoughts and questions through the indirect intermediary of feature film and fictional literature. Over the years, it became more and more obvious to me, and made sense constantly in new ways, that the experiential material film and fictional stories – indeed as Mollenhauer suggested, were not simply a means to illustrate compelling but hard-to-get-at reflections, concepts and theoretical considerations. On the contrary, the experiential examples presented and represented “real” and perceptible human life, where every pedagogical question has its source and purpose. Then, twelve years ago, when I was taught hermeneutic phenomenology by Max van Manen, and I gradually found ways to amalgamate to pedagogic a methodical phenomenological reduction and the vocative writing style of this approach, I discovered anew what I understood as Mollenhauer’s pedagogical vision. I understood that his rich historical experiential material – autobiographical excerpts, childhood memories, teachers’ examples, paintings and woodcuts – what he called the elementary material for pedagogical insight, indeed possessed qualities potentially open to phenomenological exploration. Phenomenology, as interpreted by van Manen and pedagogic as interpreted by Mollenhauer met in their shared focus on the lived experience of the encounter between the older and the newer generation. This is how Mollenhauer says it: