Interpretation of educational phenomena by means of the concept of W. Klafki's "Doppelseitige Erschliessung"

Abstract

The concept of a German term "doppelseitige Erschliessung"was proposed at the end of 1950's by Prof.Dr.Wolfgang Klafki, a famous German educational researcher. The concept means firstly a framework for interpreting educational phenomena, secondly a "back-and-forth-simultaneously" thinking stemmed from the educational thought of Friedrich Frobel, and thirdly a construct of mental categories based by some organized stimuli in the outer world. The term "doppelseitige Erschliessung" indicates a dual structure of open-mindedness in the situation of teaching and learning, where learners can make their own mind open to teachers and acquire the content of teaching materials only when teachers have active open-mindedness to learners and teach subject matters to them. In this paper I described the contributions of the concept to the interpretation of educational phenomena. It makes a contribution to the principle of single track system of school education, the construction of subject matters, the description of educational communication in classrooms and the educational assessment. The concept "doppelseitige Erschliessung" is to offer a view point that children are always able to be brought up with powerful mental energies only in the educational organization such as schools where from elementary through secondary to higher education they are able to acquire any kinds of useful knowledge and skills using their own abilities without being grouped by any kinds of their abilities, that is, they are assured to learn subject matters by the single track school system. As to the construction of subject matters the concept is to offer some criteria by means of which teachers are able to make some kinds of teaching materials for learners in the school. Then, the concept is available for making a model of educational communication in classrooms and the educational assessment.