Abstract

Hannah Arendt is a political thinker. However, the concepts she uses in her political thinking are of a particular interest for understanding education, i.e. upbringing and teaching. Upbringing and teaching are activities. Arendt helps us to understand the political and educational impact of those activities.In the political thinking of Arendt the activities of labor, work, and action have a special meaning. In the chapter we suggest that neither upbringing nor teaching can be conceived of as labor. On the other hand, education can be seen as a form of work. However, it is a special kind of work; we call it ‘free work’. Upbringing and teaching can be seen as forms of action as well. However, the actions undertaken by children are actions under the responsibility of the teacher. This means that the ‘world-building capacity’ of these actions is limited. The limit is determined by the teacher. That’s why we speak of ‘beginning actions’.In addition to the ‘free work’ and ‘beginning actions’ of upbringing and teaching, we explore Arendt’s idea of the school as an ‘in-between space’: an institution between the private domain of the home and the public domain of the world. Within this in-between space, teachers introduce children and youngsters into the world. Introducing children and young people into the world means to acquire experience with the actions by which humans build up their world. This takes place under the responsibility of the teacher. We conclude, with Arendt, that school should be regarded as a prepolitical domain.