Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn (1886 - 1974) was a German educator who founded such projects such as the Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, Gordonstoun in Scotland, Atlantic College in Wales, the United World Colleges movement, and the Outward Bound schools. Gordonstoun was the founding school of an international consortium of schools called the Round Square schools. These schools are devoted to teaching the “five pillars” of outdoor adventure, environmental awareness, international understanding, community service, and education for democracy.
Hahn’s educational philosophy was based on respect for adolescents, whom he believed to possess an innate decency and moral sense, but who were (he believed) corrupted by society as they aged. He believed that education could prevent this corruption if students were given opportunities for personal leadership, and to see the results of their own actions. This is one reason for the focus on outdoor adventure in his philosophy. Hahn’s educational thinking was crystallized by World War I, which he viewed as proof of the corruption of society and a promise of later doom if people (Europeans particularly) could not be taught differently. In 1920, in cooperation with Prince Max von Baden, he founded the Schule Schloss Salem. There, in addition to acting as headmaster of the school, he taught history, politics, ancient Greek, Shakespeare and Schiller.
Though Hahn had been raised Jewish , he was an early admirer of the Nazis and there was a Hitlerjugend chapter at the Salem school. He later became a fierce critic and was arrested by them in 1933. After an appeal by British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, Hahn was released with the condition that he leave Germany. He fled to Britain, where the next year he founded the Gordonstoun school in an abandoned Scottish castle (a number of Hahnian schools are located in formerly abandoned castles). Later, Hahn converted to Christianity.
In Hahn’s words, “The purpose of education is to impel people into value forming experiences, and (to ensure these qualities): a readiness for sensible self-denial, tenacity in pursuit, an enterprising spirit…and above all, compassion.”
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