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4 The Sacralization of Childhood in a Secularized World: Another Paradox in the History of Education? An Exploration of the Problem on the Basis of the Open-Air School Diesterweg in Heide-Kalmthout* G. Thyssen & M. Depaepe Slightly disparagingly, the illusion is consigned to the realm of impossibilities as a Fata Morgana, a creation of the fairy Morgana. Yet has the mirage arisen from itself? Or is there an oasis somewhere that is the true origin of this deceptive image? It is not there, where we see the palms, that the resting place of refreshment perhaps awaits us. But this resting place is there, albeit far, far away. And once we will reach it. The desert is not endless, and the Fata Morgana is the glorious promise of peace under the swaying palms of the inexhaustible Spring1 . ❙ ❙ Introduction The long list of questions issued by the organizers of this seminar is, we assume, primarily heuristic in intent. Rather than formulating a response to them all, therefore, we have concentrated on a single theme. It takes its relevance from the point of view of the discipline in which we as researchers have profiled ourselves, namely educational historiography. This contemporary variant of what was previously often termed “the history of pedagogy” still may be institutionally associated with the “educational sciences” but does not necessarily coincide with it as part of fundamental research2 . Rather than as the internal history of the specialist field (whether or not conceived as a supplier to present-day theorizing), we see educational historiography as belonging to the new cultural historiography, which also *  Originally published in: A. DILLEN & D. POLLEFEYT (ed.), Children’s Voices. Children ’s Perspectives in Ethics, Theology and Religious Education. (Leuven, Peeters, 2009) 187-215 (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 230). 1 J. Ligthart, Over Opvoeding II, Groningen – Den Haag, 5 1926, p. 174. 2 See M. Depaepe – F. Simon – A. Van Gorp (eds.), Paradoxen van pedagogisering: Handboek pedagogische historiografie, Leuven, Acco, 2005. Part I. Starting from the Belgian Case – from Schooling to Educationalization 90 corresponds to the most advanced paradigms in this specialization3 . The theme chosen here ties in closely with this. It falls within the increase in attention given to the history of the child (and of being a child) from the 1960s on4 , the basis of which was the thesis of the “discovery of the child”. ❙ ❙ About Shifts and Patterns Indeed, this thesis was broadly subscribed to by the French medieval and early modern historian Philippe Ariès5 . In his revised edition, Ariès traced his original insights back to two basic positions. One was that traditional society paid little attention to the child and even less to the adolescent. The second posited that the child and the family had gained a new place in the context of industrialized society. While the second position was almost universally accepted, the first one was received with many reservations on the part of historians6 . Ariès argued in particular that there was no feeling for the child in the Middle Ages. Medieval art portrayed the child, he argued, as a small adult. Only in size and strength was there a difference between the two. Otherwise they were identical. As soon as the child was able to stand on its own feet, it was absorbed into the world of adults. The child became a young man all at once, without any ‘transitional phases’. In the family and in society, the period of childhood was so insignificant that there was no space for sentiment or emotions. The young child was, in the words of Ariès, a kind of household pet, a shameless monkey with which people amused themselves. If it died, which often happened, the grief in its family soon passed. People did not worry about it as another would soon come along. Children lived in a kind of anonymity, and families had no emotional function. Such relationships, like other social contacts, were entered into outside the family. At the end of the 17th century, again 3 Cf. for example T.S. Popkewitz – B.M. Franklin – M. Pereyra (eds.), Cultural History and Education: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Schooling, New York, Routledge, 2001; for which the first-named author received an honorary doctorate at our university in Kortrijk in 2004. 4 With the study of E. Hermsen – W. Tilmann, Faktor Religion: Geschichte der Kindheit vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, s.l., Böhlau, 2006, as a recent example. 5 P. Ariès, L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l...

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