Georg Kerschensteiner

Born in Munich on July 29, 1854, Georg Kerschensteiner became one of Germany’s best-known educational thinkers. He worked as a teacher and later served for many years as director of Munich’s public schools, helping shape major reforms in the city’s school system.

He is closely associated with the idea of the Arbeitsschule, or “work school,” which treated active, practical learning as an important part of education rather than a distraction from it. He believed schools should build character, responsibility, and civic commitment, not just pass on academic knowledge, and he became an important voice in the growth of vocational education in Germany.

After his work in school administration, he became a professor at the University of Munich. Although he wrote in the early twentieth century, his questions still feel current: how should schools balance intellectual study, useful skills, and preparation for citizenship?