Learning from the Past for the Future: How to Make Adult Education Sustainable

When compared to education with children, adolescents and students, adult education has particular opportunities and challenges, depending on stronger biographical influences: adults have developed their own learning style and learning competence and apart from more formal learning opportunities facilitated through digital learning and/or learning in schools/universities, there are many opportunities for informal learning, often influenced by experiences of education as a child. In this regard, biographical learning offers opportunities for transformational, organic, remembrance and experiences. The study, therefore, focuses on such kinds of adult education as a core element, particularly of Protestant adult education.

This paper presents a multidimensional concept of Protestant adult education, which integrates existing concepts into a memory oriented educational framework. Therefore, the theoretical considerations explain the phenomenological background of this particular concept. In a second step, this concept will be contextualized within the historical context of Protestant adult education. The summary emphasizes the particular aspect of educational coping with past, current and future experiences and situations.