Leipzig Book Fair events hosted by “Genossenschaft Zeit-Fragen”

At this year’s Leipzig Book Fair, “Zeit-Fragen” (Current Concerns) will be represented, as well. The booth is located in Hall 4, Stand A107. Additionally Zeit-Fragen/Current Concerns, organizes three events at the fair and three evening lectures with discussion in the context of “Leipzig Reads”.

A good school for our children – it is the view of man that matters

Speakers: Karl-Jürgen Müller (D), Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist Josef Nyari (D), Urs Knoblauch (CH)

Many current “educational reforms” are based on a wrong view of man. It is economistic and deconstructivist. Current educational reforms with their emphasis on self-directed learning already in primary school correspond to this concept. The teacher should reduce his activities so that he operates merely as an impersonal instructor, an advisory “learning guide” and “coach”. Shared learning in a classroom community is displaced by a form of learning, which is called “individualising”. In contrast to this is an education, following the classic works of European educational theory, emanating from a personalist concept of man and conceiving of man as a social being. Education consists of interaction in the spirit of ethics of moral reason, social solidarity and the common good. Children and young people therefore need educators and teachers who in mutual relationship introduce them to reality. The best way of realising this in school is to give to the child and the adolescent the opportunity of developing and deepening his or her compassion and sense of community in a class community and to learn together with his classmates.
Thursday, 17 March 2016, 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm, Library Wiederitzsch, Zur Schule 10 a, 04158 Leipzig (North)
This event will be repeated on:
Saturday, 19 March 2016, 10 am to 11.30 am, CCL Bankettraum 1(Banquet Room 1) (fairground)

Efficiently educating for life. Work with children and young people in socially deprived areas

Speakers: Moritz Nestor, psychologist (CH); Wolfgang van Biezen, qualified curative teacher (CH)

Given the wave of refugees and the escalating war events between Hindukush and Africa and the worsening social misery, priests, community workers, missionaries, social workers and others are facing increasingly hard tasks, in particular in social hotspots of cities like Leipzig: failed marriages and families, overstrained single mothers left in the lurch, homeless children in the streets, often sexualized at an early age, increasing isolation and desolidarisation. increasing social distress, unemployment, diminishing educational opportunities in public schools, increasing resignation - but also anger and rising public violence, even among ever younger children. This and many more problems too often require to harden the heart in the face of this bitter reality, but also to keep it tender for the people, the children, the mothers and fathers – and last not least for the refugees brought into the country who once all had hope of a better life. How can we help building human communities where children from precarious parental homes find a bit of human warmth and a home? How can we still provide education, thus allowing the little ones better opportunities at least to some extent and giving them some hope?
Thursday, 17 March 2016, 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm, Die Brücke – Begegnungshaus Leipzig, Zollikofer Strasse 21,
04315 Leipzig (am Volkmarsdorfer Markt)

Reading – an ideal manner of emotional education

Speaker: Dr Peter Küpfer (CH)

Reading is not only an elementary cultural technique. Like no other medium reading trains imagination and empathy. In particular, reading texts which are humanly appealing and literarily enriched is a basis especially today. Children and young people who read such texts, experience a piece of the world through the eyes of another person. In contrast to film, video, and also comics,  immersing oneself in a textually designed story implies some indispensable brain and soul training. For each appearing image, every event, every emotion has to be relived, imagined, conceived of and followed by the reader. Maturation of empathy, resulting from it, is not only an intellectual, it is also an emotional performance. Real understanding, genuine tolerance towards other humans find a fertile soil where this elementary exercise of one’s own emotional education is nurtured and trained. School, parents, grandparents too (!) and our cultural public are required.
Friday, 18 March 2016, 12 to .30 pm
Literaturcafe, Hall 4, B 600

Cooperative principle – social and ethical foundations

Speaker: Dietmar Berger (D), Dr Eva-Maria Föllmer-Müller (CH), Dr phil René Roca (CH)

The speakers of the evening are Dietmar Berger, former president of the Central German Cooperative Association, Dr Eva-Maria Föllmer-Müller, psychologist, and Dr phil René Roca (historian, Research Institute Direct Democracy). From the history of cooperatives we can draw valuable conclusions for the present. It is in the tradition of the cooperative movement, to respond to current socio-political and economic-political challenges and to develop respectively implement constructive solutions. The cooperative principle is characterised by a high degree of participation and involvement; therefore, the cooperative is often preferable to other forms of enterprise. The cooperative principle includes fundamental values of human coexistence in equality and freedom and is oriented towards the common good. Cooperative interaction is a form of human coping with life in self-help, self-responsibility and self-administration, which has developed in various forms in many parts of the world. In our modern times, the cooperative idea may reveal new solution approaches, especially when it comes to the sector of provision with basic supplies. A sound basic care of the population – along the local/regional needs – is a prerequisite for the common good and can be promisingly established and maintained within a cooperative.
Friday, 18 March 2016, 7.30 pm
Lawyers Viehweger Hartmann & Partner, Chopin Strasse 9, 04103 Leipzig (city centre)

If the sovereignty of the people is really to become true. Switzerland’s direct democracy in theory and practice

Speaker: Dr phil René Roca (CH)

As part of “Leipzig Reads” the weekly newspaper Zeit-Fragen from Switzerland invites to an interesting book presentation. Thereby, the historian René Roca (Research Institute Direct Democracy, Switzerland) is presenting his book. It is titled “Wenn die Volkssouveränität wirklich eine Wahrheit werden soll” (If the sovereignty of the people is really to become true) and examines the Swiss direct democracy in theory and practice. Using the example of the Canton of Lucerne, the author shows how, in a difficult political process, direct democracy became part of the cantonal constitution. Direct democracy was also introduced in other cantons. Finally, it was possible to enforce it at the federal level. Today direct democracy is a central part of the political culture in Switzerland more than in any other country. To know its history is important for the identity of Swiss citizens and can serve as a model for other interested countries.
Sunday, 20 March 2016, 11 am to 11.30 am
Forum Specialised and Reference Book, Hall 3, Booth H 200