THE 18TH ANNUAL BERGEN EDUCATIONAL CONVERSATION
SPEAKING TO TEACHERS THROUGH CLASSICAL PEDAGOGICAL TEXTS
The Bergen Educational Conversation has been held every year since 2009. The aim of the conversation is to bring together scholars from the field of educational research, often together with educational practitioners, in order to focus on key issues in education.
The conversation takes the form of presentations and discussions, usually over a 48-hour period, so as to make thoughtful and sufficiently ‘slow’ interaction possible.
The focus for the 2026 Educational Conversation is "Speaking to Teachers through Classical Pedagogical Texts."
Members from the PedLab Research Group are currently working on a book which will contain 8 classical texts from the European pedagogical tradition. Each text will be accompanied by a letter written to teachers in order to introduce and contextualise the text, and make the case why engagement with the text is meaningful for contemporary practices of teaching.
The main idea behind the book is to open up the pedagogical tradition for teachers and students in teacher education programmes. Whereas nowadays teachers are often exposed to empirical research, the ambition of the book is to (re)connect them to important insights from the pedagogical tradition, particularly in order to show the relevance of pedagogical ways of engaging with teaching.
In the Educational Conversation we will bring together the prospective authors of the book with scholars interested in pedagogical theory and history. The Conversation is partly intended to discuss first drafts of chapters, partly intended to reflect on what constitutes a ‘classical text’ within the tradition of European pedagogy, and partly intended to explore how classical texts can be meaningful for contemporary teaching practice.
In this way the Conversation will not just be a useful ‘step’ towards the writing of the book but will also be very helpful for the wider framing for the book, and for exploring the importance of engaging with classical texts in teaching and teacher education.
