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petencies. We must try to find the answer to the
question of how the insightful master is created.
And the answer to this question is no doubt that
it requires the ability to cut across established
insights and problem-solving methods while
maintaining a possibility and room for immersion
into the subject?
Chapter 2 shows how current problems in the
educational policy, for instance the lacking
interest in the hard-core natural sciences subjects
and the possibilities and limitations of the project
competency, are results of a long historical development
from Antiquity to present times.
The meaning of the term ‘school’, which originally
comes from Greek, points at the basic fact that
a lot of knowledge is a result of keeping pupils
and students isolated from the complex life surrounding
them. It is often a condition for competency
in subjects to thrive. What the more practically
oriented knowledge is concerned, it is not
till late in history that it has been institutionalised
in the form of schools and educational institutions,
as it was most easily acquired in practice.
All institutionalised teaching at schools with
subjects has its origins in life and exists for the
sake of life, but it can easily happen that it stiffens
and becomes alienated from life.
In the following, an outline is given of the development
of the subject composition from the liberal
arts (artes liberales) of the Antiquity through
Wilhelm von Humboldt’s neo-humanism to the
present Gymnasium and humanities programmes.
The introduction of the professional,
technical, and vocational subjects (science, engineering
etc.) at the end of the 1800s was of
epochal importance. In this context, the lacking
interest in the basic natural sciences subjects is
mentioned and discussed. At the same time, the
necessity of the concept of core competency is
pinpointed on account of the rapid development
in the subject-specific knowledge, not least
within the ‘professional, technical, and vocational
subjects.
With the point of departure in Gidden’s theory
on modernity, an illustration is given of IT and
its importance to the teaching, among other
things in the form of the current ideas of a virtual
Gymnasium and university. It is furthermore
underlined that the modern knowledge society
also is and should be a network society.
The modern project competency has its roots
back in Rousseau’s and Dewey’s criticism of the
traditional competencies. It is underlined that
the in-depth knowledge, which is the objective of
project work, must be supported by ‘in-breadth’
knowledge. Depth without breadth is narrow,
and breadth without depth is superficial.
The chapter ends with an observation on the
function of the humanities subjects in modern
society in addition to their function in the tradi-
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