Education (used in the German sense of 'Erziehung') is the relation between pointing and learning. On the pointing-side we can find the whole stock of cultural knowledge, right opposite to it there are the individuals as learners, at different stages of development throughout their life-circle. The central function of educational efforts consists in bringing together these two sides. But how? This simple question underlines the technological challenge of the pedagogical task which Kant 1803 has formulated in the clearest way possible when he spoke about the 'mechanisms in the art of education which have to be transformed into the language of science' (vgl. In Pädagogik). In terms of modern theory Kant’s dictum suggests to contruct educational theory from a bottom-up-perspective, so to say from what can be realized by means of and throughout pedagogical relations. Since some years we have a new study-group in Germany which tries to work out the project of what we call “Operative Pedagogy”. Due to the fact that it is impossible to illustrate the whole range of embedded problems within a 15minutes presentation I will confine myself to one single basic point: the rising of the pointing structure in early childhood development. Using empirical studies from cultural anthropology as well as from psychopathology it can clearly be demonstrated that the so-called “nine-months-revolution” indicates the phase in which a little baby (in contrast to young primates and autistic children) succeeds in folding out and applying the pointing-structure at the first time by identifying itself with the inner world of the ‘mother’ (caregiver) in perceiving the other person as a separate one. This then established basic developmental triangle of learning is the blueprint for all pedagogical operations to follow and happen later. This empirical fact as a lot of consequences for the understanding of education both as a profession and as a scientific discipline. Since the forms in which pedagogues and educationalists try to show the world to the learners precicely follow (with slight modifications off course) the form by which a young baby had tried to show itself the world at the first time by the “pointing support” of a facilitative environment. And that means: the didactic triangle which lies at the bottom of all pedagogical efforts has a powerful predecessor in the early developmental triangle of learning. From this point of view it can clearly be seen why education can be understood as the sum of reactions to the fact of learning. The “art of education” mainly consists in bringing together pointing and learning by what can be called articulation. Articulation is the central operation to synchronize the pointing process with the learning process though the outcomes of these efforts are to some extent necessarily open: the gap between an even optimally articulated pointing structure and the learning process can only be closed by an autopoetic step of the learner itself. This is the common fate of all psychosocial professions which try to get influence on persons by merely communicative means.

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Talking about 'education' on an European level resembles to some extent "The Tower of Bable". Therefore it seems to be helpful for any educational reflection on this international level to try to find out a common phenomenological basis because the national structures of educational disciplines have rather different profiles mainly according to the specific languages used. Looking operatively might be a productive suggestion to bring to light the common basis of educational sciences across Europe.