”Sapere Aude!” is one of the famous credos of the Enlightenment. “Have the courage to use your own reason!” It was coined by Immanuel Kant in 1783 in response to the question What is Enlightenment? (Kant, 1999 [1789]. For over 200 years, this ideal has dominated the western educational world: Dare to be clever; use your reason, i.e., use your cognitive or academic abilities. It has been instrumental in the great triumphs of public upper secondary education (the Danish Gymnasium) and constitutes the ultimate ideal of secondary education. ‘Sapere aude’ epitomises the ideal of Bildung. The fact that more than 70 % of lower secondary students in present-day Denmark continue on to upper secondary education is evidence that it remains the dominant educational tendency.

Therefore, the key function of didactics has been to support teaching that contributes to the students’ acquisition of knowledge about the world – even a world marked by great uncertainty. It is also the reason why there is a vast body of pedagogical and didactical literature on the acquisition of academic knowledge. Meanwhile, didactics has underprioritized the practical orientation.

However, Danish Minister for Education and Children, Mattias Tesfaye, has carried out his own informal investigation on the topic. During 2024, he talked to thousands of youths about their education dreams and choices. They told him that “an increasing number of youths reject the sharp distinction between theory and practice. More youths at the vocational education colleges want to be challenged in academic subjects at upper secondary level. Many upper secondary students dream about practical teaching and courses on collaboration with the business sector,” writes Tesfaye (website 1).

In other words, the youths reject the divided categories of the old world: tools or books? Trade or school? Skill or knowledge? This is why, according to Mattias Tesfaye, primary and lower secondary education needs to become more practically oriented, and why the current, academically oriented upper secondary education should be supplemented with a parallel and equally privileged practically oriented option.

One central challenge in relation to these ambitions is how to strengthen practice-oriented didactics. This is the main reason why we at the Teacher Education programme at University College Copenhagen have established a research programme on practice-based didactics, teaching and learning.

The overall purpose of the new research programme on didactics of practice-based teaching and learning is to identify and realize the ideal of ’facere aude’: Have courage to use your skills. Show what you are capable of. Trust what you do. Know which skill-oriented arguments are viable in practical contexts. Commit to showing what you are capable of in a way that allows you to share your skill with others and make informed choices together with them. Based on this, the aim of didactics of practice-based teaching and learning is that the students develop, as Tesfaye terms it, “Clever hands” (Tesfaye, 2019).

However, the definition of practice-based knowledge is currently almost all-encompassing, and the theoretical framework is lacking foundation (Knudsen and Sattrup, 2020; Tangaard, 2020), not least concerning the clarification and identification of a didactics of practice-based teaching and learning. Another challenge is that the theory-practice relationship is repeatedly presented as a dichotomy, where more of one means less of the other (Wistoft & Qvortrup, 2023).

This proposal intends to clarify the concept of ‘facere aude’ as an ideal for students’ lifelong skills. The research question is: How can a theoretical, skill-oriented framework be developed for didactics of practice-based teaching and learning, integrating ‘sapere aude’ and 'facere aude' as ideal of didactics, teaching and learning in an uncertain society?

The method applied in this proposal includes two dimensions: a) an epistemological analysis and b) a scoping literature review of research on didactics of practice-based teaching and learning in elementary school. The epistemological analysis focuses on changing positions regarding the relationship between theory and practice in the ideational history of didactics. The epistemological analysis begins with the founder of Didactics, Johan Amos Comenius. In his Didactica Magna from 1627-1638, the basic principle is: “The commencement of knowledge must always come from the senses” (Comenius, 1906 [1628-32], p.185). The goal is knowledge through senses – not skills. The German concept of Bildung, as expounded by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (Kant, 1999 [1784]), became a core concept in the European ideational history of didactics, together with Kant’s ‘sapere aude’. Here, knowledge is also the aim (Kant, 1999 [1784]). Further clarifying a concept of ‘facere aude’, the analysis focuses on John Dewey ‘s (1859-1952) The School and Society (1899), and Gert Biesta’s World-Centered Education: A View for the Present (Biesta, 2022). Referring to Dewey, Biesta proposes a world-oriented school based on three conditions: Subjectification, socialization and qualification. He sets the direction for a basic understanding of the pedagogical vision, including both skills and knowledge (Biesta, 2022). Using this analysis helped clarify the concept of ‘facere aude’ as an ideal for students’ lifelong skills, corresponding to OECD’s strong focus on skills in “The future of education and skills” (OECD, 2015). The scoping literature review intended to identify research literature in the field of practice-based teaching and learning in Danish elementary school in the period 2014-2024. The point of departure was a traditional systematic research review. However, it was an obstacle to a traditional review that there are currently different understandings of didactics of practise-based teaching and learning, and no shared understanding across stakeholders (research, policy, practice) dealing with practical expertise, as well as very few scientific studies. By using a scoping review method (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Colquhoun et al., 2014), we were able to include a broader range of sources and approaches, including theoretical articles, practice-oriented descriptions and empirical studies – both peer-reviewed and ‘grey’ literature (Munn et al., 2018). More specifically, based on the scoping review approach, we combined a systematic literature search with ad hoc searches/snowballing. We used the following search string: Praksisfaglighed* AND (Undervisning OR Læring) AND (Skole OR Læreruddannelse OR elever) AND Didakti*. In total, the review includes 36 Danish publications.

There are many different understandings and definitions of didactics of practise-based teaching and learning in the included literature, and it is hard to pinpoint didactics that are generally applicable. In most cases, existing subject fields define practical expertise based on predefined methods and didactics. Only few publications investigate and argue empirically with an outset in practise-based teaching and learning. When the concept is operationalised, it is primarily connected to subjects and/or known theories or perspectives from the existing core concepts of didactics. The relationship between theory and practice can be understood in continuation of an operationalisation of the concept of practical expertise, but only few use the concept as an opportunity to explicitly discuss the relationship between theory and practice (Knudsen & Sattrup, 2020; Wistoft & Qvortrup, 2023). There is little focus on the effect of working with practical expertise on students’ lifelong skills, and only few publications deal with the concept of practical expertise in a teacher education didactical context (website 4). From the epistemological analysis, it is evident that didactics of practice-based teaching and learning will benefit from the intention to strengthen the students’ practical skills, experiences, choices and creative expressions in the context of a solid foundation of knowledge. In that sense, the intention is to facilitate dynamic interaction between practical skills and knowledge. The brief definition of didactics of practice-based teaching and learning is: didactic knowledge about and reflection on practice-based and skill-oriented teaching and learning in school. It entails both ’sapere aude’ and ’facere aude’. Thus, ‘facere aude’ can be realized when students have the courage to use their skills, trust what they do and share their skills with others. The future of education and skills (OECD Education 2030) should strengthen ’facere aude’: Facilitating students’ lifelong skills.

Arksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616 Biesta, G. (2022). World-Centred Education: A View for the Present. Routledge Børne- og Undervisningsministeriet [Ministry of Education] (2018). Aftale om styrket praksisfaglighed i folkeskolen [Agreement on strengthened practice-based teaching and learning in the elementary school] https://www.regeringen.dk/media/5650/180612-aftale-om-styrket-praksisfaglighed-i-folkeskolen-ny.pdf (in Danish) Børne- og Undervisningsministeriet [Ministry of Education] (2021). Praksisfaglighed [Practice-based teaching and learning]. EMU https://emu.dk/grundskole/praksisfaglighed (in Danish) Colquhoun, H. L., Levac, D., O’Brien, K. K., Straus, S., Tricco, A. C., Perrier, L., Kastner, M., & Moher, D. (2014). Scoping reviews: Time for clarity in definition, methods, and reporting. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 67(12), 1291–1294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.03.013 Comenius, J. A. (1907). The Great Didactics [Didatica Magna]. London: Adam and Charles Black EVA [Danish Evaluation Institute] (2019). Praksisfaglighed i skolen. En forundersøgelse [Practice-based teaching and learning in school. A preliminary study]. Copenhagen: EVA (in Danish). EVA [Danish Evaluation Institute] (2023). Kortlægning af folkeskolers arbejde med praksisfaglighed [Mapping primary schools' work with practice-based teaching and learning]. Copenhagen: EVA (in Danish). Kant, I. (1999 [1784]). Was ist Aufklärung? Ausgewählte kleine Schriften. In Brandt, H. D. (ed.). Philosophische Bibliothek. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag (in German). Knudsen, L. E. D., & Sattrup, L. (2020). Bredde og dybde i praksisfaglighed [Breadth and depth in practice-based knowledge]. Unge Pædagoger, Årgang 81(3), 20–27 (in Danish) Munn, Z., Peters, M. D. J., Stern, C., Tufanaru, C., McArthur, A., & Aromataris, E. (2018). Systematic review or scoping review? Guidance for authors when choosing between a systematic or scoping review approach. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x OECD (2015). Universal Basic Skills: What Countries Stand to Gain. OECD Publishing file:///C:/Users/kwis/Downloads/9789264234833-en.pdf Tanggaard, L. (2020). Når vi ved mere end vi kan fortælle – en indkredsning af praksisfaglighedsbegrebet i teori og praksis [When we know more than we can tell – an identification of the concept of practice-based knowledge in theory and practice]. Unge Pædagoger, Årgang 81(3), 12–19 (in Danish). Tesfaye, M. (2019). Kloge hænder – et forsvar for håndværk og faglighed [Clever hands – a defense of craftsmanship and professionalism]. Copenhagen: Gyldendal (in Danish). Wistoft, K. & Qvortrup, L. (2023): Praksisfagdidaktik – med madkundskab som eksempel [Didactics of practice-based teaching and learning – with examples from Home Economics]. In: Rasch-Christensen, A. (red.): Praksisfaglighed i skolen. Frederikshavn: Dafolo, 77-94 (in Danish) Websites (in Danish): 1.https://politiken.dk/debat/kroniken/art10228821/Mit-nyt%C3%A5rsfors%C3%A6t-i-2024-var-simpelt.-Jeg-skulle-tale-med-tusind-unge.-Her-er-hvad-jeg-l%C3%A6rte 2.https://politiken.dk/debat/kroniken/art10103728/Nu-giver-vi-alle-unge-der-best%C3%A5r-folkeskolens-afgangseksamen-mulighed-for-at-komme-p%C3%A5-gymnasiet 3.https://www.ucviden.dk/da/publications/praksisfaglighed-i-l%C3%A6reruddannelsen