KurtHahn.org

We Reflect.

“Education must enable young people to effect what they have recognized to be right, despite hardships, despite dangers, despite inner skepticism, despite boredom, and despite mockery from the world.”
—Kurt Hahn

In these challenging times, we are reminded that Kurt Hahn enacted bold courage in the face of fascism. Morality, human decency and care for our common lives are at the core of his educational philosophy. Hahn strongly condemned Hitler’s actions in the early 1930s.

After Hitler was elected in 1933, he imprisoned Hahn. Friends from Britain helped to negotiate his release and he fled to Britain, where he started Outward Bound. Hahn believed, in the words of his biographer Thomas James, that moral aims “should animate every aspect of education.”

We Connect.

Kurt Hahn was the founder of the the Atlantic College, the first United World College, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Gordonstoun, Outward Bound, and Salem. In addition, many other institutions, such as the Atlantic Challenge, the Kurt Hahn Trust, and Round Square, were initiated by others who were inspired by his ideas. We seek to help facilitate connections – the exchange of ideas and resources – between these institutions.

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We Remember.

We wish to remember Kurt Hahn’s contribution to education in a way that fosters the continued exchange of ideas and innovation in the field of education and in our global society as a whole. Kurt Hahn was born June 5th, 1886 and died December 14th, 1974. “There is more in you than you think” is an inscription found on the wall of a family home in Belgium before World War II. It became the motto for the school Kurt Hahn founded in Britain, Gordonstoun, and the leitmotiv of his philosophy: that each of us has more courage, more strength and more compassion than we would ever have fathomed. Kurt Hahn’s calling in life was to help people around the world realize this truth about themselves. We hope you find similar inspiration here.

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