A gyógyító és betegítő iskola
Schools that are Healing and Sickening

Summary/Abstract: The definition of what is considered a disease is a social product, just as much as what needs to be done to prevent one from getting it. Essentially, the phenomenon of a healthy school emerged during the period of Enlightenment in the 18th Century, at the same time as when the institutional system of public health and public education was simultaneously being established. At the beginning, the focus of medicine was upon hygiene issues i.e. so that one could avoid epidemics; and educational experts were thinking in terms of health education and the treatment of sick students. The conflict arose when school doctors received health education-related tasks in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The competition-based new public educational system created new problems, including an ‘overload’ of pupils. Many doctors saw a correlation between the degree of workload at schools and students’ illnesses. Psychologists tended to view damage suffered by the spirit in a similar vein; while teachers then saw the possibility of creating therapy-based schools. At the beginning of the 20th century, the ideology which was critical of schools became in turn a criticism of society, with the argument that a sick society makes sick schools.

• Details
• Contents