Abstract
To understand the significance of school closures and remote learning under pandemic conditions, it is important to acknowledge that home and school are much more than just different cognitive environments; they represent heterogeneous, even mutually exclusive social and cultural systems, spheres or worlds. Each is characterized by its own roles, relations, habits, and experiences—and arguably its own forms of value and desire. Given the scope of these differences, this article takes as its focus an original and integrated philosophical treatment of the question of the domestic and scholastic spheres. This is G.W.F. Hegel’s previously untranslated remarks from an 1811 Graduation Address to a school in Nuremburg (as well as some of Hegel’s observations in his 1820 Outlines of the Philosophy of Right). Besides introducing a “new” Hegel text to English-language readers, this overview that follows also sheds light on a particular way of contrasting school and family life. It also offers an alternative perspective on the implications of the COVID pandemic for education and on general educational questions as well.