Hanns-Fred Rathenow, born 1943 in Berlin, is Professor Emeritus for Education on History and Politics (historical-political education) at the Berlin University of Technology (Technische Universität Berlin). He was the Director of the then Institute for Social Sciences and Education in History and Politics from 2001-2010 within the University of Technology Faculty of Humanities. He used to be a secondary school teacher before he entered into an academic career in 1971 and dedicated his scientific work to the broad fields of Human Rights Education including Holocaust Education, Peace and Environmental Education, later to Global Education and Education for Sustainability.
Hanns-Fred Rathenow, born 1943 in Berlin, is Professor Emeritus for Education on History and Politics (historical-political education) at the Berlin University of Technology (Technische Universität Berlin). He was the Director of the then Institute for Social Sciences and Education in History and Politics from 2001-2010 within the University of Technology Faculty of Humanities. He used to be a secondary school teacher before he entered into an academic career in 1971 and dedicated his scientific work to the broad fields of Human Rights Education including Holocaust Education, Peace and Environmental Education, later to Global Education and Education for Sustainability.As a Visiting Professor at the Richardson Institute for Peace and Conflict Research, Lancaster University, he met David Selby at the former World Studies Teacher Training Centre in 1983 and in 1989 he was hosted by David at the Centre for Global Education, York University for a couple of months as a Visiting Fellow. In this time he lived together with his wife and his three boys in Botton Village, a Camphill Community in the Yorkshire Moors, and appreciated people, landscape and kippers in Northeast England. In 2000 he was a Visiting Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto.
Hanns has authored and edited a number of books and has written articles on Global Education, Human Rights Education and Holocaust Education. He is the co-editor of the bilingual CD-ROM-project, Learning from History. The Nazi Era and the Holocaust in German Education, published in 2000 (http://learning-from-history.de/) and in 2003 co-authored a German handbook on Global Education together with David Selby.
Hanns was one of the first German educators to introduce the German readership to ideas of a holistic approach to education developed by David Selby. When he cooperated with David in York (1989) Hanns found many bridges between Global Education and Rudolf Steiner´s Waldorf Educational ideas, an educational philosophy he remains very fond of.
Recently he has been working on a curriculum for upper secondary vocational schools based on his radical conviction that the gross domestic product should be seen as a measure of ecological overexploitation and destruction of our planet.
By the way, Hanns is the owner of a classical Mirror Dinghy (M53411) and a typical ‘desk-sailor’ with all the German certificates but with only limited time to really sail a boat.