Individuals and communities occasionally need asking and giving forgiveness. Because the process of forgiving is not always well understood, it has become necessary to consider including forgiveness education in school pedagogy and in formal school programs such as Citizenship Education. This possibility is illustrated with examples from South Africa and The Netherlands. To date, forgiveness education has mostly taken the form of brief research interventions. It is recommended that forgiveness education, also from a Christian viewpoint, be given a more prominent place in school curriculums as well as in teacher education programs.

Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875–1951) was one of the founders of Dutch educational science and a key figure in the New Education movement in the Netherlands. This article has three aims: first, to depict Kohnstamm as an insightful example in the process of sharing and adopting ideas around New Education and the implementation of these ideas in the Dutch context. Second, to demonstrate that the New School ideas Kohnstamm embraced − such as the Dalton Plan (of Helen Parkhurst, 1887−1952) and the Gary Plan (of William Wirt, 1874–1938) − fitted in with his philosophy of personalism; this philosophy also explains why he did not choose Montessori education, which was very popular in the Netherlands during his time. Third, that this philosophy at the same time partly explains the initial limited impact Kohnstamm had on Dutch education.

Children’s religious education is vital for the formation of pupils in Dutch Orthodox Protestant schools. Therefore, it seems self-evident that parents and teachers cooperate. This article presents research on parents’ and teachers’ opinions about the helpfulness of cooperative practices in religious education. A total of 1346 parents and teachers completed questionnaires developed from a previous study. This article finds that parents and teachers cherish the ideal of ‘coherence between school and family’ although differences between the respondent groups and school types occurred. Moreover, the research shows that this ideal influences the valuing of cooperative practices of religious education.

Reading texts of historical educators and being informed about their works and lives can be inspiring and exemplary for future teachers. In this article, I explore the learning processes that occur when student teachers study the classics, using frameworks from different disciplines, including social learning theory, drama theory, Aristotelian ethics, cognitive dissonance theory, and a theory of historical imagination. The results show that the study of educators from the past can have a beneficial impact on professional virtues when the encounter is in depth and when the student can actively choose an educator who captures his or her imagination.

Teachers’ opinions are barely examined or involved in debates about school choice, although they are significant. In-depth interviews with 16 teachers revealed three interests for choosing to work at orthodox Protestant primary schools: experiencing education as inseparable from Christian socialization, feeling comfortable in the school’s religious climate, and valuing cohesion in children’s educational environments. Cohesion is a core theme, which corresponds with parents’ motives for choosing orthodox Protestant schools for their children. Teachers prefer cohesion for their pupils, but also for themselves. The significance of cohesion is influenced by several religious, pedagogical, and formational factors.