This is a paper given by the author at a conference to celebrate his 80th birthday. It summarises the arguments in favour of turnaround education that have been published in his earlier works. The emphasis is placed on humanity and its grounding in the qualities of the personality. The paper recapitulates the main characteristics of turnaround education, which takes as its goal the development of humanity: education as insight into the world and the human being’s place in it, the accent on education as upbringing, the experiential qualities of education, goal complexity, the activation of the pupil to co-actorship in learning.
This special number of Pedagogika including publication of this paper was planned without the author’s knowledge and intended as a surprise for him. Shortly before this plan could be revealed to him, Prof. Helus’s state of health suddenly deteriorated and so this paper is appearing without his final authorisation.