The Theoretical Foundations of Learning by Teaching: Two Foundational Papers from 1986 and 1988

Abstract

This working paper revisits two foundational publications by Jean-Pol Martin: Für eine Übernahme von Lehrfunktionen durch Schüler (1986) and Schüler in komplexen Lernumwelten (1988). Read together, the two papers reveal that Learning by Teaching was conceived from the outset as more than a classroom technique. The 1986 paper formulates Learning by Teaching as an information-processing and action model. By assuming teaching functions, students repeatedly move through a cycle of interest, information reception, processing, storage, reactivation and application. In this process, they develop epistemic and heuristic competence, engage in complex action, respond to the cognitive and emotional processes of others and gain increasing control over knowledge and communication. The 1988 paper expands this model into a cognitively grounded curriculum for dealing with complexity and uncertainty. It introduces a theoretical architecture centred on differentiation and integration, exploration, cognitive maps, abstraction, empathy, emotional distance, control, self-confidence and dialectical thinking. The curriculum develops from teaching functions in the classroom through the exploration of unfamiliar social environments to cultural, historical and self-reflective analysis. The present paper reconstructs the shared architecture of these two early texts and traces its continuity into Martin’s later work on Learning by Teaching, the New Human Rights and human–AI cooperation. It argues that these later developments are not separate additions but extensions of a stable theoretical core already visible in the 1980s. The record contains the English-language analytical paper and the two original German-language articles as historical primary sources. Jean-Pol Martin holds the rights to all included files. The analytical paper was developed by Jean-Pol Martin in dialogue with ChatGPT.