Modes of Being: Astonishment and openness in Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

This paper stems from a two-year phenomenological action research project named Innovative and Entrepreneurial Formation (Bildung) in Professional Bachelor Education. The paper explores an entrepreneurial teaching experiment aimed at combining educational ideals of entrepreneurship education with educational ideals necessary to become a professional nurse. The educational ideals aimed for is sensitivity, imagination and courage to act. Through phenomenological analysis of one teacher`s lived experience description and a phenomenological interview with a student participating in the teaching experiment, the paper inquiries into modes of Being among students participating in the experiment from an ontological perspective. Furthermore, the paper investigates how these modes of Being can relate to entrepreneurial as well as professional purposes. By that, the teaching experiment is an example of a crossfertilization between entrepreneurship education and professional education that allows both to grow. The analysis reveals astonishment as a central existential experience of Being, while participating in the specific teaching experiment. The study also shows a phenomenological association between astonishment and openness, which entrepreneurship educators have searched for pedagogies to establish.