The Role of Friendship and Partnership in an Education for Life An article published in Knowledge Cultures, please cite published article: Teschers, C. (2015). The Role of Friendship and Partnership in an Education for Life. Knowledge Cultures, 3(5), 92-101. Christoph Teschers New Zealand Tertiary College ABSTRACT. Partnership as a term in education is used in various ways. Partnerships exist between teachers and students, teachers and parents, teachers and colleagues, schools and communities, as well as between educational institutions, governments and society as a whole. Drawing on Schmid’s philosophical concept of the art of living, this article explores the notions of partnership and friendship in relation to the other, society, humanity and our environment on a global scale. The aim is to explore the meaning and role of these terms and concepts in the context of an education for life. The education for life concept, as understood in this article, is based on Schmid’s art of living concept and revisits the idea of personal development and well-being instead of focusing solely on economical advancement. Keywords: partnership, friendship, art of living, education for life, ecology, Wilhelm Schmid Introduction The term ‘partnership’ is used widely in educational settings to describe a range of relationships on an individual, a community and on a global level. Some of the forms of partnership of the first kind that can be found in daily practice in schools and other educational institutions are the relationships between the teacher and the student, the teacher and the parents, as well as the teacher and his or her colleagues. On a society level, each educational institution, such as an early childhood centre, a school or a university, is connected with the local community, as well as with the state or national government through policies, governance and through its function to educate democratic citizens (Dewey, 1916/2001). The partnership between schools, teachers and students on a global level, in an education for life context, is based on the notion of responsibility – especially responsibility in relation to the environment. The education for life concept, as has been discussed elsewhere (Teschers, 2013b), revisits the idea of personal development and well-being instead of economical advancement and is based on Schmid’s (2000a) philosophical concept of the art of living. An education for life aims towards enabling students to develop their own art of living and live the best life possible according to their own judgement and under the circumstances they are living in (Teschers, 2013a). To develop one’s own art of living means, according to Schmid (2000a), to take responsibility for one’s own life and to try to make it a beautiful one. Schmid uses the term ‘beautiful’ life instead of ‘good’ life to emphasise the individual perspective of taste in the context of art. To shape one’s own life means to become an artist and to make one’s life a work of art. Similar to a painting, which might be beautiful and attractive in the eye of one person but quite the opposite in the eye of another, the beauty of one’s own life can only be judged by the person living this life; outside perspectives of other people have no value in the context of the art of living. As has been argued elsewhere (Teschers, 2010), Schmid’s notion of the art of living is an active one: