The Lower Saxony grammar schools have been affected by a large number of changes over the past 16 years: abolition of the orientation level, conversion to the central Abitur, introduction of school autonomy, development of an all-day offer, implementation of inclusion and integration of refugee children.

In addition, there is the conversion to G8 as a permanent major construction site and the deconstruction to G9 that was ordered immediately afterwards.

Added to this is the digital transformation.

It will profoundly change school logistics and lesson planning.

Change was and is constantly taking place, and always with the aim of making lessons as effective as possible.

School was mostly viewed as an overall structure that should offer the necessary space for the interaction of technical and social learning.

A reasonable approach.

And yet actors and the school public did not experience these phases of change as constant improvement, they were often tackled only hesitantly, sometimes ignored.

This has to do with the way they were created and, above all, with their implementation.

All of the reforms mentioned were politically initiated and decreed top-down, very rarely supported by intrinsic motivation.

However, as organizational psychology teaches, successful change can only succeed if the people involved are involved.

Where professional leadership is lacking

People usually only change their behavior if they expect something from it: less stress, more effectiveness, deeper meaning of their own actions.

At school, however, we often have to deal with overly complex concepts whose meaningfulness is not self-evident.

Professional management would attach great importance to prior agreement on goals and also allow sufficient time for this.

As a rule, however, it is missing in the measure management of the federal states, as the disastrous misplanning of both the reduction in school days and its cancellation made everyone involved feel.

The culture administration could learn a more goal-oriented management in their own schools by orienting themselves on the principles of effective teaching: It begins with the fact that goals are plausibly justified and agreement is reached about them (didactics). At the same time, their range and characteristics would have to be adapted to the possibilities of the clientele (didactic reduction). A promising path must then be found that reliably leads to these goals (methodology). It would be wise if the first positive results acted as confirmation and encouragement in the shortest possible time.

From the point of view of a head teacher, who has to act in this way every day if he really wants change, such a parallel between school institutions and learning groups is almost inevitable. Such a change of perspective would be a necessary condition for successful development, but unfortunately not a sufficient one. Because even if change is organized smartly in this sense, the mediation process remains difficult. The respective pedagogical credo of the actors is often too different, the fundamental question of the value of heterogeneity is not clarified, the question of how intentional teaching should be and how much laisser-faire it can tolerate is not clarified. There is a lack of consensual teaching concepts between studies, school practice, further education and training. Instructors in legal traineeships, specialist advisers, school directors,Specialist moderators - they all do not speak the same didactic language.