These days I often think of a courageous teacher from Brandenburg who I interviewed last year: Jette Schega from the Mina Witkojc School in Burg, a place with a high proportion of AfD voters. Two teachers wrote an incendiary letter to draw attention to right-wing extremist incidents at the school. Schega supported both of them, even if she herself was attacked for it.
I was very impressed by this teacher. She seemed tireless in campaigning and educating people against right-wing extremism and misanthropy: "When someone says 'work sets you free' in class, I can't just say: 'I heard that: get out.' I have to explain why the sentence is so bad and why it is banned.”
Schega said that her school has been running campaigns for years to increase awareness of democracy and diversity, such as projects on fake news and excursions to the Auschwitz memorial. “What we do is not well received by all parents,” explained the teacher. She often hears that schools should be a politics-free space. "But that's not exactly what they are."
This is even more true these days. Concern for democratic values, horror at an increasing disregard for human rights, frightening discrimination against people with a migration background and increasingly blatantly articulated anti-Semitism are growing in Germany; also with me.
Last weekend, tens of thousands of people demonstrated again against right-wing extremism. Saturday was also Holocaust Remembrance Day. On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the survivors of the Auschwitz extermination camp. More than a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered there.
On Remembrance Day there was an urgent call to counter anti-Semitism, racism and misanthropy: "Never again is now." These demos are a strong, important signal, but the daily educational work in schools remains at least as important.
The primary school association warns: The “hostilities expressed by the AfD and people and groups close to it also affect our children.” The association writes that the rights and common educational paths of ALL children are threatened and even questioned by the attitudes and activities of the AfD and right-wing tendencies. We therefore call on “all educators to make the education of our students, in the spirit of democratic and appreciative behavior for all people, increasingly part of school life and lessons right now!”
“Democracy education is a tough business,” says Jette Schega.
This also applies against the background of the Middle East conflict. It has been almost four months since Hamas' terrorist attack in southern Israel, and to date more than a hundred Jewish hostages are being held captive. Israel responded to the October 7 massacre with massive attacks on the Gaza Strip. The war polarized and increased anti-Semitism in Germany too.
As an education journalist, I am shocked to hear that many Jewish children no longer feel safe in schools in this country. Other children report that they suffer from anti-Muslim sentiment. After the radical deportation plans, children from immigrant families are worried about whether they will be allowed to stay in Germany.
It is clear that teachers are under great strain in the face of such (and many other) immense challenges in schools. Is the criticism that PISA boss Andreas Schleicher recently leveled at Germany's teachers unfair and excessive - or does this apply to the harsh reaction of some teachers' associations? Are they not open to criticism?
(Debate of the week)
As always, we look forward to your impressions, experiences and topic suggestions - please send an email to bildung@spiegel.de.
For the SPIEGEL education team
Silke Fokken, editor in the Germany/Panorama department
Feedback & suggestions?
That's going on
1. Why is a teacher surplus an
“
opportunity
”
?
In view of the acute staff shortage in Germany's schools, the Bertelsmann Foundation surprised people on Thursday with news that initially sounded positive: At least in primary schools, the shortage of teachers should be more than overcome by 2035. The reason is a significant decline in births.
So should the federal states immediately stop increasing teaching places? Otherwise, is there a risk of a “teacher glut”? According to the study, that depends solely on politics. Because the calculations are based on the status quo. According to the authors, there will be a “great opportunity” and a “rare opportunity” to invest in educational quality in the future.
If primary schools hire more teachers in the future, they will be able to better support socially disadvantaged children, provide better all-day care and offer lessons in small groups more often. The system would finally no longer be as tight-knit as it was before. Damper: According to calculations by the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), the teacher surplus in 2035 will be much lower than calculated by the Bertelsmann Foundation. In addition, a shortage of teachers is still to be expected at other types of schools.
2. What is an educational minimum?
Children are not only
required to
attend school , but also have a
right
to education. The Federal Constitutional Court made this clear when it came to teaching during the pandemic. On the occasion of the International Day for Education on January 24th, a group of well-known education experts referred to this and warned: “Every child is entitled to a minimum standard of school education. Financial bottlenecks in the state do not constitute a justification for falling below this minimum standard.” In a manifesto, the group presented what an “education minimum” should look like.
What's frightening in this context is that many refugee children and young people in Germany have no access to education at all, but sometimes wait months for a place at school. In Saxony alone there are 1,400. Nationwide figures are not available. Only just under half of the states responded to a SPIEGEL survey in the 16 education ministries. Some say that all children have school places. However, this sometimes only applies to children with a registration address.
3. How do parents feel about grades?
The first half of the school year will end in a few days, and many students will receive certificates with grades - to the chagrin of many parents. Almost every third father (30 percent) and even almost every second mother (46 percent) reject grades on their children's report cards. This is shown by a survey by the opinion research institute forsa, as Table.Media reports.
Instead, these parents would prefer to receive individual feedback on their children's learning status, according to the survey commissioned by the tutoring provider Studienkreis. How parents feel about “classic” grades has little to do with their children’s school performance. Younger parents reject grades more often than older parents.
What are your views on this topic? Grades yes or no? We look forward to your opinion. Please feel free to write to bildung@spiegel.de
And otherwise?
“Hell traineeship”: Our report on how Germany is scaring away its teachers of tomorrow has met with great interest. The reports from former trainees seem to have touched a nerve. You can find the text here.
Further reading recommendations:
New school, bad grades – does that have to be the case? When children go to high school, their academic performance often drops. But parents and teachers can do something about it. Professor Silvia-Iris Bag gives tips.
For education nerds: This is what the traffic light's major education policy projects are like: 2024 could be the year of education policy in Germany. Could – and should. But what can really be expected?
Equal opportunities: Children from disadvantaged families in particular benefit if they start a daycare center at an early age. A new study shows: There are immense effects even in two-year-olds.
In other media:
The “FAZ” reports how a teacher takes a stand against racism at school.
“ZEIT ONLINE” explains what an AfD minister would mean for schools and universities.
Debate of the week
The excitement in the German teaching colleges could hardly be greater: After the new Pisa debacle for Germany, the international coordinator of the performance study, Andreas Schleicher, called for consequences - and harshly criticized teachers in this country. "Too many teachers see themselves primarily as recipients of orders who have to statically work through a curriculum in the classroom," Schleicher told the "Stuttgarter Nachrichten."
And: "The change to teaching children and young people, above all, independent thinking has not yet taken place sufficiently in German classrooms." The PISA boss also explained that he had "little understanding for teachers who only insist that they are overloaded."
The criticism was accepted - and was harshly rejected by teachers' associations. The German Association of Philologists even asked the KMK to stop taking part in Pisa as long as Schleicher was responsible for the study. The PISA boss, on the other hand, remained undeterred and stuck to his stance in the “Zeit” interview: teachers need to cope better with the demands of this time.
We have collected more voices for the debate. The former State Secretary for Education in Berlin, Mark Rackles, says
:
"Mr. Schleicher has been sitting in a Parisian glass palace for 30 years and has repeatedly proven in his personal statements that he is far removed from local educational professional practice." But Rackles is critical also the reaction of the teachers' associations: If the associations now called for an exit from Pisa because of a few unworldly statements, it was a "rather transparent attempt to push away the unpleasant messages from Pisa without discussing the content." Rackles continues: »Of course the quality of school performance has something to do with the quality of the teachers' educational work. This needs to be improved and demanded, that is right with and without Mr. Schleicher.”
You can read the entire article with further assessments here.
And what do you think? Please feel free to write to bildung@spiegel.de. That's it for this time. Thank you very much for your interest. The next issue of “Little Pause” will be published in two weeks. Until then, have a good time!