No minimum distance in the classroom, no reduced study groups, no lessons in the shift system: Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg, Berlin and Brandenburg are the first federal states to start the new school year. Everything should - the 16 ministers of education had fueled this hope in June - as normal as possible. As a class, with a full timetable. Does this work?
Our impression after the first few days: Teachers, parents and pupils are very happy that regular classes are finally taking place again - and we are happy with them. But the start was bumpy here and there, and there can be no talk of normality in view of the mask requirement and other corona rules. Teachers' associations and virologists are even calling for stricter regulations. The education versus health protection debate continues ("This is the matter").
Some education politicians are primarily concerned with how to make up for the missed learning material. Advance from Brandenburg: In case of doubt, the Easter holidays will be canceled. However, to put it mildly, this proposal met with little understanding ("debate of the week").
Another excitement: German is compulsory at a school in the Black Forest. When a girl spoke Turkish, she had to do detention. The parents hired a lawyer. ("What else was there").
After the summer break, our newsletter starts again with a number of controversies about schools and education. The "Kleine Pause" team is happy if you take part in the discussion - regardless of whether you are still in the holiday mood or whether everyday life has caught up with you again.
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The team from "Kleine Pause"
Susmita Arp, Silke Fokken, Armin Himmelrath
That's going on
1. "It looks pretty normal, but ..."
Welcoming the "newcomers" at the "Alter Teichweg" school in Hamburg: "Glad that you are all here"
Photo:Silke Fokken / DER SPIEGEL
On the one hand, the right to education should finally be implemented again in the new school year, on the other hand health protection should be preserved. All 16 ministers of education are stuck in this dilemma, but have so far only been able to roughly agree on a common line: teaching in class, with a full timetable. The principle of fixed groups applies, who should not mix with others in order to keep the pandemic under control. Each individual country regulates more for itself.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, which starts the new school year this Wednesday, Minister of Education Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) stayed true to her zigzag course in the pandemic. At first she wanted to do without a mask requirement in class, a few days later she surprised parents and teachers' associations with the announcement that this should apply. We researched how the U-turn came about, how educators, parents and teacher associations think about it, and what regulations apply elsewhere.
In Hamburg, where the new school year started on Thursday, it is mandatory to wear a mask at secondary schools on the entire site - except in the classroom. In addition, age groups have to keep to themselves. On the first day of school, we were able to observe why everyday school life "looks pretty normal from the outside, but is unfortunately not", as a school principal says. In view of the Corona restrictions, he feels "pedagogically transported back to the Stone Age". Here you can find text and video.
2. Teachers' association calls for stricter hygiene regulations
The new school year in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had barely started when two schools had to close again. A child and a teacher had tested positive for the corona virus. Education Minister Bettina Martin (SPD) immediately announced that she was not very surprised: "We said from the start that there would be suspected cases in schools. As long as the coronavirus has not yet been fought and there is no vaccine, we must expect it. " Bettina Martin also relies on the principle of fixed groups in order to prevent the following scenario as far as possible: that schools have to be closed again across the board.
Before that, almost all actors in the education sector are dreading it. Nevertheless, some would prefer a little less normalcy and more health protection. Heinz-Peter Meidinger, President of the German Teachers' Association, belongs to this group. After the school closings in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, he called for stricter hygiene rules in schools across Germany. If it is not possible to uphold health protection with fully open schools, one must think again about switching back to alternating between face-to-face and distance learning.
Because of such remarks, however, teacher associations have now to put up with the charge that they are not innocent of "teacher bashing" in the wake of the pandemic. In a provocative article in "ZEIT", Martin Spiewak writes that teacher representatives are "passionately committed to liquid soap and distance requirements. They hardly seem to be concerned with the right of students to education". The tone in the controversies is apparently getting tougher. My colleague Julia Merlot asked a pediatrician how he felt about school openings.
3. What else was there
Detention of the nine-year-old who spoke Turkish in the schoolyard
Photo:Private
In the Black Forest, a third grader speaks to her friend repeatedly in her mother tongue, Turkish, in the schoolyard and therefore has to write detention. Because German is compulsory at school, according to the teacher. The parents of the nine-year-old defend themselves and hire a lawyer. The case that my colleague Swantje Unterberg researched is now with the state school authorities.
It touches on a fundamental question: Should and may children with a migration background be obliged to only speak German in school outside of class? There has been a dispute about this for years, and opinions now differ. "Laissez-faire in the schoolyard doesn't help," it says in the "FAZ". The "Tagesspiegel", on the other hand, criticizes the rule as "yesterday's integration".
Debate of the week
Before Corona, Germany's students spent seven and a half hours a day studying. During the month-long school shutdown, this time was cut in half. This is the result of a parent survey by the Ifo Institute. This result provides a welcome argument for all those who insist that schoolchildren urgently need to catch up on the subjects that were missed during the pandemic.
Brandenburg's Education Minister Britta Ernst (SPD) is even considering offering compulsory face-to-face classes during the Easter break next spring. Learning offers in the autumn holidays and Saturday classes are also an option, depending on what comes out of the planned tests in the core subjects in the coming weeks. The initiative sparked severe criticism in the SPIEGEL community:
"Eliminating vacations is about as useful as eliminating sleep so that children can study 20 hours a day. The learning performance is reduced without rest breaks," warns one user .
"The children are regularly totally broken during the Easter holidays. And then the holidays should be canceled? That is now not particularly close to the actual needs," says one reader. Another: " You can only shake your head. It would make more sense to streamline the material plan."
"One more thing for teachers is not possible (and I am not a teacher, but I know many who trained their pupils in creative ways during the lockdown period)," says a reader.
SPIEGEL columnist Henrik Müller urges that educational actors have to radically rethink in view of the pandemic and the missed learning material, instead of still hoping to be able to return to the pre-corona situation soon. "We have no choice but to live with the epidemic, to work and, even that, to learn," he writes. But: The education system is not yet adjusted to this "new normal". Müller, a trained economist, describes the follow-up costs if this does not change.
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