What generations of education ministers have not succeeded in doing, the pandemic creates.
(Almost) all of Germany goes on vacation together.
The schools will be closed from December 19 - and thus a little earlier than planned in some federal states.
The idea: Schoolchildren go into self-isolation so that they don't infect grandma and grandpa at the party.
But that was it with the agreement at the latest federal-state round on schools.
How everyday school life is regulated up to the Christmas holidays remains - you guessed it - ultimately a matter of the country and is decided on site.
This is apparently also annoying Angela Merkel, who feels compelled to use warning words.
In the Chancellery, the actors would have wished for far stricter measures to protect against infection in schools - and not only there ("That's going on").
Regardless of the level at which politics make decisions, it is clear who has to implement them in schools: the local colleges.
Current surveys and very personal logs show the effects of the months of stress.
The contentious teacher Arne Ulbricht is even turning his back on German schools after 18 years.
He describes what he would do differently as Minister of Education (»Debate of the Week«)
If you have a really good idea of how at least hybrid lessons can be designed well, write to us at kleinepause@newsletter.spiegel.de about your experiences.
We collect "best practice" examples that we publish here.
Until then, all the best!
Silke Fokken, Armin Himmelrath, Swantje Unterberg
That's going on
1. The Chancellor, dissatisfied
In addition to the AHA-L rules, seven-day incidence and mask requirement, hybrid lessons and changing models are among the new words in everyday corona school life - and recently also in the Bundestag.
It seldom happens that Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks out on the subject of schools because the federal government is not responsible for it.
But now she found it inevitable.
She considers hybrid teaching in schools in the “hotspots of hotspots” to be “absolutely necessary,” warned the Chancellor in her government statement on Thursday, noticeably dissatisfied with the previous day's decision.
After a tough struggle, the federal-state group agreed on recommendations that were not particularly far-reaching: Schools in regions with a seven-day incidence of more than 200 cases per 100,000 inhabitants should implement further measures for the design of lessons »school-specific«.
These measures should apply from grade eight, but not necessarily for final grades.
Should, it says in the paper, not have to.
Merkel doesn't go far enough.
The Chancellery had proposed that regional schools should be closed if the number of infections is high.
Read the details here.
The subject of alternating lessons has been highly controversial for weeks, the positions are clear, and so the reactions to the decisions are very mixed, if not all that surprising.
Parents' associations are disappointed, and students even want to strike for hybrid lessons, as you can read here.
In the "Zeit" school administrators outraged: "Hybrid teaching is a catastrophe."
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Merkel in the Bundestag: "We have a responsibility for the entire infection process"
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / Political-Moments
2. OECD Director of Education, very satisfied
On the other hand, OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher speaks of "a good solution" that he had not expected.
Together with well-known experts such as the President of the Berlin Science Center, Jutta Allmendinger, and others, Schleicher warned against extensive hybrid teaching in a guest article in the "Tagesspiegel" on Wednesday before the Merkel round.
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Teacher with a seventh grade in face-to-face lessons: of course, all wear mouth and mask protection (symbol image)
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
3. The school management, extremely dissatisfied
From AHA-L rules to changing models, nobody has mastered the ABC of the "new normal" in schools as well as Germany's school management.
Involuntarily - for months they have been forced to implement the corona resolutions of the politicians and to turn the entire company inside out with large colleges and a few hundred students.
This has a clear effect on their mood, as a survey by the Association of Education and Upbringing (VBE) shows.
Only 24 percent of the school principals surveyed report that they "really enjoy" going to work.
Last year it was 58 percent.
The proportion of respondents who "rather reluctantly" or "very reluctantly" to go to work rose from 4 to 27 percent.
More and more school administrators are also struggling to complete all their tasks within the given working hours.
Only 3 percent say that they succeed.
One in four says they can do a maximum of half.
Sixty percent of school principals say that they can often do their job to their own satisfaction - significantly less than last year, when this opinion was still 73 percent.
Everyday Corona does not leave teachers unaffected.
According to a study by the DAK health insurance company and the German Teachers Association, every fourth teacher in the pandemic shows signs of burnout and is regularly emotionally exhausted.
The Trier teacher Katharina Fleer has published an impressive and sometimes oppressive diary of her work under Corona conditions in the »Süddeutsche Zeitung«.
One of their daily balances: "Contact with 62 households (without break supervision, colleagues, bus trip) - Schoolchildren who use their cell phone: 62 - Schoolchildren who have installed the Corona app: 0." And: "The soap is empty."
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Lessons and corona organization (symbolic picture): Many school principals say that they barely manage their work in terms of time
Photo: Wolfram Kastl / picture alliance / dpa
Good to know
No matter how much trouble a father causes at school, the school board cannot forcibly send the child to another school.
That was decided by the Berlin Administrative Court - and thus given a 15-year-old right, whose father had harassed classmates, class teachers and the school management for over two years, including with criminal charges.
Read the details here.
Debate of the week
Farewell to the red pencil milieu
Arne Ulbricht, argumentative teacher and author, worked in schools for 18 years - and reported on it in numerous books and articles, including on spiegel.de.
You can find some of his texts here, here and here.
Ulbricht has also written novels.
His current work is called »Schilksee 1990« and has - of course - to do with school.
Among other things, it is about a seventeen-year-old who is not only in love in 1990, but is also in grade 12 and discussing reunification during group work.
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Arne Ulbricht
Photo: Bernd Thissen / picture alliance / dpa
Arne Ulbricht has now turned his back on the German teachers' room - and says goodbye to all SPIEGEL readers with a very personal look back.
From 2002 to 2004 I was a trainee teacher at a grammar school in Schleswig-Holstein, then a substitute teacher at four schools in Hamburg, at a school in Berlin, and in North Rhine-Westphalia I teach at my third school - I've been permanently employed since 2012.
All in all, eighteen years of teaching in Germany that are ending now.
Because my family is moving to Sweden.
(Reason: my wife changed jobs.)
Time to look back.
What were the low points, what were the high points, what would I change as an all-German education minister with special powers?
One of the low points was certainly the structures, especially federalism, which has really made my life hell for a long time.
One example among many from 2009: "You want to apply for your second state examination from Schleswig-Holstein here in North Rhine-Westphalia?" and Berlin doesn't matter either, and I thought the state examination ... "" Education is a matter of the country, my friend! "Phew ... (And to be honest: Wasn't this Corona patchwork quilt a constant nuisance?)
And all that paperwork, it's crazy!
Especially before school trips, the madness takes on grotesque proportions, because you hand out entire questionnaires and then have to collect them again: Is your child a vegan / vegetarian?
Does he have allergies or is he taking any medication?
Can they leave the youth hostel without supervision?
Etc.
And otherwise: Nowadays you have your parents sign every test, everyone does that.
So there is constant control.
And then he has an LRS.
The other dyscalculia.
The next ADHD.
You have to take special care of these children, really.
But isn't that possible without long forms, which are sometimes more complicated to fill out than a tax return?
The teaching itself was another eighteen year high point!
And for a specific reason: You work with young people who are sweet in their own way (up to 5th / 6th grade) or more or less lovingly crazy (7th-9th) or who are taking big steps towards adulthood approach and sometimes even behave as an adult (from 10th).
You argue, you scold, you get scolded, every now and then it escalates and you look desperately, but mostly together, for solutions.
And of course there are always phases that focus on the subject teaching itself.
Then it happens that a little schoolgirl stands in front of you and says: "You, Mr. Ulbricht, I had a lot of fun today!" Or you get an email: "On your recommendation, I got nothing new in the west" Bought.
The book touched me a lot!
Thanks for the tip! «Or:» You can wrap up, the doorbell rang! «But nobody packs up - because everyone is absorbed in the creative word problem that you have asked.
In such situations, you even forget your anger that a student still hasn't paid the toilet fee and you have to call the parents.
What would I change in the Educational Republic of Germany?
Make the change of state easier, of course.
We live in a global and not a local world.
Apart from that, all this digital pact chatter simply ignores the reality of the school.
I say that even though I have long ceased to be the digitization critic that I used to be.
Tablets are okay, but they don't solve a single real problem.
What we need are smaller classes!
If you teach a class of 30, then you cannot do justice to everyone (and keeping your distance is also not possible) - even a tablet is of no use.
In such a monster association, children simply fall by the wayside.
Children who need human affection and not a touchscreen.
For smaller classes, we first need more space and second, more staff.
And if the school yard still looks like a small park and not like a parking lot in front of the discounter, school would be what it should ideally be: a place of learning that is also a place of well-being!
Educational offers from Spiegel ED
Fake news is a socially enormously relevant topic - and not just since conspiracy ideologues and corona skeptics flooded social networks with their fake news.
Our Spiegel ED education initiative, in cooperation with the Schwarzkopf Foundation Young Europe, offers several free teaching modules that deal with fake news as well as media and news literacy.
You can find the free learning materials here.
There is also an explanatory video on the topic that can also be used in lessons:
In addition, SPIEGEL is represented on the advisory board of weitklick, a network for digital media and opinion formation that has made the development of media competence among teachers on the flags.
At weitklick.de you will find free courses for self-study as well as teaching materials and event information.
Ideas, suggestions, feedback?
We look forward to receiving mail to kleinepause@newsletter.spiegel.de - and wish you the highest possible values on your satisfaction scale.