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A boy from the third grade solves tasks: "Great social task"
Photo: imago images / focal distanceffm
SPIEGEL:
Which children are suffering the most from school closings?
Heinz Hilgers:
The children who cannot take part in distance lessons because the circumstances do not allow it.
It makes a huge difference whether children grow up with three siblings on 60 square meters on the fifth floor of a prefabricated building or in a single-family house with a garden.
If the technical equipment is inadequate, they are completely left behind.
But children are also disadvantaged if their parents cannot support them in learning.
SPIEGEL:
What can digital teaching do?
Hilgers:
Even if digital teaching is good, it can never replace face-to-face teaching.
The methodology and didactics for giving good distance teaching, for example, have not been developed at all for the first year of primary school.
And what about the children in the special needs schools?
Their cognitive abilities are promoted through practical activities, through work in workshops - this is also how they learn language or recognize mathematical processes.
But there are currently no practical exercises, and practical work at a distance is difficult.
To person
Icon: enlarge Photo: Thomas Trutschel / imago images / photothek
Heinz Hilgers
, 72, has been President of the German Child Protection Association since 1993.
From 1989 to 1999 and from 2004 to 2009 he was mayor of the city of Dormagen.
SPIEGEL:
Which children are still particularly stressed?
Hilgers:
Those who are in the youth welfare facilities, i.e. who had to be taken into care.
The system is not designed to prevent these children from going to school.
The staff is not enough.
If there is a group room for ten children and they go to eight different schools, then distance teaching becomes an insoluble matter.
SPIEGEL:
How should politics counteract this?
Hilgers:
I have the impression that education policy is betting that 2021 will be a normal school year.
That is a misjudgment, especially for the groups of children I mentioned.
Precautions must now be taken to redress educational injustice.
Students cannot just repeat the school year like that.
So many teaching staff and so many rooms are not available.
The children from daycare are moving up.
SPIEGEL:
What do you suggest?
Hilgers:
In future, disadvantaged children will have to be taught on Saturdays and during the holidays.
SPIEGEL: But
who should teach the students?
Hilgers:
At least not social pedagogues, they have a greater shortage of staff than teachers.
And candidate teachers are a good idea, but we also need quality and experience for a job like this.
SPIEGEL:
So teachers should teach on Saturdays and during the holidays?
Hilgers:
It's about a major social task, and I expect the teachers to be open to it.
Their associations cannot refuse every time.
If they reject everything except air filters, then at the end of the day politicians will also be in despair.
Teachers are entitled to vacation, but school vacation is not the same as vacation, this is time off from classes.
A small part of it then has to be used for teaching.
This year, many young people are likely to leave school with no or poor qualifications.
Disadvantaged children and young people in particular miss many months of lessons.
But industry and trade will not be doing different aptitude tests than in previous years.
SPIEGEL:
How should politicians react to this?
Hilgers:
The Federal Minister of Education would have to convene the Employment Agency and trade associations and ask how we can ensure that every young person has a chance of decent training in the summer.
Otherwise the youngsters will lose touch in the summer and hang around for half a year or a whole year.
Then their chances of successfully transitioning into professional life decrease drastically.
It is high time that this was planned now.
SPIEGEL:
What has politics done wrong so far?
Hilgers:
It is a tragedy that we failed to prepare during the summer and Christmas holidays.
The schools should have been equipped with functioning technology as well as appropriate didactics and methodology for distance teaching.
The pandemic has shown the digital deficits our education system has.
We have much to catch up.
SPIEGEL:
How can that be achieved outside of Saturday and holiday classes?
Hilgers:
We have to work resource-oriented.
Judging by the strengths and weaknesses of the children.
In socially disadvantaged areas we have to equip schools better: smaller classes, more teachers per pupil, additional social pedagogues.
Corona problems are particularly increasing in these hot spots.
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