With the end of the school year approaching, there's a lot to say goodbye: to a skeleton, to an entire school, and even to a secretary of state.
That and more in our educational newsletter.
Be honest, when was the last time you were in that little closet at the back of your school's science wing?
Is there also this human skeleton on a small roller board that can be taken to the appropriate biology lesson in class?
In the Eifel, schoolchildren have now ensured that the real human school skeleton is replaced by a plastic skeleton after around 70 years - including a dignified burial for the unknown woman whose bones had previously been used for learning ("That's going on") .
Here I could now continue with a few puns about the bone-dry job in the management floor of a ministry, about deadly boring meetings or the like - but let's leave that. The fact is: Thomas Sattelberger (FDP), previously one of the parliamentary state secretaries in the Federal Ministry of Education, last Friday announced his resignation.
Officially, that means: »He has asked for his release« – and of course he is not refused.
There had been rumors of a certain dissatisfaction of the FDP man with his office for a long time, and Sattelberger himself justified the withdrawal on Friday with “health and private reasons”.
He will also resign from his position as a member of the Bundestag;
the decision was not easy for him.
This could be bad news for schools: Thomas Sattelberger, who before his career in politics had been active on the board of Deutsche Telekom, among other things, stood like no other for the FDP's demand for rapid and comprehensive digitization in the education system .
The idea of the digital pact 2.0
agreed by the traffic light
, with which the gaps in the still weakening
digital pact for schools
are to be repaired, bears his signature.
Now we have to wait and see who will take up this topic - at the editorial deadline for »Kleine Pause« a successor was not yet known.
Incidentally, a former student at a secondary school in Vechta (Lower Saxony) demonstrated a completely different – and undesirable – type of digital competence: He is said to have downloaded exam tasks using the access data of a teacher account and distributed them to several young people.
As a result, numerous exams had to be rewritten.
It would still be exciting to find out how he got hold of the teacher account data.
Have fun with our newsletter »Little Break«!
If you want to get rid of praise, criticism or topic suggestions: bildung@spiegel.de .
Bye for now!
Kind regards,
Armin Himmelrath
for the SPIEGEL education team
That's going on
1. Something has to happen
Digitization - which was just about - is just one of several major construction sites in the German education system.
This also includes the unequal distribution of educational opportunities, the renovation backlog of many school buildings, and the shortage of teachers until at least 2035. One thing is clear: something has to happen.
The educational researchers Olaf Köller and Felicitas Thiel jointly head the Standing Scientific Commission of the Conference of Ministers of Education.
In the SPIEGEL interview, they call for more uniformity and clear standards between the federal states - and more scientific knowledge for teachers.
»This is a fundamental problem in the German school system: Many teachers are not familiar with current scientific findings or are skeptical about science-based programs for teaching development or standardized support approaches.
Instead, many teachers work on solutions themselves behind closed doors,” says Felicitas Thiel.
It is all the more fascinating when you experience on site what a better school can look like.
My colleagues Susmita Arp and Miriam Olbrisch found out about this in Hamburg-Kirchdorf.
You can find her exciting report “What children in troubled schools really need” here – a must-read!
2. Two funerals
Death and farewell, this complex of topics is rarely encountered in schools.
However, the students at the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium in Schleiden demanded this after realizing that their school had a real human skeleton from the 1950s that was still being used for learning.
The young people provisionally gave the unknown woman the name Anh Bian, which means “mysterious peace” in Vietnamese.
She was then buried with a ceremony designed by the students.
We do not know whether there was any crying at this funeral.
However, tears flowed in Remagen and Unkel, with many students - when they found out last week that their school, the Franziskus-Gymnasium Nonnenwerth, will be closed at the end of the school year.
The reason: a dispute with the real estate investor who bought the building in 2020.
Are luxury apartments now being built in the former monastery?
3. The bake sale thing
At school festivals in Baden-Württemberg, there could soon be a risk of tax liability on mums' muffins: the state is preparing new rules for sales tax - and is also keeping an eye on the cake buffets in schools (mostly stocked by mothers, much less often by fathers).
What we have not yet been able to finally clarify: is this development in the southwest of the republic a Baden-Württemberg bureaucracy specialty?
Or are they just particularly far ahead of the other federal states in implementing the new tax regulations?
4. What else?
A tip from the North: The »Young Short Film Festival Hamburg« will take place next week, starting May 29th.
Teachers and their school classes have the opportunity to visit the cinema with insights into the making of a wide variety of films.
You will find all information here .
Good to know
The sluggish digitization of schools was already an issue.
A current study fits in with this: Two researchers from the Berlin Science Center, in cooperation with the GEW, wanted to know why the funds for the digital pact are being called up so hesitantly.
They conducted interviews with school practitioners in seven federal states.
The list of reasons that came together is a long one.
Were called
significant bureaucratic hurdles
lack of transparency in the allocation of funds
lack of and ineffective communication
far too few specialists in the municipalities who take care of the school equipment
Doesn't sound all that good, does it?
On the other hand, it could also be a kind of guideline for the new State Secretary in the BMBF.
News from SPIEGEL Ed
Current teaching modules also for your school
SPIEGEL Ed is SPIEGEL's educational initiative with which we want to bring the work of journalists closer to schoolchildren.
This is free of charge for you as a school.
Information on the current workshops, videos and other materials can be found here.
We look forward to you taking advantage of our offers!
Incidentally, you can also rummage through all previous issues of »Kleine Pause« on the website.
The next »little break« will appear - just in time for the start of Didacta - on June 7, 2022. Until then!
Ideas, suggestions, feedback? We look forward to mail to bildung@spiegel.de.