Simone Fleischmann: "This hype annoys me." When the Pisa study came out in 2001, I was working at a school in the east of Munich, in an area that could be described as an upper-class bacon belt. "What about me and my colleagues on the results At the time, we were most disturbed by the fact that we were able to read in black and white how much the educational success in Germany depends on the parents' home.
It's not that many of us did not know long ago that there was a great deal of opportunity justification. It was clear to every teacher, and he tried in his own way to counteract this: to encourage children who have little support at home. But the study confirmed again with scientific data what we experienced day by day at school.
That was a salutary shock, which has roused many people and made them aware of this malady. In my current role as President of the Bavarian Teachers Association, however, annoys me this hype, which there are now for years to the Pisa study and its results. There is always a huge hysteria on which rank Germany has made it, whether we are a little higher up or down.
Back then, as always, this ranking is about Pisa values being compared to reading, mathematics or science. The focus is on numbers, the Pisa study has achieved. But let's be honest: Because of these numbers, I do not change my teaching as a teacher, but I do this to the needs of my students, which can be completely different in each school and class.
Some people say, 'I whistle at your results'
The Pisa study focusses on cognitive performance in certain areas, but at the same time expectations about what students should be able to achieve have increased unbelievably: they should become politically mature citizens, take action against bullying, uphold climate protection .... Schools should face up to all these challenges and sometimes reach their limits.
For example, we would need more extra hours to better meet the needs of children with inclusion benefits. Therefore, as a teacher, I am always annoyed when a mirror is presented to us in the Pisa study, into which we already look ourselves anyway. We teachers know what's good at the schools and what's not going well - and what needs to change. We only hear too little.
When the Pisa study comes out and everybody wants to know if Germany has slipped a bit, then one or the other teacher thinks: I have quite different worries here. I stand in front of a class with almost 30 children, I feel that a student could actually do a lot more with some support he does not get at home, but I can not really help him. Because then all others come too short. That's the worst thing for a teacher, and some people say, 'Do you know what, I'm counting on your Pisa results.' "
Jens Weichelt: "My gut feeling has been confirmed: When the first Pisa study was published in Germany in 2001, it was a pleasant shock for me - even if that sounds strange at first." For a long time now, I had the feeling that the student performance not moving down the hill, not overnight, but in small, barely perceptible little steps.
I remember it well: time and again when I compared current class work with those that were four or five years old, this feeling crept up on me: it used to get better. Students did not have to work so hard to overcome the hurdles in work and exams, so my impression. And yet it always went wrong: Especially when they had to think across subjects.
I'm thinking, for example, of a course in social studies, 12th grade, just before graduation. I had given two values for the gross domestic product, one current year and one from the previous year. Students should calculate the percentage growth. Simple percentage calculation. This is actually stuff for eighth graders! But because this task appeared in a civics lesson, this got some completely upset.
At the same time, I missed the willingness of adolescents to do something extra as well, to hang themselves properly. Learning and achievement, I felt, had crept gradually lower in importance.
In hindsight, healing
Of course, when the Pisa results were published, I was appalled. The fact that Germany was so bad at international level surprised me. On the other hand, I saw my gut feeling confirmed. In retrospect, I regard Pisa as beneficial in 2001, because educational policy has finally become more important again. The media reported that scientists were analyzing the situation in schools, that ministers were traveling around the country discussing what would be better.
Since then, a lot has happened: the educational standards were set up, there was finally a concrete idea of what students should be able to do in Germany. From then on we wrote comparative work in the schools. Some colleagues groaned about the extra work, others felt controlled. I also remember well the resistance of some ministers of education, who did not want their students to be measured. I suppose they shied away from the public pressure that would follow if they performed poorly.
The student performance in Germany has improved a lot since 2001, which makes me happy. Nevertheless, sometimes my gut feeling comes back: I believe that students today are much more important than learning - especially when it takes place in social media. "
Christoph Rabbow: "It gave me a lot to think about, and when the Pisa results were first presented, it was a great insight for us: what was taught was not learned, and chemistry and math were obvious for too many student books with seven seals.
Back in 2001, as a young teacher, the Pisa shock of 2001 made me think. In 1999, I had just completed my apprenticeship training. Since we had been taught that it would be more important, the living environment and everyday life of the students even more involved in the lessons.
Therefore, unlike many colleagues, I taught the theory of probability even before the Pisa shock, although this was not yet on the agenda at our school in upper grades and stochastics in middle school was usually sacrificed to other "more important" topics.
Of course, at the end of the day, many of the classical teachings, such as Pythagoras' Theorem, Rutherford's atomic model, or the notion of abstract molecular models, must be conveyed. It will work out somehow, I thought, since I was motivated for the learning content. But if the spark fails to pass on the students, then the prepared concepts do not help.
Discarded class schedules
That's why I dropped some of my lesson plans after leaving Pisa. Some colleagues, who were about to retire, have done what I thought they did, perhaps because they were tired of the constant demands from the Ministry. But there were older colleagues who were interested in change.
In 2004, binding educational standards for the respective subjects were formulated. This had an impact on the core and school curricula. Now it was official that lessons had to change.
Pisa has not only changed how teachers communicate knowledge, but also how they should evaluate performance in the future. So far, we had prepared our high school diploma in the Christmas holidays and knew exactly what to expect in the exams on the students. For the first time in 2006, this was different: a ministry commission created the core high school diploma theses that all students in the country needed to work on. This is still the case today.
Not everything went well at the beginning
Especially in the first few years, many colleagues were worried because they did not know how the central tasks were set and how they can prepare their students in the classroom. This has been relativized today and also the colleagues in the commissions have learned from the first field trials.
I believe that the Pisa shock has done well overall. Today, there is much less frontal instruction, greater attention to the needs of students, and the meaning of lesson content from a pupil's perspective.
This is also noticeable in the changes in the textbooks: In the meantime, there are often three different tasks, which are marked accordingly, for high-performance, middle-aged and weaker learners. This allows us to promote the children even more targeted.
The high school graduation assignments have also adapted: they are no longer based exclusively on factual knowledge, but are much closer to relevant contexts for students. But sometimes that goes too far: The tasks are sometimes so cumbersome and constructed that the students can not recognize the content because of the packaging, just as we were able to experience in the mathematical high school diploma. "