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Pedagogue Steuwer: "Distance teaching for primary school students, that doesn't work"
Photo: Dominik Asbach / DER SPIEGEL
He would have wished for clarity, says Peter Steuwer, for months.
Clarity from the school ministry, a plan for how lessons could be organized just in case: if face-to-face lessons would no longer be possible due to Corona.
Steuwer, 64, is the head of the Vennbruchschule in Duisburg, a primary school in the north of the city: 340 children, more than 50 adults such as teachers, caretakers, supervisors and secretaries.
“Because nothing came, we developed a plan ourselves,” he says.
Since the autumn break, the college has been tinkering with it, and a shift model was created over days of work: Half of the children should study from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., the other half from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
"We had discussed this with every family - and with all our colleagues," says Steuwer.
That would have meant fewer individual lessons, but every child would have been in school every day.
"Distance teaching for primary school students, that is not possible."
But the school authorities forbade shared lessons in the fall.
Steuwer protested to the district government - in vain.
The school supervisory authority stuck to the line of the NRW school ministry that face-to-face lessons should take place in normal operation if possible.
"That was really frustrating," says Steuwer.
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