As of: March 16, 2024, 4:00 p.m
By: Timo Aichele
Comments
Press
Split
Timo Aichele, deputy editorial director © Aichele
The cancellation of lessons in the arts is the next failure of education policy.
comment
The “primary school Abitur” is a common phrase.
It represents the great pressure to perform that even the youngest students are subject to.
Only the Abitur is considered the highlight of one's school career.
According to this logic, transferring to high school is mandatory.
However, there are several errors in this basic assumption and, above all, in the reactions of education policy.
It is fundamentally wrong to only want to train IT specialists, engineers and humanities scholars.
And it would be fatal anyway to think only in terms of demand on the labor market.
It also has to be about the supply of talent.
There are so many young people who are more suited to practical work than theoretical work.
Why should they be pushed into an academic career when they are so urgently needed elsewhere - in crafts, construction, nursing?
It's strange that these days the A before the decimal point is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to high school grades.
The top grade should be reserved for top results.
High transfer rates to secondary schools and high schools and such grading suggest that every student who has struggled through to graduation belongs to an elite.
Such false incentives cause frustration and stress among students, parents and teachers.
Unfortunately, the reduction of hours in arts subjects in primary school fits the picture all too well.
Politicians tinker with symptoms and lose sight of the bigger picture.
The children should become better at reading, writing and arithmetic.
For the first time, there's nothing wrong with that.
However, it is wrong to try to achieve this goal with even more pressure and even less freedom for the mind.
Because music, art and works help (similar to sport) to discover one's own talents and thus to approach the further challenges of everyday school life with more self-confidence.
You train networked thinking and creative problem solving.
They open the mind to the unknown.
In the best case scenario, they bring fun and lightness to the lesson.
So important, especially for children, in order to cope with the requirements.
In a world with Google and ChatGPT, it is no longer about knowing and being able to do everything yourself.
Being able to deal creatively with seemingly unlimited possibilities is increasingly becoming a key qualification.
Where do children learn this best if not in art, craft or music lessons?