Henning Schluß/May Jehle
„Peace Was Threatened“
Reflections on the eschatological dimension of the Schola-record
During the 1970s, the school record was introduced as a new medium in history instruction in the GDR. Using as an example an audio piece for the 10th grade on the issue of „Peace-keeping on August 13th, 1961”, taken from the first history record, the authors analyze this audio document from different perspectives, drawing on methodological considerations formulated in East-German educational science and on a classroom recording from the end of the 1970s, made during a lesson in which this audio piece was employed. The aim of this audio document was to achieve a unity of experience-recognition-evaluation and attitude in the communist sense. The peak of these expectations concerning the new medium was to be found in the then expressed hope that the school record could be that medium which would allow for the sublation of the duality of the scientific and the artistic appropriation of the world and could thus lead to an objective insight into social laws, even in class.
Carsten Quesel/Vera Husfeldt
Project Method and Higher Education Entrance Qualification
Swiss Matura assignments in the light of the students’ self-reflections on their learning biographies, assessment by the school, and ratings by expert
Taking the Swiss Matura assignment as an example, the authors examine the relation between self-assessments of learning progress and support as well as grading by the teaching staff. Furthermore, a connection is drawn to the results of a rating by experts regarding the content-related, the linguistic and the formal quality of the Matura papers delivered by the students interviewed. The data on the retrospective self-assessment of the learners, on the perception of the pedagogical support and on the grading as well as on the rating by the experts was collected within the framework of the national study „Evaluation of the Matura reform of 1995, Phase II” (EVAMAR II). It can be shown that the quality of the Matura papers as diagnosed by the experts in their ratings is a weak predictor for the actual grade and for the self-assessment of the personal learning progress, but does not have any impact on the retrospective assessment of the pedagogical support. The grade does have a significant direct impact on the self-perception and also acts as a partial mediator through the retrospective assessment of the pedagogical support. The self-assessment, in turn, has a significant effect on how the value of the Matura assignment is estimated with regard to the personal development and to a potential course of studies.
Manfred L. Pirner
Religiosity and Teachers’ Professionalism
A literary review on a neglected field of research
That a teacher’s professional thinking and acting is influenced by his or her personal world view, orientations in life, and basic values is mostly undisputed in educational science. Still, the religious-ideological orientation of teachers and its possible connection with their professionalism is one of the most neglected fields of research in German research on teachers. This contribution is meant to draw attention to this field and its relevance to teacher training. A survey is given on the results of the more active international and, above all, US-American research and on the few results provided by research carried out in German-speaking countries. In addition to general research on the teaching profession, the study also includes research on religiously oriented schools and on teachers of religious education. In conclusion, central results are summarized and research tasks are outlined.
Christian Niemeyer
100 Years of Meissner Rule –ACause for Joy?
Or: How and why did the German youth movement create a myth for itself against better judgment
The Meissner rule with its declaration of belief in self-determination, self-responsibility and truthfulness, adopted 100 years ago, is still legendary and meets with broad acceptance, especially as a programmatic formula of the German youth movement. The author recounts the story of both the success and the decline of this formula, with a stronger emphasis on the latter, concluding with the thesis that the success of the Meissner rule after 1945 was deliberately stage-managed by veterans of the youth movement in order to distract from the darker sides of its legacy.
Helmut Heid
Teaching Values –Without Values!?
A contribution to the discussion of the premises of value education
The author focuses on the question of whether values exist outside of the concrete evaluation process of evaluative subjects. With reference to selected value concepts such as diligence, justice, freedom, or truth, possibilities of identifying these „values” are discussed, in order to then reflect on them and to examine which function they fulfill in the educational practice. It becomes apparent that people do not orient their actions by (non-„existent” and thus not „communicable”) values, but rather that references
to values are suitable for justifying or veiling the interests that come into play in those debates
which first and foremost give rise to the need for e-valuation.
Heather Cameron/Veronika Kourabas
Learning to Think Multiplicity
A plea for a pedagogical debate that more strongly highlights power asymmetries
In recent years, issues of heterogeneity and diversity have gained in importance in public debates about society. Not surprisingly, the field of pedagogy has picked up this topic as well. Educational discourses are currently debating how the potential of social diversity due to migration can be best utilized for processes of teaching and learning. Unfortunately, for the most part, these debates leave unexamined how the emphasis on difference and otherness may contribute to reproducing and cementing exclusionary social power structures. Hence, this article advocates for an educational theory and praxis that acknowledges these structures and is self-reflexive of its own complicity with their violent effects.
New Books