:
Realization of Educational Reform in an
International Setting: The Ecole d’Humanité
Lecture by Armin Lüthi at the Greifswald Conference
(25/26.10.1996)
I. History
The history of the Landerziehungsheime is the history of a few stubborn, quarrelsome, highly talented, and really difficult men. I take it that you are familiar with the life and work of Hermann Lietz, the founder of the entire movement. He is one of these men. But Paul Geheeb also came from eastern Germany -- from Geisa in Thüringen -- where a memorial plaque has for the last three years marked his house of birth, the pharmacy. I have been asked to tell you today about Geheeb and I will endeavor to say more about the effects of his work, and to resist the temptation to talk only about his long life, from 1870-1961, about his dramatic and traumatic youth in Geisa, about his 10 years as a student, and about his eccentricities and his brilliance.
Geheeb himself said: “My life is defined by catastrophe.“ As a matter of fact, there were several: the early death of his beloved mother, the break with Gustav Wyneken, the first world war, the rise of Nazism, the emigration to Switzerland followed by an uninterrupted string of disasters. There were also more deeply moving, personal shocks such as the death of Otto Braun, a favorite student. This death brought Geheeb to the verge of complete breakdown.
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Is Geheeb really the difficult, stubborn man, whose life was shaped by catastrophe? He did not often discuss the many rescues and strokes of luck in his life: the marriage to Edith Cassirer, his spiritual equal, but in practical matters far the cleverer, the father-in-law who made the realization of Geheeb’s radical ideas possible in 1910 in the Odenwaldschule, and thereafter, by settling the yearly deficit until 1934. This Odenwaldschule quickly became the most comprehensive and boldest school experiment in Germany, indeed in all of Europe, according to Herders pedagogical Lexikon (1930).
In the early decades of our century, it must have been a profitable move to declare oneself to be part of this school reform, particularly as a Landerziehungsheim. Prof. Adolf Ferriere of the Institut Jean Jacques Rousseau in Geneva, one of the theoreticians of the New Education, thought it necessary already in 1914 to present a list of criteria and 30 requirements, half of which must be met in order to qualify. This was intended to check those who would ride on the coattails of others. Only the Odenwaldschule satisfied all requirements.
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I can only skim over the further history of the school. One can learn more details in two dissertations: one is by Martin Näf, who a few months ago handed in his work to Prof. Oelkers in Bern who rated it summa cum laude. This work breaks off , however, in 1910. A continuation is planned. Dennis Shirley wrote a dissertation (Harvard, 1990) which has appeared as a book published by the Harvard University Press in 1992 The Politics of Progressive Education: The Odenwaldschule in Nazi Germany.
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How difficult and confusing these years from 1932 -34 were, can be gathered from a section of a letter that was written on January 13, 1934. Max Cassirer to Edith Geheeb-Cassirer, 13.1.1934:
That wasn’t written by just anyone, but by Max Cassirer, her father, a Jew, a successful industrialist, a city councilor, and an honorary citizen of Berlin -- a wise and worldly individual.
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1934 Emigration to Versoix, near Geneva
The successor of the
OSO (Odenwaldschule) is called the Ecole d’Humanité, not a German
school abroad, but a ‘School of Humanity’. A noble idea whose
realization encountered nothing but trouble.
1943
The low point
is reached. Only 7 refugee children live with the Geheebs and a few faithful
followers in a nature conservation hut. This is all that remains of
Europe’s boldest school experiment.
1946
The move to
Goldern in the Berner Oberland (Bernese Highlands).
10.10.1960
Geheeb's 90th birthday becomes a turning point, bringing many
manifestations of official recognition: the Goethe plaque, a message from all
the German Ministers of Culture, honorary doctorates from Tübingen and
Visva Bharati, the university in India founded by Tagore.
May 1st
1961
Geheeb dies at the age of 91.
The board of directors of the
Corporation of the Ecole d’Humanité appointed my wife and me,
together with Edith Geheeb, to the school directorship. We did not take on this
task with light hearts, Who can succeed a man who walked for hours in the
forest with deer, on whose shoulders buzzards would land, to whom a vicious dog
would come and place a wounded paw on his knee, who restored speech to a mute
child, traumatized into silence in a concentration camp? Geheeb had not
troubled himself about a successor. The only hint, the only help, that we
received directly from him was the statement: “One can only wish it upon
one’s worst enemy to run such a school.“
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What is left today, though, in the Ecole d'Humanité of everything that had distinguished the OSO? Is it the very lively, fossilized remnant of the pedagogical reform movement, as many contemporaries see it? Or is it all “an escape into a modest anti-intellectual, pedagogically reform-minded, romanticized idyll?“ And how is it that very old former students recognize much in today’s school that reminds them of what it was that made the old Odenwaldschule so important and life-defining for them?
A possible answer could lie in the unusual constancy of directors and teachers. Edith Geheeb accompanied the directorship lovingly and attentively until her death at the age of 97 in 1982. My wife and I have been connected with the school since 1948 in various functions. Finally, a group of teachers have given their loyalty to the school for 25-40 years.
Such loyalty, such constancy, could entail the danger of rigidity, of petrifying routine, if Geheeb's concepts had not constantly proved themselves to be alive, attractive, sound, thought-provoking and surprisingly modern.
I am often met with critical and doubting questions, whether what was successful in 1910 is still possible today, whether the world, children, young people, but also adults don’t have completely different perspectives, experiences and needs? I am convinced that this legitimate question often leads to a one-sided answer: "Today everything is radically different." Naturally a lot has changed, but that which constitutes human existence remains much the same -- growing up, sibling rivalry, conflicts with parents, peer groups (as a particularly effective factor in socialization), to name just a few aspects. The peer group's influence would appear to be a good example of how nothing changes. In the Steglitz suicide case, Paul Krantz, later famous under the pen-name Ernst Erich Noth, was accused of having initiated a wave of suicides among persons his own age. That was 70 years ago. Geheeb, by the way, accepted Krantz in the Odenwaldschule after the trial. Of course much has changed. One example: today boys and girls talk freely about menstruation or condoms -- things that were only vaguely imagined - never spoken of - when I was a boy.
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II. The School Today
Today’s Situation
150 young people, from infants --whose
parents work in the school, and who are absolutely irreplaceable in a
coeducational international school -- to a 22 year old Chinese preparing
herself for the university.
Boys and girls, in equal proportion when
possible, from 22 countries, from different religions, with different skin
colors, abilities and from different social backgrounds.
A German-speaking
system, until the completion of obligatory schooling (in Switzerland, grade 9),
or, for others, the Swiss Federal Matura.
A USA-school system through high
school graduation (grade 12) with qualification to study at universities in
England or in the USA.
34 teachers
Since 1995, a new 5-person team of
directors.
A non-profit organization with a board of trustees that bears
final responsibility.
Finances:
Only through tuition that the
parents pay. Absolutely no help from public funds. This is only possible
through our willingness to accept smaller salaries than are customary for
teachers. Much could be said about education and money. Especially about the
fact that the tightness of money has little to do with the quality of
education.
22 Houses
Partly on campus, partly in the small
mountain village of the Bernese Highlands, in a wonderful setting (1050 meters
above sea level) that is in the process of being threatened by the inroads of
tourism.
Instruction
In the following, I will
describe mainly the German-speaking school system -- in content a Swiss system.
In the first years of the Odenwaldschule, a small book by Georg
Kerschensteiner, Das Grundaxiom des Bildungsprozesses , was, among
others, decisive in planning the curriculum. Roughly stated, the axiom held
that it is wasted effort to try and teach a child something for which s/he is
not mature enough or for which the necessary mental structures are not present.
How was and is Kerschensteiner translated into the reality of everyday school
life? Through the greatest possible flexibility, through serious consultation
with each child in the setup of the individual lesson plan, through the
dissolution of classes according to age in favor of ability groups, interest
groups, special education groups, through that which today is called inner
differentiation. The teachers maintain a friendly distance to all curricula;
they are seen not as eternal truths descended from heaven, but as negotiated
compromises, forged with great difficulty.
But Also:
Concentration and limitation of instructional
content. Three lessons in the morning: 75 or 60 minutes each. Every day the
same 3 subjects for approximately 5 weeks ( one course period).
In the
Afternoon
A rich offering of about 100 musical, artistic, handicraft,
social and athletic activities. This is not meant as a luxurious sort of
entertainment for those who can afford it; rather it is an alternative to the
reality of many young people's lives - alcohol, sex, drugs, and deadly boredom.
Here too, room for personal decision-making within a set framework.
Moreover:
No grades, teacher evaluations in the form of a
non-standardized, unique report about a unique child, after every course
period.
Each child has the right to choose her or his own courses and, at
the end of the course period, to self-evaluation in the so-called Olive Green
Notebook.
This then is the external framework in which instruction takes place:
But how is this framework filled? One can teach poorly even with helpful and liberating structures --in our school as well as in others. What constitutes good teaching is the subject of weekly didactic groups, in which lessons are prepared and analysed together, where problems of method as well as questions of discipline can be discussed. Simply stated, all methods are supported that further active participation and independence and open up the path to learning and discovery. Two names worth mentioning point in this direction:
Martin Wagenschein
and his exemplary teaching. He taught in
the Odenwaldschule for 9 years and after 1949 was a regular guest at the Ecole
d’Humanité in Goldern. One of my personal strokes of luck was that
in 1949, as a fledgling teacher, I experienced first-hand how Wagenschein
worked with a group on Euclid’s proof that there is no final prime number
-- not in 10 minutes, as is possible and common, but in 6 hours. Since then I
know what the art of teaching is.
You must not think that we are a Wagenschein school. Still, Wagenschein is most certainly a pole star that points us in the right direction. Our modest goal: once a year everyone should experience exemplary - genetic - socratic teaching.
Ruth Cohn
and her Theme Centered Interaction (TCI). Ruth Cohn
has in the meantime become a famous woman. She was Psychologist of the Year in
New York, received Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Hamburg and
Bern. In the USA she was one of the founders of Humanistic Psychology, one of
the first to execute the transition from individual to group therapy and group
pedagogy. Today the system of TCI is used in churches, in prisons, in industry,
in many universities, that is, wherever people triy to be both efficient and
humane.
Since 1974 Ruth Cohn has lived with us. She has brought about much change. Since the philosophical basis of TCI is congruous with the concepts of Geheeb, there has been an extremely fruitful cooperation, the effects of which are noticeable in teaching, in child rearing and in everyday life.
Child Rearing (Erziehung)
One
of the things that distinguishes a Landerziehungsheim is the unity of
teaching and child rearing. This has the consequence that teachers are also
house parents. In all residential schools the number of problem children is on
the rise, so that teachers are often nearly worn out with the difficult work
outside class so that teaching has to take a back seat. Then the
misunderstanding can arise that the Landerziehungsheime must be
anti-intellectual.
We, too, have to exert great effort to avoid becoming a center for the socially damaged and scarred. Our concept is useless for these children, even though our school is a good place for them, unless a balance is established between the number of problem cases and those sound young people capable of involvement and commitment. We purchase this balance by granting large tuition reductions.
Child rearing: What is it? How much? To what end?
It is more
difficult to reach even a modest agreement here than in questions of teaching,
because here values come into play about which a discussion would be pointless.
Geheeb left behind no theory; we know his practice. We have a few speeches and
brief articles, and the quotations that he read before lunch. A saying that he
often repeated, one that seemed to contain everything that he had to say about
child rearing is: “Werde, der du bist“ (Pindar / "Become who you
are"). If child rearing is more than making sure teeth are brushed and the
lights turned off, then what is it? Here are a few unsystematic and incomplete
thoughts on the question:
Three Challenges for Adults
Six Challenges for Young and Old:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We know that the sun rises in the East. It is
hoped that among us now are sitting a few stubborn, quarrelsome, highly
talented, difficult men and women, who will bring to education new, strong
impulses -- impulses like those given by the founders of the pedagogical reform
movement (Reformpädagogik).