Baron von Fletcher's teacher training college

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The Freiherrlich von Fletcher seminar was a school in Dresden . The seminar was launched in 1769 by a foundation and officially opened in 1825. Up until the 1920s, the teachers' seminar was dedicated to the training of teachers. One of the most famous “Fletcherans” was the writer Erich Kästner .

In 1922, the teachers' college was converted into a secondary school. The main building of the school was almost completely destroyed in 1945 and only rebuilt in 1961. A Waldorf school has been using the building since the early 2000s .

The Baron von Fletcher's teacher training college around 1880

history

The founder of the seminar

In 1717 Valentin Ernst Löscher tried in vain to found a teacher training college in Saxony

The seminar goes back to a foundation by Friederica Christiana Elisabeth von Fletcher. She was born on November 22, 1727 as the daughter of the secret war council Carl Pauli († 1739). The family was not aristocratic, but wealthy, so they inherited the Roitzsch (near Wurzen) and Zschieschen (near Großenhain) estates from their aunt. In 1745 she married Wigand Gottlob von Gersdorff, who died in the battle of Hohenfriedberg that same year . Friederica Christiana Elisabeth later married Maximilian Robert Freiherr von Fletcher (1713–1794), whose family had Scottish roots. Maximilian Robert Freiherr von Fletcher was, among other things, director of the Meissen porcelain factory ; his grandfather, David von Fletscher , gained fame as a businessman and councilor .

Johanne Friederike von Reuss, daughter of the founder

On May 22, 1769, Friederica Christiana Elisabeth von Fletcher signed a deed of foundation for a seminar for the training of teachers. She has often noted that leading figures from state and religion "consider the filling of the lowest school services with skillful and righteous teachers to be one of the most indispensable and first means of promoting the welfare of a country," said von Fletcher in her deed of foundation. She realized that better spiritual education can only be achieved through better training of teachers. At the time, however, Saxony did not have its own teacher training college. As early as 1717, Valentin Ernst Löscher tried in vain to establish a teachers' college in Dresden. At that time, educators came mainly from Latin schools, were trained to be educators by teachers or teachers' parents themselves, or they were instructed in teaching by the priest. Training to become a teacher was only regulated more professionally through seminars in the first half of the 18th century. The founding of the seminary in Hanover in 1751 on von Fletcher, which was also made possible by the foundation of a wealthy citizen, made a great impression. She had been thinking about her own foundation since 1765 and had been informed about the progress of the Hanover seminar. In Saxony, on the other hand, Peter von Hohenthal (1726–1794) was particularly committed to setting up his own teacher training college. He was acquainted with Ms. von Fletcher and may have reinforced her decision to found a foundation. With the signing of the deed of foundation, the Fletcher seminar in 1769 became the first teacher seminar in Saxony on paper. According to the founder, it was to be founded in Leipzig or Dresden .

In 1777, Peter von Hohenthal became one of three administrators of the Fletcher Foundation who administered the foundation's assets. The foundation could not take effect at this time. Friederica Christiana Elisabeth von Fletcher, who died on April 14, 1778, stipulated that the 40,000 thalers foundation would only come into force after the death of her only daughter Johanne Friederike and only if she was childless. The sickly daughter, in second marriage with the Imperial Count Heinrich XXXVIII. Reuss married, died childless on June 28, 1815, so that the foundation then came into effect.

The founding years of the seminar

Seal of the Baron Administration. from Fletcher's school teacher seminars

The seminar was supposed to be founded in 1815, but various circumstances made it difficult to found it immediately. First of all, Prussia , which in that year had taken more than half of Saxony , also coveted the largest possible part of the foundation capital. A higher court approached by the foundation rejected this claim. After this long delay, further difficulties arose in the start-up phase. Although von Fletcher had stipulated in her deed of foundation that only Leipzig or Dresden could be considered for the establishment of the foundation, the three leading administrators of the foundation wanted to open the seminar in the country, among other things, the pupils against the "moral dangers of the big city " to preserve. One of the administrators was Count Dohna on Hermsdorf, who recommended his church village Lausa as a suitable place for the seminar . The Lausa pastor Samuel David Roller then prepared two reports on the establishment of a teachers' seminar in Lausa, which were approved by the administrators. It was not until 1823 that the plan was rejected because the schoolhouse in Lausa had proven to be too small and the seminar was also to become a permanent facility. Count Dohna's alternative plan to set up the seminar in a manor house in Grünberg was again rejected by the church council, which insisted on Dresden or Leipzig as the place of foundation. The administrators finally chose Dresden as the place of foundation in 1824, as it was the seat of the higher church authority and the residence of the administrators.

The seminar was located in a wing of the building on Freiberger Strasse , which the foundation acquired for 6,200 thalers. At the time, the total capital of the foundation had already increased to 58,000 thalers due to interest. The first leader of the seminar was the city clergyman Magister Leonhardi, at the time a deacon at the Kreuzkirche . The only teacher of the seminar, which opened on November 1, 1825 with nine seminarians, was Andreas Suschke. The seminar also included a two-class free school for poor children, which opened shortly after the seminar with 49 students.

Development of the seminar until 1861

Franz Ludwig Zahn, director of the seminar from 1827 to 1832

The seminar grew slowly but steadily in the years after it was founded. In 1826, twelve seminarians were taught, four years later there were already 30. In 1827 the seminar was given a new head with Franz Ludwig Zahn and, in addition to Suschke, a second permanent teacher. The free school was expanded in 1829 to include a two-class pay school. The additional income was used to buy teaching materials and pay the teachers. As early as 1832, both schools were merged into a three-class. Half of the 200 students paid school fees. It was not until 1843 that only paying pupils were accepted due to financial constraints, with boys and girls being taught separately.

Even deaf students were taught at the instigation tooth since 1827 in school. Johann Friedrich Jencke , who had been a seminarist since 1825, received important impulses for his later work here: he initially took over Zahn's lessons. In 1829 a school for the deaf and dumb was founded by director Zahn, whose teacher Jencke was. In 1833 13 deaf and dumb people were taught arithmetic, writing and reading at the school affiliated with the seminar, "which instruction of the same form is a training school for the seminarians." The "deaf and dumb school connected with Fletscher's school teacher seminar" became around 1833 the "Deaf and Mute Institute in Altstadt-Dresden", with the annual reports following that of the deaf and mute school founded in 1829. The institute was headed by the teacher Jencke, who, however, was still referred to in some sources in 1836 as the deaf-mute teacher of the deaf-mute institute connected to the school teachers' seminar and under the directorate of Steglich.

Detlev von Einsiedel, administrator and patron of the seminar

If Fletcherans had left the seminar without a permanent qualification by 1830, regulated final exams were introduced under the new director Franz Ludwig Zahn, which were approved by the seminar commission headed by the court preacher Christoph Ammon . To ensure the basic training of future seminarians, Zahn's successor, director Friedrich August Wilhelm Steglich, introduced a preliminary class in 1847. It was already being taught in the new school and seminar building on Freiberger Straße, which was designed by head builder Schlenkert and built from 1846 to 1847 not far from the old building. Detlev von Einsiedel , who headed the seminar from 1825 until his death in 1861 as the first administrator and made considerable sums of money available for its existence, played a major role in the financing of these construction measures . It was not until 1851 that the Saxon state gave grants to the seminar for the first time, which until then had been financed from the foundation's capital, school fees and patronage expenses.

While the school department of the seminar rose steadily as the main financier and in 1858 had grown into a community school with eight classes and 445 students, the number of seminarians remained significantly smaller. In 1847, 27 seminarians were taught, compared to 40 in 1858. The number of Fletcherans was deliberately kept small, since otherwise “it would be very difficult to devote the proper attention to each one, which is a major focus in the formation of future teachers As a result of new school regulations from 1857, which required the seminars to set up a two-class practice school, the school building on Freiberger Strasse received a new extension in 1860, largely financed by Detlev von Einsiedel. With the departure of long-time director Steglich and the death of headmaster Detlev von Einsiedel, a new era began for the seminar in 1861.

The seminary from 1861 until the end of the First World War

New building from 1847 on Freiberger Strasse
The training school of the Fletcher teachers' college, which was added in 1890

With the death of Detlev von Einsiedel in 1861, the Fletcher seminar had lost its greatest patron. During the years of his administrative activity, he had donated around 30,000 thalers to the seminar from his private assets and thus more than half of the original foundation capital. This had enabled the construction of new school buildings, but also helped to repay debts in times of need and to finance teachers' salaries. Now the state has taken over this function and the teachers' seminar has been restructured. Since the seminar had had its own training school since the early 1860s, the community school attached to the seminar had become superfluous. The preparatory school was converted in 1861 into its own one-class proseminar, which served to prepare the future Fletcherans. The reforms greatly increased the number of seminarians. In 1869, 131 future teachers were trained at Fletcher's seminary, including 55 proseminarians.

In the autumn of 1880 the seminar moved into a new building on a 16,000 m² property in Marienallee on the border with Albertstadt . According to the director Kühn, she moved “from the dull, cloudy valley into the open air of the mountains, from the tumult of the city into the silence of the green forest, from the heart-crushing narrowness into the heart-refreshing expanse” - the new building of the seminar was for him "a neat little castle in the loneliness of the forest". The new school grounds lay in the Dresdner Heide and reached down to the Prießnitz ; the wooded slope became a large park, the lowest point of which was called "Olympus".

In 1900 the building received an extension at the northern end for an eight-grade elementary school as a practice school, in which the prospective teachers held lessons under supervision. This extension is the only part of the building still preserved today. The premises were to be expanded again in 1913, but the outbreak of the First World War prevented the implementation of the plans already in place. Numerous Fletcherans took part in both world wars. In 1921 , a memorial created by Alfred Glatter was erected in the seminar building for the 99 Fletcherans who fell in World War I. Teaching continued during the war years, but lessons had to be moved to other schools from November 1918 to February 1919 because the school building was needed as a hospital .

Conversion to high school and further development

Shortly after the end of the war, the seminars were questioned as a training facility for teachers. This training was felt to be no longer sufficient: The seminars “can no longer meet the increased demands that a new era places on teacher training. The teaching class, which has grown up through the seminars, strives beyond itself to a deeper scientific education and a higher social position. ”Future teachers should complete a nine-grade school education and receive their further training at a pedagogical university . In the course of this development, the seminars should be converted into secondary schools and thus become a link between elementary and university for future teachers. As early as September 1921, the teaching staff of the Fletcher seminar had given their approval for the seminar to be converted into a high school. The administrators, on the other hand, initially refused to dissolve the foundation-designed seminar in October and, at the end of 1921, insisted on converting it into an evangelical advanced school designed for six school years. This was accepted by the teaching staff and confirmed by the Ministry in January 1922.

From Easter 1922 onwards, no new Septima was included in the seminary. Seminarians who had been admitted to the seminar before Easter 1922 were able to complete their training there, and admissions were also made in higher seminar classes. Every year until 1927 one graduating class after the other left the seminar. The first lower secondary school began in 1922 as the beginning of the new advanced school. The Fletcher Advanced School was initially designed as a shortened form (Oberschule Form A) with only one foreign language taught. In October 1922 this was considered insufficient for a later university course, so that the curriculum was expanded to include two foreign languages ​​and the school now conformed to Form B. Initially, the students received lessons in Latin and English or French, later only in English and French. Finally, at Easter 1923, the establishment of elementary high school classes (sixth to upper prima) was approved. The teaching staff taught in all three school types during the transition period.

In 1923 the new school was officially named Freiherrlich von Fletchersche Aufbauschule and German Oberschule zu Dresden-Neustadt ; it also had a boarding school for boys. The high school was a one-class, all-boys school, the advanced school also took in girls and from 1938 onwards there were two classes in the lower grades. It was intended for children whose talent for the goal of “Abitur” only became apparent at the age of twelve or thirteen, but was also chosen by parents who found it difficult to raise 20  RM for the monthly school fee (today's purchasing power compared to 1934: 90 € ). Compared to the high school curriculum, only six years were available in the advanced classes for the curriculum planned for the Abitur. With the shortening of secondary school time to eight years (1938), the advanced school began from fourth (8th school year). Many of these students only stayed up to secondary school leaving certificate, so that the upper level of the advanced school remained a single class. Foreign languages ​​in both types of school were English from the start, Latin two years later, and optionally French in the upper school, which was omitted during the war due to a lack of teachers. When the Dürerschule was closed in 1934, many of the teachers and students there came to the Fletcherschule. From 1938 this was called "Freiherr von Fletcher Schule, Staatliche Oberschule for boys in construction form .

After Easter 1942, the building was set up as an auxiliary hospital (but never used for it), so that school lessons with weekly alternating morning and afternoon classes took place first in the Neustädter Staatsgymnasium and then in the Neustädter Higher Girls' School. The pupils born between 1926 and 1928 were required to do emergency duty as flak helpers at the end of 1943 ; the lessons for them took place in the barracks next to the gun emplacement in the Albertstadt barracks area. As a result of being called up for military service, from 1940 onwards, the older pupils in the last class left school with a certificate of maturity , while the younger ones took part in an early secondary school diploma .

Rebuilt school building in 2011

When Dresden was bombed in February 1945, the main building erected in 1880 on Marienallee was destroyed, even though a huge red cross was painted on the roof on a white background; only the basement including the basement ceiling remained and the facades of the main building were still standing. Teachers and students cleared the area with great, voluntary commitment. The attempt to draw a ceiling between the ground floor and the first floor failed; the facades collapsed. Shift lessons took place in the basement and in the preserved extension, and the gymnasium was also used as an auditorium. The school was closed at the end of the school year 1947/48 and the remaining classes came with some of the teachers to the Oberschule Nord (in the building of the former Neustädter girls' school on Weintraubenstraße).

It was not until 1961 that the main building was rebuilt, greatly simplified. The central projection was completely redesigned. The redesigned school building was inaugurated in 1964. In 1967 the school was named 1. Polytechnic Oberschule Dr. Kurt Fischer . After the fall of the Wall , the first middle school moved into the classrooms, which was named Freiherr von Fletcher based on the former teacher training college in 1995 . It was closed in 2004. Since then, the building has housed the previously neighboring Dresden Waldorf School, which had already shared the rooms of the middle school. She had the main building and the adjoining, originally preserved, former training school of the seminar completely renovated in 2005.

The lesson

In the first years of the seminar, the usually 15 or 16 year old seminarians attended as interns all the lessons that were given in the free school. They also had classes in the seminary. There they were taught organ and figured bass, among other things, and received lessons in biblical history, world history, geography and natural science. The theoretical teaching focused on religious instruction. On Sundays, the seminarians received practical lessons in the church, bell ringer and sexton service, for which the church of the Jakob Hospital was available to them.

However, the main focus was on training for teaching in school. The seminarians initially took over the classes of the free school under supervision on an hourly basis, which they also had to constantly supervise. In later phases, they were allowed to grade the students “by means of specific numbers”. From 1834 it was stipulated that the training of a seminarist should take four years. The lesson plan in 1836, with 28 subjects, was much more extensive than in 1826, with seven subjects having religious content. New subjects included Latin and gymnastics lessons, which were given in the rooms of the royal gymnastics teacher training institute. Parents evenings were held from 1845 onwards.

In the 1860s, as part of the reform of Saxon teacher training, the focus was removed from the religious (training) education of seminarians. German lessons now became important, but also history lessons. The seminarist training was extended by two years to six years. In particular, the combined lessons, in which several classes were taught together, should be stopped by hiring three teachers in the Fletcher seminar. Self-study also became increasingly important. Latin lessons, which were discontinued in 1857, were reintroduced in 1873 as part of the teaching ordinance for Protestant elementary school teacher seminars , which remained binding for the next few decades.

After the conversion to the secondary school, the musical traditions were continued beyond the new curriculum with a school choir and school orchestra as well as additional individual lessons for many musical instruments.

The teaching buildings

Freiberger Strasse (Wilsdruffer Vorstadt)

Gym of the Fletcher seminar

The first teaching building on Freiberger Straße 4 consisted of a front and a side building. The main building had seven axes and accommodated the teacher's apartment as well as the kitchen and utility rooms on the ground floor. The first floor was occupied by the music hall, the director's apartment on the second floor and the dormitory and the laundry room on the top floor. In the annex building, the classrooms of the free school were housed in the two ground floor rooms. There was a second teacher's apartment on the first floor and the seminarians' dining room and classroom were on the second floor.

The second teaching building on Freiberger Straße contained all the classrooms, the library, the teaching material collection, the rooms of the seminarians, the housekeepers and the housekeeping as well as the apartments of the director and the assistant teachers. Teachers' apartments have now been created in the former front building; the side building of the first teaching house served as the apartment of a teacher and the caretaker. The extension to the second teaching building from 1860 contained a teacher's apartment, two classrooms, five music rooms and a gym. The seminar buildings on Freiberger Strasse were not preserved.

Marienallee (Albertstadt)

The preserved practice school of the seminar, detail

The third, very spacious teaching building was on Marienallee 5. Flanked by two staircase towers, the symmetrical structure had short wings on the back in the middle and at both ends. Author Hansjörg Schneider , from 1936 himself a student of the then converted secondary school, described the building in his memoirs: "The school was a large, gray box, and if it hadn't been adorned with two towers, it could have been mistaken for barracks." In the middle wing with the main staircase, the dining room for the boarding school was in the basement, the teachers' room and the music room on the ground floor and the two-story auditorium above. In addition to around 20 classrooms and a drawing room that was twice as large, there were two small rooms on each floor next to the main staircase for individual lessons, e.g. B. for instrumental music, in one of them was a practice organ. The boarding school was on the fourth floor. In the building were the apartments for the director and the caretaker. The students also had their own gym and sports field, which are still in use today. In the large park that belonged to the school there were, among other things, two bowling alleys.

In the practice school - the extension still preserved today - six of the eight classrooms were converted into three small lecture halls with preparation rooms for physics, chemistry and biology classes during the conversion to the secondary school. They were given rising rows of benches and a laboratory table suitable for demonstrating experiments across the entire width of the room. The top floor was turned into a movie theater.

From 1961 the destroyed main building was rebuilt in a modified manner on the preserved basement.

Administrators (selection)

Peter Karl Wilhelm von Hohenthal, 1st administrator of the foundation from 1794 to 1825

The administrators were the head of the seminar. At the same time they were the administrators of the foundation's assets.

Directors of the seminar

High school directors

  • 1922–1936: Hermann Jobst
  • 1936–1940: Friedrich Risse (called up for military service in 1940)
  • 1940–1945: Werner (deputy)
  • 1945–1948: Fritz Feurig

Teachers of the seminar (selection)

Students of the seminar (selection)

literature

  • Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825-1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925.

Web links

Commons : Freiherrlich von Fletchersches Lehrerseminar  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. after: Hermann Jobst: About the founder and her foundation . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 6.
  2. ↑ Otto Koch (ed.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 9.
  3. ^ A b Geissler: The foundation of the seminar . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 11.
  4. ^ Geissler: The foundation of the seminar . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 14.
  5. ↑ a b The free school of the Fletcher seminar . In: Communications from the Statistical Association for the Kingdom of Saxony . Volume 1. Vogel, Leipzig 1831, p. 30.
  6. ↑ 21st Annual report of the directors of the New York Institution for the instruction of the deaf and dumb ... for the year 1839 . Mahlon Day, New York 1840, pp. 30-32.
  7. ^ Martin Bernhard Lindau: History of the capital and residence city of Dresden . Volume 2. Kunze, Dresden 1863, p. 682.
  8. ↑ Cf. The Fletcher School Teacher Seminar and the associated deaf-mute institute . In: Saxony's Church Gallery . Volume 1, part 19. Schmidt, Dresden, May 1836, no p.
  9. ↑ This preliminary class was converted into a preparatory school in 1854. quoted according to: Uhlemann: On our own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 32.
  10. ↑ Uhlemann: On your own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 28.
  11. ↑ Conference resolution of February 4, 1835, cited above. According to Uhlemann: On your own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 25.
  12. ↑ Uhlemann: On your own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 20.
  13. ^ A b Uhlemann: Under state care . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 39.
  14. ↑ Quoted from Uhlemann: Under state welfare . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 43.
  15. ^ A b Hansjörg Schneider: "Play was the pleasure and play the danger". Dresden Theater 1933–1945 . Hentschel, Berlin 2003, p. 20.
  16. ↑ Paul: turning point . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 54.
  17. ↑ a b Lisa Stagge: Extraordinary woman founds teacher training college . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 5, 2000, p. 14.
  18. ↑ See information and photos about the school
  19. ↑ Lesson plan from 1826, cited above. According to Uhlemann: On your own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, p. 15.
  20. ^ New year books for gymnastics . Volume 15. Kloss, Dresden 1869, p. 273.
  21. ↑ Hansjörg Schneider: "Play was the pleasure and play the danger". Dresden Theater 1933–1945 . Hentschel, Berlin 2003, p. 22.
  22. ↑ Max Grüllich: Speech to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the institution, given on November 1, 1900 . Philipp, Dresden 1906.
  23. ↑ Uhlemann: On your own . In: Otto Koch (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the centenary of the Baron von Fletcher's school teacher seminar in Dresden 1825–1925 . Adam, Dresden 1925, pp. 24-25.
  24. ↑ Hansjörg Schneider: "Play was the pleasure and play the danger". Dresden Theater 1933–1945 . Hentschel, Berlin 2003, p. 19.
  25. ^ Johann Gottfried Scheibel: News from the newest condition of the Lutheran Church in Silesia . Raw, Nuremberg 1833, p. IV.

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 19.6 "  N , 13 ° 45 ′ 53.7"  E