Elementary school didactics
Elementary school didactics is technology, art and science that is oriented towards teaching and education, teaching and learning in the first four years of the school as an institution.
term
Under an elementary school ( English "Elementary or Primary School" Italian "Scuola primaria", formerly "scuola elementary") are understood in German-speaking countries, a general education compulsory "primary school" by all about six to ten year old children in the lower school classes one until four of their school career must be attended. Elementary school didactics is a word formation from the terms "elementary school" and ancient Greek didaktikè téchne . It means “technology”, “art”, “science” of teaching and learning in the four-year introductory phase of the learning institution school.
General meaning of elementary school didactics
The Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca criticized in a letter to Equest (knight) Lucilius Iunior, who was five years his junior, the perversion of the educational mandate at the schools of philosophy of his time with the words Non vitae, sed scholae discimus (learning not for life, but for school we). He put it into his letter partner's mouth that it should actually be exactly the other way around, namely Non scholae, sed vitae discimus (We learn not for school, but for life), that school learning is not an end in itself, not an empty “school wisdom “Should be allowed to produce, but must be related to life and prepare for the requirements of adulthood. This knowledge can be found today in the trend-setting “ didactic principles ” “closeness to life” and “topicality”, which also apply to today's elementary school didactics .
In the foreword to its "recommendations" to the curriculum planners of the German federal states, the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) defines the status of primary schools in the educational process and formulates the task that primary school didactics has to perform:
“The primary school follows on from the previous learning and development process in the parental home and from early childhood education and upbringing in day-care centers or day care. It enables the acquisition of basic skills on which the teaching of secondary schools can reliably build. "
The educational plan of Baden-Württemberg from 2016 follows this requirement and formulates more specifically:
“The elementary school is the common elementary level of the school system. It conveys basic knowledge and skills. Your special task is characterized by the gradual introduction of the students from the playful forms to the school forms of learning and working. "
Elementary school didactics and school didactics
School didactics is the generic term for the individual forms of didactics and special teaching methods that are geared towards the various types of school. It is broken down into "primary school didactics", "special school didactics", "high school didactics" or "vocational school didactics". Objectives, contents and tasks, methods, forms of organization and evaluation instruments differ considerably, whether the teaching and learning processes take place in a primary school , in a secondary school , in a secondary school , in a grammar school , in a business school or in an officer school , whether, for example, more that Conveying of special specialist knowledge or also upbringing and educational tasks are pending. They differ in the design of teaching and learning processes that are appropriate to the subject and the target audience, in which didactically competent persons are connected as teachers and students as learners. A competent high school teacher is not automatically a good primary school teacher due to the different educational requirements and teaching methods, and vice versa. Educational goals and ways of working differ considerably. School didactics generally have the task of finding and practicing a teaching method that is appropriate for their particular clientele . But they also have the task of accompanying and advising the students as they learn. They are also intended to teach learning with the aim of increasingly releasing adolescents from their dependence on the teacher and leading them to lifelong independent learning. Level and school type teachers require, similar to the prospective doctors in the individual branches of medical training, a special qualification through teacher training . It is pre-structured accordingly in the curricula of the universities in the various study programs.
In the general education elementary school, basic learning and working methods, elementary manners such as interacting with one another in partnership, in small groups and in class, the first cultural techniques such as reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, construction, movement, aesthetic, Life science, religious topics are worked out, which should be the foundation of secondary school education. Primary school lessons are largely structured in a holistic manner as appropriate for children, because the primary school child does not yet think and should think in abstract subject categories, but is interested in life issues. It is "experiential learning" that is not one-sided head-centered, but is multi-dimensional based on learning with all the senses.
In contrast to elementary school didactics, higher education demands can and must be made in secondary schools in terms of their ability to understand, abstract thinking, self-motivation, learning speed, methods and forms of work as well as stricter test procedures for learning progress. The game character that still predominates in elementary school is increasingly changing in the direction of goal-oriented, independent work within the framework of the demanding, specialized didactics .
Elementary school didactics and general didactics
Elementary school didactics is a level and school type-related teaching method. She works under the guidelines of "General Didactics". As the “science of teaching and learning”, general didactics lays down generally applicable principles and rules that apply to all science-based teaching and learning and all specialist disciplines. It is not a matter of content, let alone ideological, but rather formal requirements for teaching that is scientifically appropriate, such as the principles of "age fairness", "closeness to life", "holism", "clarity", "role model effect", "progression", "differentiation and structuring" , “Repetition and Variation”, “Independent Activity”, “Security”, “Systematics and Consequence”, “Topicality”, “Individuation and Socialization”. General didactics provides the basic knowledge that teachers of all types of schools need in order to be able to educate and educate on a scientific level. The elementary school didactics develop from this a special didactic for the early years of every school career. General didactics such as elementary school didactics are not "image didactics" that pass on specialist knowledge and skills to the learners in the same image. Rather, they act in concert of the so-called didactic triangle , in which the specialist sciences are only a point of reference and the needs of the students, the orientation of the teacher and the educational demands of society represent further components. Didactics does not convey a mere adaptation of knowledge, but a critical examination and an appropriation that conforms to personality and that cannot be forced. The elementary school didactics follows the structural scheme given by the general didactics:
- Raise learning requirements
Before planning teaching and learning with the school beginners , it is important to take an empirical inventory of the existing level of knowledge and ability that is brought from the parents' home or the pre-school facility . The desired educational processes are linked to this, and on this basis the realistic objectives for the individual children are then determined. Primary school didactics is primarily oriented and organized within the framework of the didactic triangle “from the child's point of view”. For this purpose, the teacher needs well-founded experimental psychological , but also learning , developmental and social psychological previous knowledge.
- Create goals
The primary school is a state institution with the aim of professional teaching and systematic learning. The learning goals to be achieved are specified in the respective elementary school curricula, but cannot always be adopted without reflection, as they often cannot withstand the reality on site and can therefore under- or overtax the children. The teacher is therefore required to formulate the appropriate goals for the children entrusted to her according to the state of affairs. Elementary school didactics is designed to introduce effective learning. She has to pick up the children at the kindergarten pedagogy and gradually prepare them for the subject orientation of the secondary schools. Elementary school didactics therefore neither pursues a self-sufficient play activity nor a subject didactic training, but already has to convey goal-oriented learning. This is how the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs stipulates the primary schools:
"Learning by playing and playing by learning is part of the initial lesson and is led to goal-oriented learning behavior right from the start."
- Select content
The learning materials of the primary school are varied according to the learning needs and interests of the children. The curricula therefore do not prescribe fixed learning content, but leave it with examples and suggestions, so that the individual teacher has a lot of leeway for the specific selection. They develop from the material needs of learning progress and the formation of interests of children, teachers and parents in the course of the learning process.
- Adapt methods
Elementary school students are not little adults. Speech, choice of words, intonation and speaking speed, but also the body expression in facial expressions and gestures are different in primary school than in the upper grades of high school or vocational school. The length of the teaching units, the structure of the breaks, the learning pace and the student allocation must be handled flexibly. The content must be greatly simplified in a way that is child-friendly, not very abstract, head-focused and theoretical, but rather visual and perceptible with all the senses. Learning is largely playful, practical, exploring and without any hectic rush. It has proven to be useful to methodically divide the courses into modules.
- Determine organizational forms
The class is initially a new, as yet unknown framework for all children in which they should live and learn in the future. For economic reasons, it brings together a large number of children of roughly the same age and level of development. For effective learning, however, smaller units are required that correspond to the as yet underdeveloped child's social skills. In the beginning lessons, these are initially the two-person partnership and the small group. Larger group formations still overwhelm the mutual exchange of communication. Class discussions require stringent guidance by the teacher, on which the children are usually still strongly fixated.
- Create and use evaluation tools
Every systematic teaching and learning needs not only a clearly defined goal statement but also a determination of the result after the end of the learning process. Without such a learning control, learning would be arbitrary and would not enable a meaningful structure. The educationalist Siegbert A. Warwitz compares the "playful" learning without clear objectives and learning controls with the planless and disoriented journey of a sailor on the ocean who bobs around on the water and does not know where he is, where he wants to go and where he is finally lands. The didactically indispensable determination of the learning results takes place in elementary school in a playful way, for example in the form of a quiz or as a presentation of what has been learned in front of the class. What counts is less what is still missing than what is already achieved. For example, in order to obtain the pedestrian diploma, at least twelve credit points must be accumulated for correct behavior in traffic.
Elementary school didactics and specialist didactics
Primary school instruction is not identical to subject instruction and therefore elementary school didactics is not to be equated with subject didactics . It is also not limited to adding up subject didactics. The mathematics education that Literaturdidaktik that sport didactics or traffic didactics deal as specialized sciences with the mediation processes of their highly demanding and complex field of knowledge. The use of their terms such as “mathematics”, “arithmetic”, “geometry”, “athletics”, “linguistics” or “mobility” in the elementary school sector is unscientific in a way that is appropriate for children and is accordingly wrong. What is more characteristic of elementary school didactics is a “pre-subject” or “interdisciplinary” work in the form of a “comprehensive lesson” that only extracts and uses elements of the specialist disciplines in a greatly simplified form. In its recommendations for primary school lessons, the KMK considers in Chap. 2.6: “In the context of all subjects, interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary work is the guiding principle” .
Elementary cultural techniques such as reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, making music, running, climbing, dancing, handicrafts, painting, storytelling, designing, modeling, configuring, etc. are conveyed in elementary school lessons in creative forms of activity. In addition, elementary school didactics also has an educational mandate that consists of the coexistence in the school and class community. It is about the character-building learning of rules of conduct that guarantee respectful, peaceful coexistence with one another, such as listening, giving excuses, knowing and complying with the rules of the game. It is about imparting "character virtues" such as fairness , courage , moral courage , punctuality , solidarity , helpfulness or the ability to organize oneself, learning techniques and exploitation strategies that are not linked to certain "subjects". It is also about acquiring civilization techniques such as dealing with the new media , with road traffic , with one's own safety and health or with public cleanliness and with garbage problems. The author Ricarda Stroetzel, for example, took up the problem of waste recycling with second graders under the topic "Ideas instead of waste" and with them - also instructive for parents - showed how valuable toys and attractive forms of play can be created from apparently worthless waste with imagination and creativity. The trainee teacher P. Wegener has tested in practical teaching experiments how first graders can become independent pedestrians in a playful way in an interdisciplinary project who, after having passed the “ pedestrian diploma ”, feel confident that they are able to make their way to school without a parent taxi and without “babysitting by helicopter parents ” to design on your own.
Because the subdivision of subjects is not yet of great importance in primary school didactics, the so-called class teacher principle also generally applies in the European school system , according to which a specific class teacher is assigned to each primary school class , who accompanies this class as long as possible throughout the primary school period and at least initially in the majority who teaches learning objects. This is justified by the fact that it is more important for children of primary school age to have a permanent caregiver and to grow into a community than to receive specialized knowledge and skills.
Elementary school didactics and university didactics
In contrast to university didactics , which are addressed to adult students and whose educational mandate includes scientific support for a professional qualification in the academic field, elementary school didactics has to do with children who should first undergo elementary training and education.
While university didactics requires a certain degree of human maturity and knowledge in independent work and decision-making, which also includes the choice of the field of study, lectures , seminars and internships , students as adolescents only become gradually more difficult through stricter regulations, through subject and class divisions Introduced own decisions and working methods. While “ upbringing ” hardly plays a role in university didactics, it fulfills an essential function in the case of children in addition to technical training. It is considered to be detrimental to the educational mandate of the scientific universities if their curricula - for example to shorten the study times - are "schooled" because they do not allow the decision-making freedom of the "students" identified by "secondary school leaving certificates" who are not "pupils" after the Abitur or Matura “Should be more, counteract, because they hinder the self-determination necessary for the professional qualification as a teacher and practically continue to treat the students as pupils. Primary school didactics, on the other hand, need to restrict the freedom of decision of the otherwise overwhelmed children.
University didactics find themselves in a double role and faced with the difficult task of having to convey the didactic requirements for their teaching practice to prospective teachers on the one hand, but not being able to practice primary school didactics in dealing with them, which would then only have to be copied and applied. Students are not children and learn differently. This difficulty is didactically solved at progressive universities in such a way that the lecturers, in addition to their university teaching in lectures and seminars, also accompany the students in the school practice on site and in joint projects. The authors Nadine Kutzli and Sabine Weiß document in the series “ Project Lessons in School and University ” for example: B. a complex teaching project on the subject of "jungle experience" , in which university didactics and elementary school didactics were interwoven: Under the guidance of their university professors, the trainee teachers learned in a seminar, first in theory and with practical examples, meaning, learning requirements, objectives, communication techniques, organizational forms and evaluation mechanisms of Know the form of teaching project teaching . Afterwards, what had been learned was put into practice in a one-week teaching project with two third-year classes and their teachers. The aim was to transform a sports hall, including all ancillary rooms and all equipment, into a jungle with the knowledge that was acquired , which invited people to climb, hang around, balance and swing. A huge camouflage network of the Bundeswehr created the optically dim atmosphere. Jungle noises provided the acoustic background, in front of which jungle animals such as tigers, monkeys and croaking parrots romped about, and Indians celebrated their secret rites. The knowledge quiz in a rock cave showed what knowledge the children had acquired in the course of the project and that an African lion could only have lost its way in the jungle.
Elementary school didactics and curriculum
The curricula are actually supposed to reflect the status of didactic research for implementation in practice. Even if the curriculum development, as it should, follows the "principle of permanent revision", the current curricula often lag behind the state of knowledge of the time. The reasons for this are the inevitably protracted democratic decision-making processes, but also the differently oriented decision-making bodies: Politically desired ideas are often given priority over scientific knowledge. Examples of this are the disputes on the subject of inclusion and the associated establishment of heterogeneous instead of homogeneous class associations, the highly controversial digitization of primary school lessons or the neglect of the learning area of traffic education, whose lack of presence in the more recent training plans is a major contributory factor in the parents' distrust in the The ability of their children to drive through school and the corresponding emergence of the parent taxi phenomenon is ascribed.
literature
- Annette Bernhart, Klaus Konrad: Learning strategies for children , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2017.
- Ulrike Graf u. a .: Diagnostics and support in the elementary sector and primary school lessons , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2008.
- Eva-Kristina Franz u. a .: Inclusion - a challenge for primary school education , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2014.
- Astrid Kaiser, Silke Pfeiffer: Elementary school education in modules. Schneider Verlag, Baltmannsweiler 2007, ISBN 978-3-8340-0286-0 .
- Nadine Kutzli, Sabine Weiß: Experience the jungle . PU 7 of the series project teaching in schools and universities , ed. v. SA Warwitz u. A. Rudolf, Karlsruhe 1994.
- Ministry f. Kultus, Jugend und Sport Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Education plan for the primary school , Stuttgart 2016
- Christa Schenk: Reading and Writing - Learning and Teaching , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016.
- Ilona Schneider u. a .: See-Experience-Try , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2012.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca: epistulae morales ad Lucilium 106, 11-12, approx. 62 AD.
- Seneca: Epistulae morales . Exempla 12, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001. ISBN 3-525-71629-X .
- Ricarda Stroetzel: "Ideas instead of waste" - waste recycling as a project task for elementary school students , scientific state examination work for the GHS teaching degree, Karlsruhe 1993.
- Siegbert Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: The principle of multi-dimensional teaching and learning . In: Dies .: Project teaching. Didactic principles and models . Hofmann publishing house. Schorndorf 1977. pp. 15-22. ISBN 3-7780-9161-1 .
- Siegbert Warwitz, Anita Rudolf (Ed.): Project teaching in schools and universities . Media series for interdisciplinary teaching. Karlsruhe 1980 ff.
- Siegbert A. Warwitz: Didactic principles , In: Ders .: Traffic education from the child. Perceiving-Playing-Thinking-Acting , Verlag Schneider, 6th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2009, pp. 69–72
Individual evidence
- ↑ epistulae morales ad Lucilium 106, 11–12, approx. 62 AD.
- ↑ Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK): Recommendations for work in primary schools (decision of the Kultusministerkonferenz of July 2nd, 1970 as amended on June 11th, 2015), (Foreword)
- ↑ Ministry f. Kultus, Jugend und Sport Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Education plan for the primary school , Stuttgart 2016
- ^ Astrid Kaiser, Silke Pfeiffer: Elementary school pedagogy in modules. Schneider Verlag, Baltmannsweiler 2007
- ↑ Christa Schenk: Reading and Writing - Learning and Teaching , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016
- ↑ Siegbert Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: The principle of multi-dimensional teaching and learning . In: Dies .: Project teaching. Didactic principles and models . Verlag Hofmann, Schorndorf 1977, pp. 15-22
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: Didactic Principles , In: Ders .: Traffic education from child. Perceiving-Playing-Thinking-Acting , Verlag Schneider, 6th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2009, pp. 69–72
- ↑ Edmund Kösel: Didactic principles and postulates , In: Die Modellierung von Lernwelten , Vol. I. The theory of subjective didactics , 4th edition, Balingen 2002
- ↑ Ulrike Graf u. a .: Diagnostics and support in the elementary sector and primary school lessons , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2008
- ↑ Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK): Recommendations for work in primary schools (decision of the Kultusministerkonferenz of July 2nd, 1970 as amended on June 11th, 2015), chap. 2.5
- ^ Astrid Kaiser, Silke Pfeiffer: Elementary school pedagogy in modules. Schneider Verlag, Baltmannsweiler 2007
- ^ Annette Bernhart, Klaus Konrad: Learning strategies for children , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2017
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: Learning objectives and learning controls in traffic education . In: Ders .: Traffic education from the child. Perceiving-Playing-Thinking-Acting , 6th edition, Baltmannsweiler 2009
- ↑ ibid . P. 23 and p. 26–28
- ↑ overall teaching on Enzyklo.de
- ↑ Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK): Recommendations for work in primary schools (decision of the Kultusministerkonferenz of July 2nd, 1970 as amended on June 11th, 2015)
- ↑ Christa Schenk: Reading and Writing - Learning and Teaching , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016
- ↑ Ricarda Stroetzel: "Ideas instead of waste" - waste recycling as a project task for elementary school students , scientific state examination work for the teaching profession GHS, Karlsruhe 1993
- ↑ P. Wegener: The 'pedestrian diploma' method as a didactic concept for improving the roadworthiness of school beginners . Scientific state examination work GHS, Karlsruhe 2001
- ↑ Nadine Kutzli, Sabine Weiß: Jungle experience . PU 7 of the series “ Project teaching in schools and universities ”, ed. v. SA Warwitz u. A. Rudolf, Karlsruhe 1994
- ^ Yearbook for Education 2015: Inclusion as Ideology , Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2015
- ↑ Eva-Kristina Franz u. a .: Inclusion - a challenge for primary school education , Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2014
- ↑ Manfred Spitzer: Digital dementia. How we drive ourselves and our children crazy . Munich 2012
- ↑ George Milzner: Digital hysteria. Why computers neither make our children stupid nor sick , Weinheim 2016
- ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz: Children in the problem field of school rush hour , In: Ding-Wort-Zahl 86 (2007) pp. 52-60
- ↑ ADAC eV (Ed.): The “Elterntaxi” at primary schools , 2nd edition 2015
Web links
- Position paper of the Association of Education and Upbringing for Primary Schools
- From space to space - traffic education network Vienna 2012