Berthold Otto

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Berthold Otto (born August 6, 1859 in Bienowitz ( Liegnitz district ), Silesia ; † June 29, 1933 in Berlin ) was a German reform pedagogue and founder of the private tutoring school in Berlin-Lichterfelde .

Life

Berthold Otto was born the son of a landowner . In early childhood there was a move to Rendsburg , as the father aspired to an active career as an officer. The estate was sold. In Rendsburg and later in Schleswig Otto attended high school (cathedral school) as the best of his year until he graduated from high school. From 1878 to 1883 Otto studied in Kiel and Berlin not only philosophy, pedagogy and psychology, but also economics, finance and linguistics. He could not achieve his goal of becoming a university professor. His doctoral thesis on liberalism was not accepted because, according to the commission, it dealt with the opinion of the common people .

In 1883, Berthold Otto became a private tutor and tutor in order to "be able to get to the university catheter in this way" . Based on the experiences and observations he gained, he wrote his first book, “The Course of the Future School” , which, however, was not published until 1901. During this time Otto also worked as an editor at Brockhausverlag, among others .

In 1887 Berthold married Otto. A total of four children were born from this marriage. (His eldest daughter married the philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz in 1906. ) As the Prussian Ministry of Culture became aware of Berthold Otto's educational activities, they moved to Berlin in 1902. Thanks to the financial support of the Prussian Ministry of Culture, Otto was able to concentrate fully on his educational work. This fact sets Otto apart from other research-based pedagogues, as he did not have to worry about the financing of his project, but could concentrate entirely on testing his pedagogical concepts. As a result, he founded the private tutoring school in Berlin-Lichterfelde in 1906 . In 1910, Berthold Otto's major political work “The future state as a socialist monarchy” appeared ; There he used concrete examples to demonstrate the effects of his political, economic and educational ideas on life in the community. Berthold Otto published an equally important work in 1918 under the title "Mammonism, Militarism - War and Peace" , in which he generalized the previously published findings and traced them back to their basic forces and causes. The “Open Letter to Lenin or His Successors” , written in 1918, should also be mentioned . For health reasons, Berthold Otto handed over the management of his school to his daughter Irmgard in 1930. Nevertheless, Otto continued to work as a teacher in his school until his death on June 29, 1933.

Educational views

Berthold Otto's pedagogy emerged from his many years of pedagogical practice as the father of four children, private tutor as well as teacher and headmaster of his private tutor school .

Education of the child

Otto has the basic conviction that "in every child the drive for the spiritual growth that is possible for him is present and effective" , therefore it is important to pick up the child with his own needs and to promote it according to his achievements and "his drive for spiritual growth" . The prerequisite for such action is recognition of childhood as an independent phase of development. According to Otto, another prerequisite is that you take the child seriously as an independent personality and encourage “intellectual intercourse” with the younger generation. Therefore the child always has the right to ask in order to arrive at new knowledge. These questions must be taken seriously by adults, as otherwise unwanted developmental states can arise. That is, if the child feels that their question is not being taken seriously, they will feel stupid and socially subordinate. It loses the motivation to ask questions and thereby continue to educate itself independently, and this can lead to a development standstill in an emergency. In order to clarify this right to ask, it was divided into three levels.

  • The first stage comprises the simple question of a tangible object (feelings and complex relationships are not yet mentally comprehensible for the child).
  • In the second stage the child deals with the usefulness of the object in order to come across the “why” question in the third stage.

An example may apply:

    • a) What is it? A locomotive
    • b) What does it do? It drives (fast movement)
    • c) How does it do it? Steam (steam engine)

Another point about the education of the child is Otto's statement that children orient themselves towards their peers in their quest for knowledge. An example of this is that children like to strive for the same toys and this can also lead to conflicts. This example can also be applied to knowledge. For example, if a child begins to be interested in dinosaurs, this curiosity will probably also be transferred to the other children in their immediate vicinity and the whole group will thus develop independently.

Education of the teacher

Quote: “The teacher has to use his personality there, he must never be forced to feign a conviction that he does not have; but you have to ask him for tolerance for all contrary convictions. "

Berthold Otto demands of his teachers to show unreserved tolerance towards the students . He expects this tolerance to apply to all subject areas within and outside of school. With regard to religious and political attitudes, Otto demands absolute acceptance of the students' own opinions. Through this acceptance by the teacher, the students themselves should learn to accept other opinions and, above all, to respect them. The teacher should support the students in their own opinion-finding. Especially if they have a different opinion, but do not provide sufficient arguments, the teacher should be able to give them the appropriate assistance to support them in their free thinking. If there are discussions in which the teacher cannot answer a question or cannot answer it comprehensively enough due to a lack of his own specialist knowledge, he must admit this and train himself further in order to be able to rework what has been missed and to be able to bring this new knowledge to bear in the following lessons. The teacher, like parents and the entire social environment of the child, is required to take every question from the student seriously and to answer it according to his possibilities. Here, too, the permanent further training of the teacher is emphasized. Otto wants teachers who, on the one hand, have very extensive and all-encompassing specialist knowledge, and on the other hand, the teacher should have completed training in psychological observation skills.

Education (in) the family

The education in the family looked at Berthold Otto as the most basic element of the entire educational complex. In the family, the basic experiences are already gathered before starting school (5-6 years of age). With good pedagogical guidance from the mother, school facilities could be completely dismantled. This requirement was to be understood only hypothetically and proves Otto's extreme emphasis on intellectual intercourse with children in the family. His concept of language education stands out, which is divided into three sections:

  • educate them to speak (the speaker only says something well thought out and expresses himself accordingly). In this first phase, the child learns that it can primarily make itself understood through language, not just through facial expressions and gestures (crying, fidgeting ...) transition from prosodic to linguistic competence
  • educate through language (think through the world of appearances until it is clear and understandable). In the second phase, the child learns the ability to create new expressions and terms and knows how to use them sensibly (morphology, synthax, lexicon and semantics)
  • Education of the language itself. In the third and final phase, the child learns to gradually perfect what has already been learned so that it can make itself understood clearly.

His tutor school

Berthold Otto founded a private experimental school in Berlin-Lichterfelde with the support of the Prussian Ministry of Culture . It emerged from Otto himself as a private tutor and was a necessity for a constantly growing circle of parents interested in Otto's pedagogy. He called the school "Hauslehrerschule", referring to the idea of ​​a school as an extended family. Otto became known in professional circles through the school. The private tutoring school was therefore frequently attended - also by interested audiences from abroad. It was the "best known reform school of that time", according to researcher Wolfgang Scheibe.

The school was open to pupils from the age of six and there was no upper limit. The students were able to receive or be prepared for every school leaving certificate. This means that they were able to determine for themselves which degree was the most suitable for them, and were prepared accordingly and received the exam. Only at the Abitur did the students have to complete the final year of a public school. The classes were not age-divided, but based on the performance of each individual student. This referred to the entire teaching concept. For example, a student in mathematics could belong to a high-performing course, while in contrast to this, he would belong to a less-performing course in foreign language classes. Lessons were not only given by trained specialists, but also more capable students taught less capable ones. The principle of curiosity was also put into practice in school. That is, if a ten-year-old girl was interested in reading Faust, it was not necessary to raise the child's intellectual level, but to bring the text to the child's level.

The curriculum was not based on individual hours, but based on the entire school career. There was no annual quota to complete, rather the services were distributed over the entire school period. In order to facilitate the transition from “mother's stove” to the school desk, the game also served as a transmitter for Berthold Otto . The children were initially playing the learning to learn. The older students were also used to develop new games. Most of the games took place in the open air, which had already established itself with other educators and should also make a name for itself with future educators.

In this school too, disobedience was punished. However, this was not dictated indiscriminately, but had to be discussed for everyone and in front of everyone in order to understand the wrongdoing. The student was allowed to comment on his misconduct. The type of punishment was previously determined by all students in a catalog. The laws required for this were drawn up by the students themselves in the overall lesson (student laws, school constitution and negotiation rules).

Fritz Karsen , also head of his own experimental school, said at the pedagogical congress in Munich in 1924 about the Berthold Otto School:

“When we go to Berthold Otto's private tutoring school in Großlichterfelde, one has the feeling that we have come from a realm of finely thought-out, if not to say sophisticated, methods that are supposed to lead the mind to independent work, into a quiet, clear district that is completely dominated by trust in the child's existing self-activity and its growth, by patience and the ability to wait. Berthold Otto knows that man's real work arises from his need for life, his need for work. So he tried, with wonderful radicalism, to build the school entirely on the child's elementary educational instinct. "

The Berthold Otto School still exists today, even partly in the same premises. After Otto's death, the school remained in family hands. The school also survived the Nazi era , which is surprising since Otto was known as a staunch socialist.

The overall lesson

The overall lesson means that all students come together in one large room. The pupils themselves determined the subjects of the overall lesson. These were subjects that emerged from the lessons, questions that the pupils were concerned with privately, and questions of an organizational nature, for example related to living together in the school community. The teacher only took on the role of facilitator and took himself back as best he could. He did not act as a teacher, but supplemented the conversation with his own experience and knowledge if necessary.

In the overall lesson, the aforementioned school court was also created, which, as a judicial branch with self- imposed statutes, decided on misconduct by the students. This system can be described as a pioneer of today's student council . Another body of the school was the school conference, which was composed of students, teachers and parents and voted on organizational issues of the school. This system also exists today in a stunted form.

Criticism of the private tutoring school and the pedagogy of Berthold Otto

Berthold Otto allowed interested parties to sit in on his classes in order to gain an insight into them and to find out more about his work. Among the several hundred interns was, among others, the senior teacher A. Böhm from the Jena University College of Education. In a letter to Otto, dated July 7, 1913, Otto sharply criticized Otto's overall educational concept.

The first point of criticism complained about the non-existent curriculum or timetable . But there was a timetable, but the students themselves could design it. In Böhm's opinion, children cannot decide for themselves what is good for them. Adults (parents and teachers) have to make this decision for them. The elective law of the subjects was also criticized and should, if at all, only be allowed for higher levels.

This point of criticism contradicts the view that children cannot learn early enough to make their own decisions and that this should be encouraged from an early age. The different age structures in the individual courses were criticized as well as the time invested in the overall teaching that would be lost in the curriculum. The overall teaching was introduced in addition to the teaching. Therefore, there was no loss of valuable learning hours. Rather, these hours served to supplement the actual lessons and to promote communication between the students, the formation of opinions in general and the basic political understanding. In the overall class, topics were discussed that were not of interest to all students. Otto contradicted this by referring to the mutual agreement of the topics. In this way, every student was able to contribute according to their needs and contribute to the success of the overall lesson. Allegedly, the school court would be disadvantageous for character formation, since it promotes "dialectics and rabidism" . Otto wanted all of his students to have the ability to lead a discussion. A. Böhm sees no possibility of transferring the concept developed by Otto to public schools. However, he did not know that there had already been transmissions with a positive response. Above all, the overall teaching was taken over by many of the students in their own school.

Otto saw the criticism of his pedagogy as unfounded and refuted most of the arguments with the points mentioned above. Some of the criticisms went against Otto's basic understanding of education and the position of the child.

Political and economic views

Berthold Otto had a "great aversion to the entire political party system" . In Otto's view, everyone in a democracy wants to gain power in order to get his way, even against the common good. That means, according to Otto, there can be no real democracy, since the whole system insists on each individual or individual party striving for power. The party that came to power through an election could implement all of its political ideas, which could, however, be reversed in the event of a new election with a majority of another party or coalition. This is particularly evident in the existing school system. It would be inconceivable if Protestant schooling were implemented in all schools first and then this learning plan were overturned by a Catholic after four years, and all that only because a new government was elected to power by the people.

Otto comments critically: “ People who seek their rights always get into legal disputes with one another; People who do their duty become comrades to each other for community services. "

Therefore, he had a socialist monarchy in mind instead of a capitalist society. Since this was no longer possible in Germany after the First World War, it was to be enforced in Russia by "Lenin or his successor". Otto wanted to draw Lenin's attention to his thoughts by means of an open letter dated March 3, 1918. Whether this letter ever reached Lenin and whether there was a reaction from Lenin to this letter is still not known. In this letter Otto referred to his book " Der Umsturz " (published in 1896; censored in Russia, therefore known), but did not assume that Lenin had read it. So he wrote him a summary of the most important arguments for Lenin about governance in the socialist style. Otto's form of the monarchy should be as follows:

In Russia there was an assassination of the top class during the revolution. The nobility and the educated bourgeoisie were disempowered and killed. Otto considered this to be uneconomical, as he did not consider it sensible to eliminate people who had experience in business and governance and could bring them into a new system. His main concern was the abolition of money. Money is always the greatest power factor in a state. Everything can be achieved through money and it divides the people into three groups (poverty, middle class, wealth). To prevent this from happening, there should be no money available for the common people. It should only exist for state issues with other countries. Families should be divided into groups that are assigned shop stewards. These V-men note down the needs of the individual families and meet with other V-men in order to collect the overall needs of the population of a district. This principle runs right up to the top (king).

Graduates from the Berthold Otto School

One of the well-known graduates is Götz George .

Works (selection)

In addition to educational works, Otto also published some political and economic works. In total, his bibliography comprises around 60 titles. Here are two of his central educational works:

  • The future school , 2 parts (1901–14)
  • The School Reformation (1912)

literature

  • Helmut Alberts: From the life of the Berthold Otto School . (= The School of Life - Series of writings of the Federation of Decided School Reformers ), Verlag Schwetschke & Sohn, Berlin 1925
  • Hermann Altendorf: Berthold Otto - A pioneer of modern experiential education ?. 2. change Edition, Erlebnispädagogik edition, Lüneburg 2001, ISBN 3-89569-052-X
  • Susanne Brülls: Complete teaching according to Berthold Otto . In: Astrid Kaiser, Detlef Pech (Hrsg.): History and historical conceptions of general teaching . Baltmannsweiler 2004, pp. 106-109
  • Benner / Kemper: Theory and History of Reform Education , Part 2, Beltz, Weinheim Basel 2003, ISBN 3-8252-8240-6
  • Benner / Kemper: Source texts for: Theory and History of Reform Education , Part 2: The Pedagogical Movement from the Turn of the Century to the End of the Weimar Republic , Beltz, Weinheim, Basel 2003
  • Wolfgang Scheibe: The educational reform movement. An introductory presentation . 10th ext. Edition, Beltz, Weinheim and Basel 1999, ISBN 3-407-22027-8
  • Edgar Weiss:  Otto, Berthold. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 703 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Klemens Ketelhut: Berthold Otto as an educational entrepreneur. A case study on German reform pedagogy. (= Contributions to historical educational research). Cologne: Böhlau Verlag 2015. ISBN 978-3-412-50173-0 ; Review on H-Soz-Kult

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Scheibe, Wolfgang (1969): The Reform Pedagogical Movement 1900-1932. An introductory presentation. Weinheim, Berlin, Basel, p. 81
  2. ↑ Scheibe, Wolfgang (1969): The Reform Pedagogical Movement 1900-1932. An introductory presentation. Weinheim, Berlin, Basel, pp. 83 and 90.
  3. ↑ Scheibe, Wolfgang (1969): The Reform Pedagogical Movement 1900-1932. An introductory presentation. Weinheim, Berlin, Basel, p. 83.
  4. ↑ Scheibe, Wolfgang (1969): The Reform Pedagogical Movement 1900-1932. An introductory presentation. Weinheim, Berlin, Basel, p. 108f.
  5. ↑ Scheibe, Wolfgang (1969): The Reform Pedagogical Movement 1900-1932. An introductory presentation. Weinheim, Berlin, Basel, p. 84.
personal data
SURNAME Otto, Berthold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reform pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Bienowitz (District of Liegnitz)
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1933
Place of death Berlin