Karg Foundation

The Karg Foundation was founded in 1989 by Adelheid and Hans-Georg Karg , the childless son of the Hertie department store entrepreneur Georg Karg , to specifically promote the development of skills and abilities of gifted children and young people.

history

The foundation was established in 1989 by Hans-Georg and Adelheid Karg. In 1990 the cooperation with the Christian Youth Village CJD Braunschweig began. The German Student Academy was funded for the first time in 1991. The Hans-Georg Karg primary school was opened in Braunschweig in 1991. In 2000 school psychologists qualified in Hessen. In 2001 Altensteiger Sommermusik was sponsored for the first time. In the same year, numerous partnerships and funding for advice centers began.

The first Karg Forum was founded in 2002 and the Internet portal on giftedness started. The impulse schools were introduced from 2003. The early studies at the University of Würzburg were scientifically accompanied. The “Sehstern” project was started in 2007 at the Pinakotheken, Munich. The “Promotion of Talented Students in the Federal States” was published in 2008.

Overview

The Karg Foundation was founded in 1989 by Adelheid and Hans-Georg Karg, the childless son of the Hertie department store entrepreneur Georg Karg and his wife, to specifically promote the development of skills and abilities of gifted children and young people. For them, a decidedly Christian image of man was decisive, which focuses on mutual understanding and responsibility for one another. The target group of the foundation are gifted children and young people of pre-school and school age. The foundation supports these children through projects and institutions that focus on holistic gifted education in order to develop the entire personality of the beneficiaries. Since 2009, the 20th anniversary of the foundation, the Karg Prize, endowed with 50,000 euros, has been awarded every two years. It serves to support outstanding initiatives for the promotion of gifted children.

aims

The subject area . - Since it was founded in 1989, the Karg Foundation has opened up the field of giftedness and initiated and promoted many initiatives and exemplary offers. It has contributed significantly to a re-evaluation of the topic. Their goal remains to address and reduce prejudices about gifted and gifted people, because children and young people in particular suffer particularly from the judgments of their environment.

Mission statement . - The Karg Foundation is committed to promoting highly gifted people and their cognitive abilities. She is an advocate for the promotion of gifted children in Germany. The topic of giftedness in the sense of the Christian idea of man is to be discussed in a complex and comprehensive manner. In no way is it about a one-dimensional concept of performance or an economically understood usability of knowledge and talent.

Education system . - The promotion of talented children and young people changes every educational institution and the education system as a whole. The educational system should become more permeable for gifted people and continue to pay more attention to the topic.

Partners and projects . - The Karg Foundation works with model, transferable and qualified partners and projects in order to achieve the broadest possible impact of the funding. The foundation uses its overview of the topic and actors to network all those involved, those responsible and those interested.

activities

The 2009 Karg Prize went to the Quod Erat Demonstrandum eV association founded by young people, and in 2011 the highly gifted Rhineland Center in Brühl and the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gymnasium in Leipzig were honored for their commitment in the underachiever field . The 2013 award went to the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum (ESBZ) for its model of participatory and personality-building inclusive support for gifted children.

Diagnostics and advice . - The subsidized advice centers for gifted children and young people as well as their parents have a wide range of tasks and they have an impact on the region. They often perform central tasks in their state. In the future, existing advice centers in particular are to be supplemented with an offer for the gifted. A database of all advice centers can be found on the Karg Foundation's website and is open to anyone interested (direct link: see below).

Education and training . - Through the further and advanced training of educators, teachers and advisory pedagogues and other specialists, more educational institutions are becoming familiar with the topic of giftedness every year. Since 2004, around 150 educators have acquired the "gifted pedagogue" degree initiated by the Karg Foundation. This qualification has been offered at the Evangelical University of Dresden since April 2009. The “impulse circles” method developed by the Karg Foundation is used to train teachers.

Early promotion . - Promoting gifted people is a challenge, especially in kindergarten. Many of the common giftedness tests do not lead to reliable statements at this age. This is why the Karg Foundation adheres to the principle that it is better to support more children than to overlook a gifted child. At this age, the foundation's focus is on playing and the free development of creative and emotional children's powers. The Karg Foundation counters a purely quantitative transfer of facts and a recently observed 'funding hysteria' with a comprehensive concept of talent and a holistic view of mankind.

School . - The field of support depends on the school and teaching development in secondary levels I and II and the pros and cons of integrative (i.e. inclusive, e.g. in the existing class group) or segregative (i.e. separating, e.g. temporary, in individual measures or in special, homogeneous classes) promotion of gifted students. Another important topic concerns many parents in particular: the so-called "underachievement", i.e. the fact that (highly) gifted students achieve significantly less in certain learning situations than they would be able to.

Extracurricular . - The extracurricular support in your own projects or in the form of early studies at a university offers targeted and individual opportunities. The Karg Foundation is primarily concerned with projects in the visual arts and cooperates with several universities for a model further development of the offer for schoolchildren.

Science . - The Karg Foundation asks what talent actually is and always includes the latest results and sciences, such as recently brain research. It promotes scientific debate in the educational sciences and, against the background of an economic zeitgeist, asks about the values in the promotion of gifted children (Gadheimer Kreis).

Networking and communication . - The Karg Foundation regularly brings all those interested and committed from gifted projects (in the Karg Forum) and experts and those responsible from science, practice and educational administration (in the specialist ministries forum) to one table for an exchange of ideas and benchmarking. The results of all events are made publicly available at regular intervals. The usually free material can be requested from the office.

"Specialized portal gifted". - The Karg Foundation operates the specialist portal for gifted children, which provides basic knowledge and guidance on the situation of professional gifted children in Germany. Are offered u. a. Questions and answers on gifted people, a blog on gifted people, a database with advice centers and overviews of gifted students in the federal states.

Awards of the Karg Prize

2009: QED e. V .; Publication “Deeds, Topics and Talents. 20 years of the Karg Foundation 1998-2009 "

2011: Highly gifted center Rhineland in Brühl and the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gymnasium in Leipzig

2013: Evangelical School Berlin Center (ESBZ)

Web links

Individual evidence

[1] Brochure order office

[2] Specialized portal gifted