Karl Wagner (pedagogue)

Karl Wagner (born February 10, 1914 in Wurzbach , Thuringia; † May 12, 1996 in Berlin ) was a German reform pedagogue , pioneer in the development of Berlin comprehensive schools and founder of today's Bettina von Armim School in Berlin-Reinickendorf .

Life

Wagner obtained his university entrance qualification at the Erfurt Humboldt School in 1933 , studied at the Pedagogical Institute of the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and passed the scientific examination for teaching at Thuringian elementary schools in 1936. In the same year he was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on "The Basics of Friedrich Nietzsche's Psychological Research ". rer. nat. PhD.

The meeting with Peter Petersen , who had set up an experimental school for children of elementary school age at Jena University in the mid-1930s, was formative for his further career . Work was carried out here according to the Jenaplan , whose individual pedagogical orientation ran counter to Nazi school policy , so that this school was increasingly exposed to repression. Wagner was deeply impressed by the content and methods of this educational reform institution.

The war and injuries off Stalingrad interrupted Wagner's efforts to become a pedagogue himself. The hope of being able to contribute to a democratic school within the communist-oriented educational policy in Thuringia in the immediate post-war years failed due to ideological and bureaucratic obstacles. In 1951, Wagner and his family moved to West Berlin . Here he met a school landscape under the direction of the conservative Senator for Education, Joachim Tiburtius , who clearly relied on the structured three-part school system , which he saw as a bulwark against the standardized school introduced nationwide in the GDR . Wagner represented his ideas of a democratic school and his pedagogical ideas for the individualization of learning processes in this environment extremely carefully and skillfully in order not to suspect that he was sympathizing with the idea of a single school. In lectures and contributions to RIAS cultural policy programs, he was involved in the development of schools in Berlin.

In the 1960s, Wagner succeeded in realizing his reform plans in a combined elementary, secondary and secondary school, the then Hermann Schulz School in the Reinickendorf district. He was also supported in this by Carl-Heinz Evers , Berlin School Senator since 1963 and advocate of the comprehensive school, which could only with difficulty assert itself against the traditionally structured school system. 1972 Wagner founded with the support of the Senate Department of Education, and especially by the lead of the overall school development in Berlin senior superintendent Ulrich Kledzik a comprehensive school that 2.O / OG Reinickendorf, which soon as school special educational character and as a pilot of KMK was recognized . Its content was based on the dissolution of the class principle into core groups within a year group, the pupils' freedom of choice, the internal differentiation of lessons and the combination of theoretical and practical learning. Wagner headed the school until 1979, which was named in 1981 after Bettina von Arnim , the committed Berlin writer (1785-1859). Since the 2010/11 school year it has been called the “Bettina von Arnim School - Integrated Secondary School with Upper School”.

In 1979 Wagner was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to the development of democratic school structures and his commitment to the Berlin comprehensive school. "A lighthouse in the Berlin school landscape" - this is what the former head of the Berlin State School Office, Wilfried Seiring, called him. Karl Wagner died in Berlin in 1996. His estate is in the Berlin archive of the Library for Research on Educational History .

literature

Karl Wagner: The conceptual foundations of the model of the 2nd comprehensive school. Working papers on the school experiment 2. Comprehensive school, booklet 1. Berlin-Reinickendorf 1978 (location: archive of the Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule)
Further contributions by Wagner in the series materials and investigations on the school experiment 2nd comprehensive school Berlin-Reinickendorf , which deals with educational-conceptual issues. (Location: archive of the Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule)
Ralf Heitmann (Ed.): ... with head, heart and hand. 40 years of the Bettina von Arnim School. School history and stories 1972-2012. Saint Albin Verlag : Berlin 2012. ISBN 978-3-930293-82-7

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Bettina von Arnim School. Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule, accessed on May 16, 2019 (German).
^ Karl Wagner: Materials and investigations for the school experiment 2nd comprehensive school Berlin-Reinickendorf . Self-published by the Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule, Berlin.
↑ Ralf Heitmann (Ed.): ... with head, heart and hand . 1st edition. Saint Albin Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-930293-82-7 , pp. 120 .

personal data
SURNAME	Wagner, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German reform pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH	February 10, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wurzbach , Thuringia
DATE OF DEATH	May 12, 1996
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Bettina von Arnim School. Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule, accessed on May 16, 2019 (German).

[2] Karl Wagner: Materials and investigations for the school experiment 2nd comprehensive school Berlin-Reinickendorf . Self-published by the Bettina-von-Arnim-Schule, Berlin.

[3] Ralf Heitmann (Ed.): ... with head, heart and hand . 1st edition. Saint Albin Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-930293-82-7 , pp. 120 .