Children's republic

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The term children's republics , which was coined in reform pedagogy , describes very different, sometimes even contradicting approaches to communal life between children and adults, in which children practice democracy , the functioning of states and / or simple coexistence. The term is used for the most diverse basic concepts of child and youth work . So you can find it today among other things at self-managed youth centers , in holiday camps , holiday leisure events and others, outside of Germany also in school trials . Due to the diversity of the basic concepts, a general statement about the real decision-making powers and decision-making consequences in children's republics cannot be made; they range from a simple game to sole decision-making authority and the associated consequences. Regardless of this, the educational significance cannot be derived from the degree of participation.

These children's republics were modeled on similar institutions in certain tribal cultures such as B. the ghotul among the indigenous people in Chhattisgarh , India .

Concepts of self government

There are basically three different, opposing concepts of self-government:

  1. The fake self-government in which adult educators skillfully remotely control and manipulate the decisions of children and young people. The main theoretical representative was the German education professor and internationally recognized moral educator Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster (in the first half of the 20th century), who was not concerned with self-determination but with character formation and ultimately submission to the will. The most famous practitioner was Anton Semenovich Makarenko . Rousseau's approaches can also be classified here.
  2. A self-government system with a money-based economic system (with currency, bank, company, etc.) is set up, which contains automatically acting rewards (money) and punishments (loss of money). According to this, pedagogical inactivity and radical non-intervention by adults is the concept. This is clearly inadequate as an educational concept and has in practice (in the George Junior Republic in New York State) led to the failure of self-government (see also: token system ).
  3. The concept of shared responsibility between adult educators on the one hand and children and adolescents on the other, which was developed and practiced primarily by psychoanalytically oriented home educators in Great Britain. ( Homer Lane , David Wills, Alexander Sutherland Neill et al .; Siegfried Bernfeld and John Patrick Caroll-Abbing worked similarly). This concept is pedagogically well thought out, enables extensive democratic self-government of the children and young people and works, e.g. B. in Summerhill for over 80 years . This is the main concept that is at stake here.

Techniques of Self-Government

The technique of self-government is usually very simple: all home members - the adults are a small minority - vote on newly proposed rules in regular general assemblies. Rule violations can be reported to a court and can be punished or otherwise dealt with. In accordance with the shared responsibility, the home management issues the most necessary safety rules, including those externally imposed on the home (e.g. statutory) (compulsory schooling, drug bans, etc.).

Limits of Self-Government

Even if some children's republics (such as the George Junior Republics) replicate a state and its economic system as closely as possible, and Benposta even occasionally claims to be a state of its own , they are in fact always homes . H. Educational institutions and adults always remain ultimately responsible. Those who hand over all decisions to the children and young people either risk the rapid ruin of the home or are forced to skillfully manipulate the decisions. The radical advocates of self-government in particular clearly emphasize the limits of self-government - which, however, are drawn so far that almost all of everyday life is the responsibility of children and young people.

Democracy is a highly artificial way of life; Children left to their own devices would not form model democratic states, but at most gangs . It can only exist where adult educators very consciously make self-government their concept, establish it and actively support it.

Self-government is not an end in itself; the well-being of children and young people is a top priority. Where self-government does not work for a long time despite support, the educators intervene, help with rebuilding, provoke and the like. U. the abolition of all laws by majority vote ("periods of anarchy" which turn out to be unbearable after a few days and motivate the adoption of new rule systems) or the temporary (as bad and unpleasant as possible) "dictatorship" of adults.

Examples

William Reuben George

Examples of the model of a children's republic are:

  • George Junior Republic, which William Reuben George founded and directed in 1895 near Freeville, New York, as well as other junior republics still exist today, but - apart from the name - they have little in common with the original founding;
  • the Boys Republic / Ford Republic near Detroit, USA, directed by Homer Lane, and that too
  • Little Commonwealth in Dorsetshire, England, directed by Homer Lane (1913-1918)
  • the Summerhill School in England founded and run by AS Neill (1921/22 until today)
  • the Kilquhanity House School founded by John Aitkenhead in Scotland with Neill's support
  • the Beacon Hill School of Dora Russell and her husband Bertrand Russell
  • the Q-Camp in Hawkspur, England (1936–1941) and Barns House in Scotland (1940–1945), led by William David Wills
  • Siegfried Bernfeld 's Baumgarten children's home in Vienna-Baumgarten
  • AS Makarenkos Gorky Colony in Ukraine
  • Janusz Korczak since 1911 in Dom Sierot (Polish: “Orphanage”) , led by him according to the principle of children's rights , and since 1919 also in the Nasz Dom (“Our House”) in Warsaw (since 1940 in the Warsaw Ghetto ).
  • Father Flanagan's Boys Town , founded in 1917 in Omaha / Nebraska, USA , emphasizes self-government very much in terms of propaganda, without it having any real meaning. Boys Town (possibly just the movie about it) was the model for Benposta.
  • The children's republic of Benposta near Ourense in Spain , founded by Padre Jesús Cesar Silva in 1956, has become famous for its children's circus Los Muchachos . In Germany, a Benposta boom was triggered in the 1970s by E. Möbius' paperback The Children's Republic. In 1972 several hundred young people lived in Benposta, Spain.
  • Benposta Colombia. There is also a video about this community in many libraries (Benposta - the republic of children)
  • Benposta Venezuela (at two locations, a third is under construction). There are occasional charity events for these communities in Germany.
  • The boys town and girls town near Rome founded by the American priest John Patrick Carroll-Abbing ( Città dei Ragazzi or Boys' Town of Italy and Città delle Ragazze or Girls Town of Italy )
  • The self-governing boys' town Buchhof in Buchhof on Lake Starnberg
  • The SJD's KidsCamp - The Falcons
  • The first Children's Republic of Children's Friends on Gut Seekamp in 1927.

Reasons for closure

Many of these facilities have been closed and no longer exist.

The Children's Republics, however, have not "been closed because of internal pedagogical problems with the young people, or because self-government did not work and failed. The republics did not fail because of educational problems, not even because the supposedly irreplaceable brilliant educator died, but they failed politically due to changed political conditions (fascism!) And staged sexual-political scandals, as well as organizationally because they could not find suitable trained or qualified staff , or economically from lack of money or inheritance problems after the death of the founder. "(Kamp 1995, p. 78.)

In addition to the reasons already mentioned, there is another one that is likely to weigh heavily: Children's republics demand a high degree of idealism and firm convictions from the people living there . Not every adult or older youth (and it is they who take on the highest degree of social and political responsibility in a children's republic) is in the long run able to convincingly represent the self-chosen goal of an altruistic , pedagogically oriented life. The human tendency to (perhaps unconsciously) search for one's own advantage is sometimes even stronger than the educational ability and training of the individual: Living in a community is a great personal and collective challenge that not every individual and not every project successfully meets in the long term can.

At exactly this point [source?] Benposta, the Nación de Muchachos, in Orense (Spain) failed in the past few years: The project is now closed.

But also a very banal reason, already mentioned in the Kamp quote, led to the gradual decline in Benposta in Spain, among other reasons: Long before the closure, there was an increasing lack of financial resources, which resulted in serious restrictions in the care options (trainers in the workshops, teachers , Supervisor for the accommodations of the younger children), the maintenance of the buildings etc. (cf. Poschkamp, ​​1985).

Inferences

It is noticeable that, with the exception of the book by Kamp (Children's Republics), little attention is paid to this topic in the pedagogical discussion. Share this fate z. B. Summerhill or reform schools around 1920, z. B. the experimental school Telemannstrasse in Hamburg, which practiced student self-government. If you look through the course catalogs of the German-speaking universities, you won't find anything about the children's republics. In school museums, the kettling lessons of the imperial era are remembered almost exclusively - especially in the school lessons that were demonstrated - while the successful approaches of the Weimar Republic simply do not exist. Exception: Hamburg School Museum .

In Freinet pedagogy , the model is not the state or the republic, but the cooperative , self-governing cooperative (from rural areas in France).

Kamp's dissertation shows that it is possible for children to rule themselves. In Germany there may be approaches to children's republics again: z. B. the school state Haubinda .

Related topics

literature

German speaking

  • Johanna Bardili: Forbidden for adults - Children rule in Bemposta . Novel. Franz Schneider, Munich-Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-505046-57-4
  • Hans Bohmann, José Posada: Benposta, 50 years of 'Naçion de Muchachos' - the story of an extraordinary institution . Think and act series. Contributions from science and practice. Ev. University of Applied Sciences Rhineland-Westphalia-Lippe, Bochum 2006, ISBN 3-926013-63-X
  • Siegfried Bernfeld: Anti-authoritarian education and psychoanalysis . Collected Writings. March, Frankfurt am Main 1969 a. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1974
  • Uwe Danker , Astrid Schwabe: Films tell stories. Schleswig-Holstein in the 20th century . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2010, pp. 26–29
  • Johannes-Martin Kamp: Children's Republics . History, practice and theory of radical self-government in children's and youth homes. Opladen: Leske + Budrich 1995 (also University of Essen: phil. Diss. 1994) ISBN 3-8100-1357-9 . (available online here . PDF file; 7.3 MB)
  • Paul Felix Lazarsfeld, Ludwig Wagner: Community education through educational communities. Report on a contribution of the youth movement to social education . Anzengruber, Vienna, Leipzig undated (1924)
  • Friedemann Lüpke: Educational provinces for neglected children and young people. A systematic comparative study on problem structures of the open beginning of education. The examples of Stans, Junior Republic and Gorky Colony . Ergon, Würzburg, 2004 ISBN 3-89913-350-1
  • Anton Semjonowitsch Makarenko: An Educational Poem. The way to life . Novel. People and Knowledge, Berlin 1970
  • Eberhard Möbius : The children's republic . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg, 1973
  • Alexander Sutherland Neill: Self-administration in the school . Pan, Zurich 1950
  • Alexander Sutherland Neill: Theory and Practice of Anti-Authoritarian Education. The Summerhill example . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg, 1969
  • Ernst Papanek: The children of Montmorency . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1983
  • Peter Poschkamp, ​​Urs Schnyder (ed.): Bemposta and the Muchachos. The children's republic between dream and reality . o. O. [self-published] 1985
  • Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinderfreunde (Ed.): The red children's republic Seekamp. A book by working-class children for working-class children . Compiled and supplemented by Andreas Gayk . Arbeiterjugend-Verlag, Berlin 1928; New edition: Falkenbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1976
  • Helenov Sana, Rainer Drexel, Renate von Forster: Benposta. A city for children . Melzer et al. Bertelsmann, Dreieich u. Gütersloh undated (1979)
  • Karl Wilker: The George Junior Republic . In: Die Deutsche Schule (Weinheim) 17 (1913) H. 8 P. 464–474.
  • Johannes Zielinski: About self-administration as a means of upbringing in homes for uprooted and war-damaged young people , presented and explained using the example of the youth self- help organization and education center " Jungestadt Buchhof ". Munich: phil. diss 1950 (unprinted).

English speaking

  • Elise T. Bazeley: Homer Lane and the Little Commonwealth. London: New Education Book Club 1948 (2nd edition, first published 1928)
  • John Patrick Carroll-Abbing: But for the Grace of God . New York: Delacorte 1965.
  • William Reuben George: The Junior Republic. Its history and ideals. New York, London: D.Appleton 1909.
  • Jack M. Holl: Juvenile Reform in the Progressive Era. William R. George and the Junior Republic Movement . Ithaca / NY, London: Cornell University Press 1971 (dissertation).
  • Homer Lane: Talks to Parents and Teachers . New York City: Schocken 1969 (first London 1928).
  • William David Wills: The Hawkspur Experiment . An Informal Account of the Training of Wayward Addolescents. London: Allen and Unwin 1941.
  • William David Wills: The Barns Experiment . London: Allen and Unwin 1945.
  • William David Wills: Homer Lane, A Biography . London: Allen and Unwin 1964.

Web links

Exists with reference to the start-up phase

  • Summerhillschool - school website in English
  • Summerhill - German-language website about Summerhill
  • Benposta Venezuela German language site
  • Google Earth: View of Benposta Spain The buildings of the children's republic can still be seen: on the right the small round red circus tent, on the far left with a bright red roof the never-finished hotel at the gas station, which was to serve as an additional source of income and at the same time training place. There used to be a larger tent on the round square. The lower 4 elongated buildings: workshops, library, leisure room. Upper elongated building: bedrooms and washrooms, school classes, assembly room. Small houses with light red roofs: town hall, "shops".
  • Falken KidsCamp

Still in existence, but not related to the founding phase

No longer exists