Humanistic life studies

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Humanistic life studies is an optional world view lesson under the responsibility of the Humanistic Association of Germany , which has been offered in (West) Berlin schools since 1982 and in schools in Brandenburg since 2007. It has also been held at the private humanistic elementary school in Fürth since 2008 .

Content and goals

The life studies class is a denomination-oriented worldview class that represents a humanistic view of life, with which people justify sole responsibility for their thoughts and actions. Life science lessons are based on secular humanism , the Enlightenment and modern (natural) sciences . In the lessons of the Humanist Association, the students can learn that there is no given meaning in life , but that people can give their life meaning. The sciences are an important tool in solving problems and conflicts.

The life science lessons are intended to provide guidance to understand the importance of moral action and, in particular, to help develop moral positions for one's own life. This includes the question of what scientific knowledge should be used for, as well as the processing of existential experiences such as death , dying , illness , separation and union. Humanistic life science lessons are intended to help children and young people to ask themselves such questions and to integrate them into their everyday lives - without resorting to religious ideas. The life science lessons are thus a supplement to the scientific lessons in schools and offer the opportunity to ask about the meaning of life , universal values ​​such as human rights and the riddle of life.

Humanistic teaching places the dignity of the individual at the center of its considerations. It tries to strengthen the strength for tolerance and solidarity , and at the same time wants to enable young people to consciously offer resistance to dogmatism and fanaticism . Many of these positions are now also represented in religious education. Humanism also sees humanistic values ​​formulated in religions - e.g. B. the demand for justice in the Hebrew Bible . Humanists therefore try to understand religions as an attempt by people to cope with their real conflicts and to establish tenable social relationships. In life science lessons, religions are analyzed as systems developed by humans, understood in their consolation and hope and presented in their culture-building, ethical function. People who do not want to interpret their life in terms of beliefs are, in the opinion of life science lessons, also able to develop moral and ethical positions. The willingness to show solidarity, even and especially with the weaker is possible with empathy ( empathy considered) and by critical reflection, which is precisely the ethical consequences of human decisions.

Framework curriculum

The third edition of the “Framework Curriculum Life Science” forms the basis of life science lessons. In addition, there is a practical folder with teaching units and the theoretical journal “Theory and Practice of Humanistic Education”, in which general educational and ideological questions are discussed. Reading and work books for schoolchildren are available. Since 1999 there has been a state-recognized supplementary course at the Lebenskunde training institute in cooperation with the educational sciences department at the Technical University of Berlin .

distribution

The provider of life science lessons is the Humanist Association of Germany (HVD), a belief community that is treated equally with the churches in accordance with the Basic Law (Article 140 in conjunction with Article 137 WRV ). In four federal states, the state associations have the status of a corporation under public law . The association advocates a voluntary, pluralistic offer of religious and ideological communities in schools.

Bavaria

Since the school year 2008/2009, humanistic life studies have been taught at the humanistic elementary school in Fürth, a state-approved school independently run by the HVD Bavaria. Life studies is permitted as a regular subject in Bavaria and takes the place of religious instruction.

Berlin and Brandenburg

In Berlin and Brandenburg a total of 63,493 students took part in life science lessons in the 2017/2018 school year.

North Rhine-Westphalia

In North Rhine-Westphalia, legal proceedings were in progress at the Münster Higher Administrative Court, with the aim of obtaining approval for the school subject after the school ministry rejected an application for approval in July 2007, until the association withdrew the lawsuit in 2014 due to the lack of prospects of success.

History of life science

The term life science is older than the school subject. As early as the 1880s, the debate had begun about whether the dogmatic- denominational religious instruction was still up-to-date and belongs as a subject in public schools . In the context of this discussion about an alternative to religious education, the term life studies in the sense of a non-religious ethical - moral instruction arose .

Beginnings

The history of life studies as a school subject began in 1920. The secular school movement called for church-free teaching and thus initiated the separation of school and church in Germany. At the beginning of the new school year, a new, voluntary subject was introduced in the schools there, following a resolution by the self-governing bodies of some Berlin suburbs. This subject initially had different names. Terms such as secular moral lessons , ethics , religious studies and life studies were used for it. The term Lebenskunde established itself as a uniform term in the course of the following year. The subject was aimed at children who did not take part in religious education and had the aim of conveying ethical and moral principles and connections relating to the history of religion . Above all, the three parties of the labor movement , SPD, USPD and KPD, campaigned for life science lessons. This was the reaction to the fact that it had not been possible to anchor the old demand of the labor movement for the secularity of the school system in the Weimar constitution .

The secular- oriented and most of the socialist- oriented school politicians, including many parents and teachers, viewed the introduction of life studies as a separate subject only as an emergency solution. Their actual idea was that the secular unified school they were striving for would make life science lessons superfluous, since life science would then be the general teaching principle in such a school. After some places succeeded in bringing together children who had been freed from religious instruction in their own schools, a heated discussion began as to whether life studies were necessary as a subject in such schools.

The Prussian Ministry of Culture made it possible for the children who did not take part in religious education to be grouped together in their own schools, sometimes also in classes. These institutions were officially called collecting schools and classes. Since it was a new type of facility, the greatest possible freedom was granted for its design. That is why life studies, as it was finally named as a school subject, gained great importance for teachers and students. Since the other ways of changing something in the content and methods of the school were blocked, life science lessons became the focus for reform pedagogical approaches. The same applied to the simultaneous schools in countries such as Hesse , Saxony and Thuringia , where life science was more or less equal to the respective denominational religious instruction.

Ban after the Nazi seizure of power

These developments ended when the National Socialists came to power. As early as February 1933, giving life lessons was forbidden, and a little later religious instruction was reintroduced in the formerly secular schools. In addition, the secular schools were gradually dissolved over the course of a year.

The term Lebenskunde used in the time of National Socialism (for example in the textbook Lebenskunde for middle schools , written around 1940 ) refers to life science ( biological ) lessons.

After the Second World War

Religious education is the only subject that is expressly named as a regular subject in the Basic Law (Art. 7 Paragraph 3) and is therefore binding for the federal states. Art. 141 GG allows exceptions in countries in which on January 1, 1949 a different state law regulation applied. In Bremen and Berlin - based on this GG article - there is no religious education as a compulsory subject. The same exception would be possible in the eastern German states; only Brandenburg waived the introduction of denominational religious instruction and instead offered a compulsory subject for all pupils, Lifestyle, Ethics and Religious Studies (LER). Participants in the (also permitted) religious education classes may deregister from the LER subject.

See also

literature

  • Humanistic Association of Germany (Ed.): Framework curriculum for the humanistic life science classes Berlin 2012
  • Lexicon of Religious Education Norbert Mette (Ed.): Keyword Lebenskunde
  • Horst Groschopp / Michael Schmidt: Lebenskunde - The neglected alternative Humanitas Dortmund 1995
  • Peter Adloff / Bettina Alavi (eds.): Exactly like school, only completely different HVD self-published Berlin 2001
  • Martin Ganguly: Quite normally different - lesbian, gay and bi Lebenskunde special issue o. O., o. J.
  • Focus on life studies in: "Humanismus aktuell", issue 8, 2001
  • Gerald Warnke: Life Science Lessons - History and Perspectives of Humanistic Lessons in the School Humanitas, Dortmund 1997
  • Peter Adloff: Asking for Meaning: A Didactic Study for Humanistic Life Studies and Ethics Classes Berlin 2010

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Legal and political foundations of the HVD (2008) (PDF; 43 kB)
  2. ↑ Homepage: Humanist Primary School Fürth
  3. ^ Website on humanistic teaching for Bavaria , accessed on January 29, 2019
  4. ↑ Religious and Weltanschauung lessons: Life science lessons continue to grow , accessed on January 29, 2019.
  5. ↑ Humanistic Lebenskunde: No Lebenskunde judgment in North Rhine-Westphalia , diesseits.de, accessed on November 24, 2017
  6. ↑ The history of life science lessons on Lebenskunde.de , accessed on January 27, 2013.
  7. ↑ Humanists in Focus - Destroyed Diversity : The Dissolution of Secular Schools , exhibition as part of the theme year Destroyed Diversity, Berlin 1933-1938-1945
  8. ↑ Erich Meyer, Karl Zimmerman: Lebenskunde. Biology textbook for high schools. Erfurt 1939 ff .; Adolf Gscheidle: Life science for middle schools. I. Esslingen 1940; Ernst Kruse, Paul Wiedow: Life studies for middle schools. Leipzig / Berlin 1942.
  9. ^ Karl Otto Sauerbeck: Didactics in the Third Reich using the example of the biology textbook by Steche-Stengel-Wagner. In: Specialized prose research - Crossing borders. Volume 8/9, 2012/2013 (2014), pp. 391-412, here: p. 391.
  10. ↑ Humanismus aktuell: PDF (2001) .
  11. ↑ Gerhard Rampp: Guide for non-denominational parents, schoolchildren (as of May 2005)