Forest school

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A forest school is originally a reform pedagogical spa and educational institution founded purely for curative education. It was part of the so-called forest school movement, which started at the beginning of the 20th century at the gates of Berlin . Historically, it has always been an open-air school . The forest and open-air schools were important forerunners and pioneers of today's all-day schools . The term forest school is sometimes defined differently in today's language and therefore also means forest or environmental educational institutions of municipalities, associations or clubs.

history

The German Imperium

Forest schools were a development that was initially specific to the German-speaking area and quickly spread to Europe and later also overseas. The Zurich pastor Hermann Walter Bion (1830–1909) had already called in 1876 to set up foster homes for children in need of relaxation, in which they would be admitted at any time without suffering any loss in their schooling. This attempt was initially unsuccessful. In 1881, the Berlin pediatrician Adolf Baginsky took the initiative and applied to the city administration to set up an institution on the outskirts to give Berlin children a chance to relax from big city life. He first referred to this institution as the forest school. His idea was primarily to promote health, because he had observed in his young patients that they exhibited deficiency symptoms that could be traced back to specific (large) urban grievances. These included poor hygienic conditions, a lack of reference to a natural environment, a lack of fresh air, sun and physical and mental relaxation. Baginsky’s request was not granted. It would take until the new century before his demands were met before the city limits.

In the second half of the 19th century there were already spa offers for children in recreational facilities, but these had significant disadvantages: they led to a school gap compared to their peers and were often too expensive because they were primarily aimed at children of the solvent middle class.

Forest school for sick children (1904)
Schoolchildren of the forest school for sickly children serving food at the farm building (1904)
Schoolchildren of the forest school for sickly children during school lunch on the school grounds (1904)
Pupils of the forest school for ailing children during class with a teacher in a classroom (1904)
Schoolgirls of the forest school for sickly children with a teacher on the school grounds (1904)

In 1904 there was a cooperation between the respected pediatrician Bernhard Bendix , who worked at the Berlin Charité , and the Berlin school councilor Hermann Neufert (1858-1935). Their common goal was to enable health-prone city children, that is, weakened city children, to take several weeks of treatment away from the big city in healthy air, without putting them at a school disadvantage. For this, three prerequisites had to be met: the facility to be established had to be able to guarantee a temporary school operation, have management facilities for catering for the children for several weeks, and be equipped to strengthen and care for the children. The cooperation between pediatrics and school administration was therefore a decisive step that the two gentlemen realized. It was to be ensured that the pupils of the forest school in need of treatment had made the same learning progress after returning to their actual schools as their healthy classmates who had stayed there.

Bendix and Neufert founded the forest school for ailing children in Charlottenburg near Berlin . It was located on the outskirts of the Grunewald and offered three six-week spa stays per summer season for Charlottenburg primary school students who were registered for this by the welfare or school doctors. The school started operations on August 1, 1904, initially with 95 children and four teachers. The demand was higher than expected very quickly, and the buildings were insufficient. A move took place in 1905.

“ The school is provisionally set up for 60 boys and 60 girls and offers the children accommodation, meals, lessons and supervision throughout the day for a moderate fee, free of charge for the poor. Eating takes place in the open air, just as the children are as uninterrupted as possible in the open air. Lessons are given in a light, airy school barrack, through whose wide-open windows the aromatic forest air draws in. Hopefully the company of our urban youth will succeed in developing itself to the point of salvation and blessing. "

After 1910, 265 students were looked after by nine teachers and nurses per course phase.

An evaluation, which already included the results of other forest schools, showed overall positive tendencies towards improvement and stabilization of the children with health problems. However, the doctors came to the conclusion that the forest schools should develop from pure day care centers into what are known as “full institutions”. In the fight against tuberculosis, a “partition” needs to be built between the recreation center and the parents' home in order to be successful. Sleeping barracks were built, which turned the all-day schools, which were run alternately for several weeks, into short-term boarding schools during the summer.

While regular school classes in state schools consisted of forty to fifty students, the forest school for sickly children had courses made up of twenty to twenty-five children. The lessons were limited to a maximum of thirty minutes, so the curriculum of the elementary school was shortened in some points for the Charlottenburg Forest School. The classes did not have lessons at the same time, but staggered. Children who did not attend classes could do their own thing. Reform pedagogical approaches were taken into account, such as principles of perception and closeness to life, the principle of self-activity and individualization based on the needs of the individual. The forest school type was described as a model for reform pedagogy. The atmosphere of learning and social interaction should be informal and cheerful and lively. At that time still common "educational tools" like corporal punishment , harsh reprimands, biting ridicule and sarcasm were frowned upon. The meals of the students were arranged according to the doctor's instructions, rest and relaxation phases were integrated into the daily routine several times. The school offerings included games and sports, various kinds of manual work, reading, declamation, theater and music evenings, exhibitions, festivals, first aid and other courses as well as intensive parental work. The time spent together ensured that in addition to mutual help between the students and the student self-administration, personal relationships between students and teachers developed.

As early as 1906, the Prussian Ministry of Spiritual, Educational and Medical Affairs recommended the establishment of further forest schools based on the model of Charlottenburg. The idea was also quickly picked up and implemented abroad. Forest schools and open-air schools were founded many times, in the German-speaking area the term forest school remained predominant, outside the German-speaking area the term open-air school .

Three stages in the expansion of the forest school concept marked the way to today's all-day school: the project, which was originally designed for elementary school students, was expanded to include secondary school students after just a few years. The higher forest school in Charlottenburg was founded in 1910, but initially only included the lower grades from sixth grade (VI) to fourth grade (IV). The operation, which was limited to the summer months during the first few years, was finally extended to the entire school year. The special school status for children in need of relaxation was dropped, and forest schools were later also open to healthy children. The Kiel pedagogue Eduard Edert presented a detailed school plan, which also contained organizational details and financing options as well as possible points of criticism. “You only need to think through the Charlottenburg idea to the end, what was happily started there, and our day school is there: instead of a summer school for children in need of relaxation, an independent, fully developed, year-round institution that is in the main thing is intended for healthy or healthy children, an institution that simultaneously implements the principle of work and education, in short a rural education home with daytime operation. The future school in the big city will have to look like this or something similar… “Only the First World War was not part of this plan, the project of the modern all-day school was sidelined.

Weimar Republic

Two buildings of the forest school for ailing children (undated, around early 1920s)

After the end of the war, efforts were resumed. In 1923, the director of the higher forest school in Charlottenburg, Wilhelm Krause, got his school to be approved as an independent, year-round day school without restriction to pupils in need of relaxation. In the following years it was finally expanded to a full educational institution that led to the secondary school leaving certificate.

In the 1920s, the open-air school movement was expanded internationally. Plans were made for unusual and sophisticated architectural solutions that were implemented up until the first half of the 1930s. This also influenced approaches to all-day school care in Austria.

Bendix headed the forest school for sickly children until 1933, when he was deposed by the National Socialists and his teaching qualification was revoked, so that he was no longer allowed to work at the Charité.

present

Forest schools nominally exist in a large number to this day; only a minority comes close to its original meaning in terms of its orientation or objective. In addition to regular educational institutions of all school types, private and municipal institutions also refer to themselves as forest schools, some of which perform environmental educational tasks.

Historical forest schools (selection)

See also

literature

  • Hermann Neufert: The forest school . In: Gustav Porger (ed.): Pedagogical time and controversial issues. Bielefeld / Leipzig, 1926. pp. 130-136. (first published in 1906)
  • Karl König: Forest School . In: Wilhelm Rein (Ed.): Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, Vol. 10. Beyer, Langensalza 1910. pp. 63–111.
  • Wilhelm Krause: The higher forest school Berlin-Charlottenburg: A contribution to the solution of the problem "The new school" . Wiegandt & Grieben, Berlin 1929.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Günter Holtappels (Ed.): All-day education in schools: models, research findings and perspectives . Jumper. Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-322-95711-5 . P. 53.
  2. ↑ Ernst Gerhard Dresel / Adolf Gottstein / Arthur Schloßmann / Ludwig Teleky: Welfare Care Tuberculosis · Alcohol Venereal Diseases . Springer, Berlin 1926/2013. ISBN 978-3-662-39918-7 . Pp. 343-346.
  3. ↑ Heinz Günter Holtappels (Ed.): All-day education in schools: models, research findings and perspectives . Jumper. Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-322-95711-5 . P. 54.
  4. ^ Jürgen Bennack: Health and School: to the history of hygiene in the Prussian elementary school system . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne 1990. ISBN 978-3412194895 .
  5. ^ Neufert, Hermann: The forest school . In: Gustav Porger (ed.): Pedagogical time and controversial issues. Bielefeld / Leipzig, 1926. pp. 130-136. (first published in 1906)
  6. ↑ Adolf Gottstein / Gustav Tugendreich: Social medical internship: A guide for administrative physicians, district doctors, school doctors, infant doctors, poor doctors and statutory health insurance physicians . Jumper. Berlin 1918/2013. ISBN 978-3-662-43048-4 . Pp. 144-145.
  7. ↑ Spicy forest air . In: Der Tagesspiegel, July 29, 2014, at: tagesspiegel.de, accessed on May 14, 2016
  8. ↑ Spicy forest air . In: Der Tagesspiegel, July 29, 2014, at: tagesspiegel.de, accessed on May 14, 2016
  9. ^ District Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf: Wald-Grundschule , on: berlin.de, accessed on May 14, 2016
  10. ↑ Adolf Gottstein / Gustav Tugendreich: Social medical internship: A guide for administrative physicians, district doctors, school doctors, infant doctors, poor doctors and statutory health insurance physicians . Jumper. Berlin 1918/2013. ISBN 978-3-662-43048-4 . Pp. 144-145.
  11. ↑ Karl König: Forest School . In: Wilhelm Rein (Ed.): Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, Vol. 10. Beyer, Langensalza 1910. pp. 63–111.
  12. ↑ Heinz Günter Holtappels (Ed.): All-day education in schools: models, research findings and perspectives . Jumper. Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-322-95711-5 . Pp. 54-55.
  13. ↑ Thomas Coelen, Hans-Uwe Otto: Basic concepts of all-day education: The manual . Springer, Berlin 2008. pp. 520-521.
  14. ↑ Eduard Edert: The day school, the school of the big city - the plan of their implementation in Kiel . In: Säemann writings for education and teaching, H. 12. BG Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1914. p. 6.
  15. ^ Wilhelm Krause: The higher forest school Berlin-Charlottenburg: A contribution to the solution of the problem "The new school" . Wiegandt & Grieben, Berlin 1929.
  16. ↑ Otto Timp: The half-boarding school as a closed educational institution for middle school students - an attempt at a practical solution . Dissertation, University of Vienna, 1935.