The silent child: Reform pedagogy, the self and the problematization of shyness in the classroom

In the existing historical and sociological studies devoted to shyness scholars have identified the second half of the Twentieth century as an important period in which shy feelings have become a problem for Wes­tern societies. On the basis of the work of the American cultural histo­rian Warren Susman, and especially his ideas about the move from a character society towards a personality society, it is argued that the turn of the nineteenth century also played an important role in the emergence of negative interpretation of being and acting shy. In this article Susman’s attention for what happened at the start of the twentieth century is being taken up by examining the ideas about timidity in the work of one of the most important reform educators at that time, namely Maria Montessori. Montessori’s ideas are being contextualized by referring to the more en­compassing culture of personality and the self that paralleled the progres­sive era in education. By contraposing Montessori’s ideas to an eighteen­th-century ego-document written by someone who identified himself as a shy person we’d like to plea for a nuanced account with regard to the history of the problematization of shyness in general and shy children in particular.

‘Missions’ and Extracurricular Activities

The Napolas’ varied programme of extracurricular activities, ranging from semi-pagan ceremonies celebrating the National Socialist ‘political religion’ to opportunities for pupils to realize their artistic ambitions through music, art and design, and amateur dramatics, all formed part of the schools’ all-encompassing programme of ‘total education’. Pupils also routinely embarked on school-trips to foreign countries as far afield as Finland or Greece, as well as undertaking propagandistic excursions to contested ‘borderland regions’, and taking part in regular exchanges with US academies and British public schools. As they matured, pupils would undertake annual labour ‘missions’ (Einsätze), during which they would live and work for several months alongside farmers, miners, or industrial labourers. This chapter explores all of these aspects of the Napolas’ programme in detail. The aims of these activities were expressly political, bolstering the Napolas’ overall ideological effectiveness, as well as ostensibly supporting their claim to be furthering social progress, in accordance with the equalizing ideology of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft. Once again, the NPEA were often more successful in this regard than other Nazi educational and recreational institutions, including civilian schools, the Hitler Youth, the Reich Labour Service (RAD), and the Strength through Joy leisure organization (Kraft durch Freude/KdF). In this context, the Napolas also offered their pupils substantial scope for the cultivation of individual self-fulfilment. However, although the NPEA programme drew upon the child-centred principles of the reform-pedagogy movement, its ultimate aim was to instil pupils with National Socialist values, instrumentalizing them in the service of the national collective.

‘Selection’, Teaching, and Everyday Life

This chapter begins with an experiential account of the selection process and everyday life at the Napolas, drawing on a mixture of contemporary accounts and eyewitness testimonies. It explores pupils’ and parents’ varied motivations for submitting to the schools’ gruelling week-long entrance exam (Aufnahmeprüfung), the nature of the examination itself, and the subsequent process of settling into school life, including pupils’ relationships with support staff and teaching staff. The chapter then goes on to explore the Napolas’ academic and physical education programme in detail, investigating both the content and indoctrinatory effects of teaching—especially the explicitly ideological lessons in ‘national-political instruction’—and the role of sport and pre-military training, which formed a core part of the NPEA curriculum. It also describes the school leaving exam and the ensuing graduation ceremony. In conclusion, the chapter compares the Napolas’ programme with that of other Nazi educational institutions such as the Reich Labour Service (RAD) and the Hitler Youth, analysing the extent to which the Napolas betrayed continuities with pre-National Socialist thinking in their adaptation of principles from reform pedagogy. Ultimately, educational practice at the schools reflected broader trends in Nazi political and pedagogical policy, but the NPEA were far more effective than most Nazi educational institutions in their ability to provide their pupils both with a broad academic curriculum, fully saturated with ideological indoctrination, and with a comprehensive and highly effective programme of physical and pre-military training.

Social and educational movements and their impact on the school building programme in Budapest in around 1900

In our current study, we focus on school building program of Géza Bárczy who was the mayor of the Hungarian capital in the first two decades of the twentieth century. From the mid of the nineteenth century, Budapest had experienced a rapid development thanks to social and economic changes. The city council felt impelled to reflect on growing needs of the population of the city, therefore it launched a complex social program including renovating and building new school headquarters. Our main findings suggest that newly emerged school buildings stood in the frontier of different endeavours. Their structure and inner elements were influenced by pedagogues and intellectuals who were staunch supporters of reform pedagogy aiming at salvaging children from the harmful effects caused by traditional schooling. Furthermore, school buildings also represented the pride of the nation and the hope that talent members of future generations can preserve the fundamentals of the nation. It seems that the school building program of this area entailed these endeavours and even tried to reflect on them.

The Dispute Over the Reform Pedagogue Peter Petersen (1884-1952) in Jena 2010: Review of a "Total Disaster" After Ten Years

With the reunification of Germany, a Jenaplan School was founded in 1991 in the city of Jena,Thuringia. Since then one place of the city carried Petersen's name. The University School at Jena, refounded by Petersen as Life Community School in 1924 (the traditional purpose as a mere teacher training school goes back to the year 1844) and received international attention during the Weimar Republic. Petersen's attempt to gain recognition in the Hitler state (1933-1945) with his reform pedagogy failed, but the University School was allowed to continue to exist. In 1950 it was closed by the socialist GDR state (East Germany). Ten years ago, a bitter dispute raged in Jena over Petersen because previously unknown racist texts written by him had been discovered. The dispute ended when Petersenplatz was renamed "Jenaplan". A book by Hein Retter, which appeared ten years ago, was highly controversial: it described children of Jewish and socialist origin as well as disabled children - from families who were threatened by Nazi ideology but who saw their children safe with Petersen. Looking back ten years, the author of the controversial book describes the Jena Petersen dispute and what can be learned from it.

Life reform, educational reform and reform pedagogy from the turn of the century up until 1945 in Hungary

Since the end of the 19th century, the modernisation processes of urbanisation and industrialisation taking place in Europe and the transatlantic regions have changed not only the natural environment but also social and geographical relations. The emergence of modern states changed the traditional societies, lifestyles and private lives of individuals and social groups. It is also characteristic of this period that social reform movements appeared in large numbers – as a «counterweight» to unprecedented, rapid and profound changes. Some of these movements sought to achieve the necessary changes with the help of individual self-reform. Life reform in the narrower sense refers to this type of reform movement. New historical pedagogical research shows that in the major school concepts of reform pedagogy a relatively close connection with life reform is discernible. Reform pedagogy is linked to life reform – and vice versa. Numerous sociotopes of life reform had their own schools, because how better to contribute than through education to the ideal reproduction and continuity of one’s own group. Our work ties in with this pedagogical research direction. The background to the first part of the study is a long-term project aimed at promoting contacts in life reform and reform pedagogy in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and later in Hungary. In the second part we analyse the process up to 1945, in which the ideas of life reform and the elements of reform pedagogy were institutionalised and integrated into the official pedagogical guidelines of the Hungarian universities.

Spirituality and Concept of ’Child’ in Kokas Pedagogy for Children with Special Educational Needs

Klára Kokas was a music teacher and music psychologist (1929-2010). Her method is based on music, motion and manual arts, therefore it can be defined as a form of reform pedagogy, otherwise it is called complex art pedagogy. The main elements and characteristics of Klára Kokas’s pedagogy were revolutionary new ideas in the fields of personality development, and music education – compared to the practices of reform pedagogy trends in the 20th century Europe and the United States (Pukánszky-Németh, 1996). The main elements of this concept are music, dance improvisation, motion, imaginative stories, visual arts, painting and drawing. However, its most important component is the very specific and intimate relation, which connected her to children. This distinctive feature of the Kokas-method is hard to teach. Klára Kokas approached to people with problems, suffering and disabilities, especially to marginalized and disadvantaged children with utmost empathy. She struggled to develop the social-cognition skills and affectionate behavior of the handicapped children through her own invented musical method.Her writings reflected her relationship with God, namely the presence of Him which can be felt behind the scenes. His name was mostly unspoken, yet when she named Him, it was to reveal that God was always in her mind, like in her words and musical activities too.The goal of this paper is to search and frame that text corpus, which can outline the spirituality of Klára Kokas with the aim of drawing up her relationship with God and children – according to her publications, writings, essays, books, short-film compilations, movie archives and interviews (Kokas, 1992; 1999; 2002; 2007; 2012; 2013). The contours of her spirituality from her teachings, manuscripts and publications couldn’t be attributed to any religious denomination. Also, to be presented are her notions about youth and teenage spirit and a unique relation with the world, her own students, the talents, the music and the holiness: the spirituality of Klára Kokas. The importance of beliefs and moral convictions in the art of education will be outlined.A single paragraph of about 150-200 words maximum. For research articles, abstracts should give a complete overview of the work. We encourage authors to use the following style of abstracts: background, methods, results and conclusion. The abstract should give an objective representation of the article.

”En ny musikuppfostran”: Reformpedagogiska anspråk i Siljanskolans bildningsinnehåll

”A new form of musical upbringing”: Pretenses of reform pedagogy content in the Siljan schoolIn this article, I describe the Siljan school in Tällberg as a Swedish example of alternative pedagogy. The overall questions relate to the reform pedagogy content of the school and its ability to give Swedish music teaching a new form of musical upbringing. An important issue is how the Siljan school as a model for Swedish reform has been inspired by the reform pedagogy movements in USA and Germany. The analysis is thus based on the Alm couple’s ability to give the school an international character which shines light on Swedish reforms in the greater context of reform pedagogy. With its basis in discursive education of the 1930s, two main questions are discussed: what perspective on musical education can be identified in the personal development ethos of the Siljan school? How can the school’s relation to the reform pedagogy music movement during the start of the 1900s be understood? From a hermeneutic perspective, the article contributes by investigating how the Siljan school can have affected decisions in education politics, Swedish schooling, and Swedish musical life. In summary, the article contributes with new knowledge on a chapter in the history of Swedish music pedagogy.