Karlsruhe (dpa/lsw) - The chairman of the Baden-Württemberg Association of Philologists, Ralf Scholl, advocates a return to the performance principle in the classroom. "What we need in our schools, and which would not cost anything, is the clear orientation: "Achievement must be worth it again", writes Scholl in a guest article for the "Badische Latest News" and the "Badisches Tagblatt" (Saturday). . "School is always a safe space anyway, even with this performance principle. But it must not degenerate into a safe space alone." The association represents secondary school teachers.
"In far too many schools, the performance principle is now taboo!", says the article. Outstanding achievements would no longer be positively emphasized and used as a guide for everyone. "Rather, for a good decade now, 'not shaming the students' has been the principle that far too many teachers have followed." The school project "Primary school without grades", which Minister of Education Theresa Schopper (Greens) recently started at 39 primary schools, also aims in this direction: "Maximizing the well-being of the children at the expense of learning progress."
From Scholl's point of view, teachers always have the task of demanding a little more from the students than comes "by themselves": "A little more speed, a little more depth." This gives the children and young people the sense of achievement they need and strengthens them for their future lives.
"However, we have largely lost the orientation towards demanding educational goals, both for the secondary school leaving certificate and for the secondary school leaving certificate and the Abitur," writes Scholl. He speaks of a "contempt for grades" at many community schools. "The awarding of many worthless certificates is not a sign of a good school or a good school system!"
Even high schools are not spared from the tendency to get better and better grades: "Last year's Corona Abitur had the best Abitur average in the country that has ever existed," explains the head of the association. "And that despite the fact that 30 percent of Bachelor students drop out of college, half of them because of performance issues."
