Alexander traveled intermittently in Germany from 1908 to 1913 observing educational practices as part of his research for his doctoral dissertation, The Prussian Elementary Schools (1919), until the war erupted in 1913 and Alexander did not return to Germany until 1926. His dissertation was a detailed study of the organizational infrastructure of German primary education. In it, Alexander saw very little commitment to community, instead he observed:
"The aim of the elementary school is to develop efficient German
citizens, to give boys and girls moral and religious training, to furnish
them with that general fund of knowledge every intelligent, independent
citizen must have, and, above all, to make them patriotic members
of society."
The change Alexander saw on his postwar return to Germany was startling. The downfall of the empire, the defeat in the world war, and the rise of the republic let forth a revolution in German education. Alexander (1929) describes it as such:
"In education the revolt was signaled by slogans like these: “Tear down the schools; build houses of childhood”, “school prisons no longer but communities of youth”, Happiness is everything”, Begin with the child, Let education come from his joy in life and his love of activity.” These were the battle cries of the German Community Schools, those most revolutionary of Europe’s new schools. Few in numbers but strong in purpose, they worked startling changes overnight in a dozen centers, as their school buildings and their school procedure underwent a thorough transformation. Drab walls were painted with brilliant hues of green and orange, blue and red, in gay, fantastic patterns to symbolize the abundance of beauty and light that was to pour into the dark corners of classrooms and make life in the new schools a rich, joyous experience."
According to Alexander & Parker (1929), “School reform in Germany, for a time, was not so much a matter of reorganization growing out of a comprehensive national policy, as it was the result of experiments in single schools and classes throughout the land.”
Alexander describes the development of the most progressively radical of European new schools, the Gemeinschaftschulen, or Community Schools. A result of the political atmosphere after the war, these schools, urban and rural, placed social education above every other goal and formed the vanguard for other reform forces which swept through all German schools until 1933. In these schools education took place in, by and for, the community, and by living in a community the individual becomes an integral self-aware person. The mutually supportive communal arrangement offered a natural, spontaneous learning environment where problems that affect life on the basic level could be discussed and explored. The school should be a community of children, parents and teachers working together. Hartmut von Hentig describes it in his 1993 book, Die Schule neu denken (The School Thinks Again) as follows:
"The school as place of experience is at the same time a place where the individual experiences the
necessity, the advantages and the costs of life in the community. School is a polis. With the model
of this community we learn the basic conditions for a peaceful, just, regulated and responsible social
life and all the difficulties caused by it. Community demands regulations, self-discipline, agreement
on the aims and limits of being together. Community also means to be stronger, to feel sheltered and
to have fun together."
Alexander saw how determined educators, without a government mandate; used the “Concept of Community” to revitalize the spirit of the school, and in turn revitalize the surrounding community in a positive manner. He had seen these positive effects before in Missouri with the Porter School and Marie Turner Harvey as she turned a dilapidated school into a vibrant part of the community. The difference was that the German Concept of Community did not necessarily have an agrarian or rural connotation, like what Dewey or Bailey advocated, but rather it included school communities in urban areas. The Community schools of Hamburg and Bremen were more than places of pedagogical experimentation; they were centers for new sociological concepts.
According to Alexander & Parker: The German school had been the property of the state and instrument of government. But the Community Schools made a declaration of independence. They declared that each public school belonged to the people it served and those who labored for it.
Alexander describes the development of the most progressively radical of European new schools, the Gemeinschaftschulen, or Community Schools. A result of the political atmosphere after the war, these schools, urban and rural, placed social education above every other goal and formed the vanguard for other reform forces which swept through all German schools until 1933. In these schools education took place in, by and for, the community, and by living in a community the individual becomes an integral self-aware person. The mutually supportive communal arrangement offered a natural, spontaneous learning environment where problems that affect life on the basic level could be discussed and explored. The school should be a community of children, parents and teachers working together. Hartmut von Hentig describes it in his 1993 book, Die Schule neu denken (The School Thinks Again) as follows:
"The school as place of experience is at the same time a place where the individual experiences the
necessity, the advantages and the costs of life in the community. School is a polis. With the model
of this community we learn the basic conditions for a peaceful, just, regulated and responsible social
life and all the difficulties caused by it. Community demands regulations, self-discipline, agreement
on the aims and limits of being together. Community also means to be stronger, to feel sheltered and
to have fun together."
Alexander saw how determined educators, without a government mandate; used the “Concept of Community” to revitalize the spirit of the school, and in turn revitalize the surrounding community in a positive manner. He had seen these positive effects before in Missouri with the Porter School and Marie Turner Harvey as she turned a dilapidated school into a vibrant part of the community. The difference was that the German Concept of Community did not necessarily have an agrarian or rural connotation, like what Dewey or Bailey advocated, but rather it included school communities in urban areas. The Community schools of Hamburg and Bremen were more than places of pedagogical experimentation; they were centers for new sociological concepts.
According to Alexander & Parker: The German school had been the property of the state and instrument of government. But the Community Schools made a declaration of independence. They declared that each public school belonged to the people it served and those who labored for it.
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Teachers in these cities seized the opportunity to take control of their own schools forming councils to decide questions of policy and instruction. The initial disorder and chaos led to the discovery that “children, themselves, hate confusion and follow a natural impulse that leads to orderly use of time and materials.” The Community Schools tried to follow the lead of the children in developing the core curriculum, methods of instruction, and social order that were in accord with children’s nature. They took for their slogan “Vom Kinde aus” or “Begin with the child.” In the Politics of Education, Teachers and School Reform in Weimar Germany, Marjorie Lamberti (2002) adds:
"The pedagogues in the experimental schools strove to cultivate an ethical social consciousness in the pupils by transforming each class and the entire school from a place of mechanical individual activity into a vibrant working community. The teachers formed a relation with their pupils based on the bonds of trust and fostered by group work and dialogue in classroom instruction." |
Lutherschule, Germany. Domestic Science
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Lamberti adds, “It is likely during his interwar trips to Germany, Alexander would have likely observed the “neue Pädagogik” or “new pedagogy” in the child-centered and active-learning school (Arbeitsschule) of the Weimar era and the experimental schools in Dresden, Leipzig, and other cities.”
In his observations of the experimental schools programs and practices, Alexander may have also observed something that later would become a defining aspect of New College. One of the characteristics of New College that made it unique was the absence of grades, grade credits, or credit hours, instead, using detailed records, comprehensive exams, and portfolio assessment methodologies. Alexander used the same structure in North Carolina when he consulted with the Raleigh Public Schools, but it was in the German Community Schools where he could have seen it first. Of those experimental schools, Lamberti (2002) writes, “the teachers abandoned the system of numerical grades and instead wrote descriptive assessments of the pupils’ performance.”
In his observations of the experimental schools programs and practices, Alexander may have also observed something that later would become a defining aspect of New College. One of the characteristics of New College that made it unique was the absence of grades, grade credits, or credit hours, instead, using detailed records, comprehensive exams, and portfolio assessment methodologies. Alexander used the same structure in North Carolina when he consulted with the Raleigh Public Schools, but it was in the German Community Schools where he could have seen it first. Of those experimental schools, Lamberti (2002) writes, “the teachers abandoned the system of numerical grades and instead wrote descriptive assessments of the pupils’ performance.”
