Core Curriculum: Strategies for searching for a lesson model in social and civic education, and its criteria

	Abstract
	Contents
	1. Don't Worship Originality
	2. Eight search strategies
	2.1. First search strategy: empirical access - conceptual thought of expert teachers in the field of civics
	2.2. Second search strategy: Biography - a crucial political experience
	2.3. Third search strategy: paradigm - the core of politics
	2.4. Fourth search strategy: History of didactics - beginnings of organized civic lessons (newspaper projects)
	2.5. Fifth search strategy: Guiding philosophy - the form follows function (procedures and basic values)
	2.6. Sixth search strategy: Political anthropology and political philosophy - the conditions of human existence as developmental tasks for students
	2.7. Seventh search strategy: Historical inventions of mankind (menschheitsgeschichtliche Erfindungen) - "what would have happened if...?"
	2.8. Eighth search strategy: Embryonic Society - Island- and Robinson-Stories as an appropriate learning environment
	3. Dramaturgy: Learning environment and forms of design (didactical genres)
	4. Conclusion: Model units as medium-term strategy of curiculum reform (mittelfristige Curriculumstrategie)
	Notes
	References

Tilman Grammes

1. Don't Worship Originality

"Best Practice" performances of model curricula and lessons/units (Lehrstücke (1)) intend to be more than only an improved good idea of teaching or motivating students. "Best Practice" should not only be developed from the individual preferences of teachers themselves. Instead it should be developed from traditions (Traditionslinien) which exist for the treatment of core subjects (Kernthemen). As far as the perspective of teaching art (Lehrkunst (2)) is concerned, these core subjects are to be found in so-called "historical inventions of mankind" (menschheitsgeschichtliche Erfindungen) (compare Berg in this volume). It's interesting to ask if a collective curricular tradition (concepts) and/or tradition of according classroom practice (dramaturgical design and performance) in the field of civic education/civics (3)actually exists.

In this article I will present eight strategies in search of "Best Practice" in the curricular tradition of social education with a focus on civics. These proposed strategies may serve as intuitive guidelines in search of forgotten "Best Practice" examples. Our task is to look out for hidden goldmines. Because of necessary space limitations, it is not possible to describe the curricular material and the documents in detail here. Full documentation must be postponed and published in a separate volume.

The search strategies are arranged systematically in chapter 2. We start on the surface of empirical evidence identifying a paradigm which is examined in its democratic and anthropological potential for learning/education. Chapter 3 adds dramaturgical criteria as to how to bring the paradigm onto the classroom stage (Bühne des Klassenzimmers). Finally, it will be possible to define a core curriculum which can guide a lesson-development group (Unterrichtsentwicklungsgruppe) in school. My thesis is that every professional teacher should know these examples in his or her subject.

All search strategies can be assigned to forms of the elementar (das Elementare) in learning on a trial basis according to a list given by the German educational scientist Wolfgang Klafki, an international recommended expert in the field of general didactics and curriculum research:

 

2. Eight search strategies

2.1. First search strategy: empirical access - conceptual thought of expert teachers in the field of civics

An initial idea might be to identify "Best Practice" by empirical research. Just ask well-known professional teachers "how they do it". What do expert teachers regard as highlights in his or her repertoire? How do they achieve sustainable educational impact in preparing students to take over role models of a democratic citizen?

This branch of research is well established in research on expert teaching in science education but not in social science education. Up until now it hasn't been pursued systematically in the subject field of civics.

A rare but only explorative example in the field of civics is given by Gudmundsdottir in her Harvard doctoral dissertation (1988, see Gudmundsdottir 1990) in which she studied the thinking and performance of four teachers of social studies. She pointed out the relevance and importance of a story line to combine the diverse notes of the curriculum. This story line is achieved by expert teachers while novices have to struggle to find it.

Concerning the tradition of German research, it is significant that a recent publication about a teacher's planning process doesn't refer to empirical evidence at all; it just contains the empty phrase that this process is characterized by a "chaotical structure" (Weisseno/Breit 2002, 9f.).

It might be wise therefore to inform and reinsure when asking experienced teachers which pieces of "Best Practice" (or routines) are already performed in everyday practice in civic education. Let us listen to a high school teacher H, working in Hamburg:

Teacher H. gives us a typical answer to the question as to whether good and "Best Practice" models in the field of civic education are conceivable. If the theme changes with daily actuality, a core of a subject is not identified on first sight. Teachers as "hunters and collectors" might end up as a sort of a didactical King Midas who starved dreadfully because he wished that everything that he touched became gold i.e. teaching material. But nevertheless "Best Practice" models in the field of civic education are not hopeless! This is because certain fundamental questions remain beyond the surface of current events. The challenge is indeed how to combine "the actual with the fundamental and structural".

Search result: It is promising to interview professional civics teachers as to which units they regard to be their good and "Best Practice" examples and proven routines. Even if we have doubts about the master-label regarding education for democracy, expert teachers can be identified easily by simply asking students, headmasters and fellow teaching staff. This is relevant in order to promote professional development because the subject has to cope with a dramatic generational change in the next decade, and not only in Germany. This is a chance for a new start on one hand, but there's also the danger of loss of experience and expertise in the educational system on the other.

In the meantime, civic education is a well established subject in the range of a school's subjects - in Germany this meant a long struggle by lobby groups. But still uncertainty about profile, shape, core topics and teaching methods is widespread among professional teachers as well as in academic and public discussion. But, as a rough estimation, about 80,000 civics lessons are taught in German schools every week to 10th graders only (average 2 lessons a week from grade 8 - 12 in most school types of the sixteen federal states of Germany). In view of these numbers it would have been surprising if routines - habitual forms and traditions of teaching - had not built up. Perhaps a culture of "Best Practice" models does exist, taking up ideas given in curricular materials and textbooks; it is only poorly perceivable - and completely unexplored. A Berlin headmaster and trainer of student teachers expressed it as follows: "Teachers' expert knowledge is lost on the way from classroom to staff room", or - even more drastically spoken - "Teachers traditionally take their professional knowledge to their grave."

2.2. Second search strategy: Biography - a crucial political experience

Access to empirical research on practical wisdom can start with biographical evidence:

• Is there a civics lesson which had a deep impact on our personal development and which we do remember positively?
• Is there a crucial political experience in our own biography? - a so-called "Heureka!" - as the Greeks called it. Or, if we refer to the romantic language (compare Editorial cap. 4.2) of the German tradition of educational thinking: is there a productive moment (fruchtbarer Moment (4)), a situation that causes deep perplexity (staunproduktive Situation (5))? Is such a productive situation even a matter of collective experience which constitutes a political generation with its lifelong social-political interpretation pattern and judgements?

The evaluation of such political memories of adults, for example in university courses, indicates the following: Although nearly everybody is able to tell an anecdotal story according to his or her political biography, the process of becoming politicised (Politisierung) is not a punctual conversion, but a slow and imper-ceptible process. A situation analogous to the "milk-can example" by Copei (compare fn 4), given for natural science learning doesn't occur structurally in the field of civics and to the according socio-political experience. Exceptions may occur in extreme moments of social movement or revolutionary situations. Reports are given, for example, during the situation of a public demonstration. In other cases it means overestimating the impact of political education: "One hour demonstrating is worth more than 10 hours of lessons in civics!" Stephanie Odenwald, the head of Hamburg's educational trade union, concluded the first day after the spring holiday, 2003, when more than 20,000 students went out onto the streets of the town to demonstrate against the Irak-intervention decided by US-president George Bush.

Search result: Everyday political business is perhaps more down-to-earth and quite more unexciting than expected

• a politicians career is a so-called hard slog. Politics as a profession is like the slow drilling through thick boards with passion and perceptiveness ("langsames Bohren dicker Bretter mit Leidenschaft und Augenmaß " Max Weber (6))
• as political practice is famously described by Max Weber ). But when do the above mentioned "productive situations of deep astonishment" suitable for "Best Practice" models occur then? And how can we identify them?

When politicians stress the fascinosum to shape (gestalten) social reality in interviews and autobiographies, this "positive" perspective must occur in "Best Practice" models as well. Bad news is good news - this is true for the media business, but it isn't the whole story in civics education. Especially in communal politics where there are positive examples for social designing competence (Gestaltungskompetenz), creativity and a sense of possibilities (Möglichkeitssinn).

2.3. Third search strategy: paradigm - the core of politics

The evenly-quoted Weber formula refers to a paradigm of the political. Paradigm in the strong meaning of philosophy of scientific research (Kuhn 1965) means a consensus in research concerning the level of:

1. an exemplar research question
2. sample solutions
3. the research method.

And indeed, there is a "prevailing opinion" and tradition about "the political" and what a good civics lessons has to look like, therefore:

a) Exemplar research question: The question of political education reads "How can different humans learn to live together in and between societies, peacefully?" It is the classic question for "good public order" (gute Ordnung) and its steady improvement which the ancient Greeks have already asked (compare Leps in this volume). Our quoted high school teacher H refers to this conception, naming categories such as "power", "control", "participation" or "justice". In the view of Lehrkunst being astonishing as far as the productive miracles of politics is concerned means that you are struck by the steady transformation from conflict into consent - so that new conflict can be started, and so on. This is the so-called policy-cycle (Politik-Zyklus) (Senesh 1966).

The policy-cycle is carried out in the cooperative mode of social dialogue:

"Wherever humans meet, the world pushes between them, and it is in this gap that all human affairs take place ... Politics are based on the plurality of mankind ... From the very beginning, politics organizes fundamentally different people with regard to relative equality, and in contrast to relatively different people." (Arendt 1994, 9)

The competence of political judgement emerges from such dialogical practice first: "I alone cannot judge politically, only we can do it together" (Barber 1984). Speaking and arguing are the core of this concept. Therefore public speech has to be in the centre of a civic lesson as well.

b) Sample solutions. But how about sample solutions to this classic political question? Here, the so-called "Fischer-formula" applies: "The contents of civics lessons are, relatively, exchangeable." (Fischer 1993 (7), 19). In this formula a common core of conceptions of political education in Germany bundles itself together. This is remarkable because for external public perception, and even for internal historians of the discipline, political education theory in Germany seemed to be extremely controversial in respect to political orientation. During the 60s and 70s concepts were arranged in order according to "political geography" (politische Geographie) - left, or liberal, or right wing civic education concepts were distinguished. This meant to mix up civic education (Bildung) with manipulative political training (Schulung) referring to a special political party or ideology. This is not compatible with the idea of public school in a democracy. But an underlying consensus always existed, a true professional scientific paradigm behind the political geography on the surface, which aimed at maturity (Mündigkeit). (8)

This consensus stands out in official curricula as well. Related to the subject, it is the paradigm of the "categorial conflict didactics" (kategoriale Konfliktdidaktik). In the mode of case study or problem analysis, it is the standard dramaturgical form of a political learning process. Of course it can be varied into many lesson choreographies and different learning or teaching methods.

 

For Anglo-American readers this paradigm is familiar through the movement of New Social Studies developed in the US during the 60s, most prominently in the concept of "public controversy" by the Harvard scientists Oliver/Shaver (1966, 2/1974). This concept is discussed, evaluated and developed even today (Hess 2002, Wright 2003; vgl. Wulf 1973, 189ff., for the later German reception, compare Koopmann 2004). When reading the following summary of the paradigm, the Anglo-American reader should consider that the German version of public controversy works with current conflicts taken from the news. The Anglo-American practice in the Kohlberg tradition might work with model value dilemmas more often. In the "issues-centred" approach to education in social studies this reads similarly:

"… a curriculum that uses public issues to emphasise controversial questions as to the content for social studies. It is an approach toward teaching and learning that does not intend to provide right answers, but underscores the need for students to learn how to examine significant questions and become more thoughtful decision makers about public life." (Ochoa-Becker 1996, 6)

c) Research method: The paradigm of the categorial conflict didactics picks up results from cognitive learning psychology. "A person is learning as if from a special case, in which general insight is pointed out so clearly that it can be recognized in a new case - as a key term, or rule or problem. In each case the following must be worked out: "What counts mostly" (Worauf es ankommt - Hilligen 1961 with reference to Jerome Bruner). If this pulse impact isn't looked for at almost the end of each unit, only dull detailed knowledge (träges Wissen) is accumulated - and no systematic learning progressions are gained. In order to consult the categories for the judgement formation properly, the student must acquire the method of learning in itself in order to cope with cognitive tools consciously (methodological competence).

Search result: In exemplarily composed units which are still valid today and worth reading, Engelhardt (1964) and Giesecke (1964) demonstrated the case study principle of the so called "Spiegel-Affäre" (9) in 1962 almost at the same time. In this conflict the elementary gap between the individual's fundamental right of information and a general interest on national security is worked out, and the power of the critical public in a democratic society is shown.

 

Many lesson models and proposed methodological ideas, structure and vary this prototype today. For example:

• the method of the dilemma discussion (see Lind 2003), referred to by Lawrence Kohlberg or the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP) in the United Kingdom: "To develop an understanding of social situations and human acts and of the controversial value issues which they raise." (Stenhouse 1975, 127)
• the project of the California Center for Civic Education (CCE) "We the people" (Center... 1985) which has been successfully translated and adapted to German educational practices (Koopmann 2001)
• the learning paths of the political (Wege des politischen Lernens) by Bernd Janssen (1986).

Some new civic textbooks offer toolboxes for the learning way "treatment of conflicts" on method- orientated double pages (Methodendoppelseiten).

2.4. Fourth search strategy: History of didactics - beginnings of organized civic lessons (newspaper projects)

If the third search strategy really belongs to an identifiable core of the discipline, then this core must be found in a prominent place of the subject's tradition and development.

In ancient Greek cities - parallel to the development in other cultural areas - "a scene develops, so that the question about the best order for living together is posed publicly in a contentious way and in a controversial manner. Public affairs are decided by controversial dialogue in the cooperation of all citizens (this means: male adult persons) in full consciousness of the provisionalness of each answer." (Meyer 2003, 18) In this public area first dialogues on civic/political education also emerge (see Leps in this volume).

In the modern beginnings of institutionalised civic education the subject-constitutive public discussion area plays a central role as well. Knowledge is never given as an entity, but occurs only in dialogue. Political knowledge is fluid. Influencing with regard to civic education resulted in the invention and quick dissemination of printing. It promotes an anti-authoritarian uncoupling of knowledge and prestige which serves individualizing:

"One can sit at home alone, and process and train further at reading without the presence of a teacher or 'master' and his personal charisma. And it can become apparent that one is an individual with a new, original and deviating opinion. The relationship between teachers and students loses the pressure of direct social control." (Brunkhorst 2000, 174)

Since the 17th century and the development of a civil public sphere supported by the new media, there is the suggestion, e.g. by August Hermann Francke (10) (1871, 287) that the citizens should learn to use the new media and the information relevant for social life in weekly "newspaper lessons" (Flitner 1957, 28f. with numerous references to contemporary literature and sources).

Search result: "Isn't it obvious that the use of the newspaper can be institutionalised by reading offers in civic education?" (Kuepper 1982, 364) The principle to teach current events and cases - the categorial conflict paradigm - requires the rustling and even the specific smell that regional and supraregional daily papers have - characterizing a true civics lesson. These media formats represent - together with political magazines, news ("Tagesschau" and "Heute"), a mouse-click in the Internet - the classical (das Klassische) in civic education (compare fig. 1). "Civic education carries out a lot if constant newspaper readers with critical understanding come out of it." (Breit in Pohl 2003). The German didactics of Hermann Giesecke summed up this paradigm as a modest and minimalistic formulation of civics educational aim: The task of civics is to enable students to participate in current political journalism by judgement.

For didactic drama on newspaper there are numerous production scenarios (curricular material). (11)

2.5. Fifth search strategy: Guiding philosophy - the form as contents (procedures and basic values)

Constantly differing problems and tasks are to be solved by politics. The didactic principle of topicality refers to this condition of the subject and is the paradigm's trademark. The changing content in public discourse on the one hand requires reliability of the "forms" in which these problems are worked out, on the other. The procedural ("methodological") structure of subject knowledge has to be paraphrased with the method of learning substantially. Socio-political decision making - the so-called collective volition building (politische Willensbildung) - takes place in institutionalised procedures which didn't emerge and aren't structured by chance. In some sense the modern parliamentary democracies method - which means the deliberative procedures - serves as content, and vice versa. Niklas Luhmann therefore gave his early and famous work the title "Legitimization by procedures" (Legitimation durch Verfahren, 1969).

It is important that we gain a deeper, and perhaps new understanding of (teaching) method (Methode/Lernmethode) and it's relation to content (Inhalt/Lerninhalt). In the current didactical discourse its "method" is conceptualised under four main headings - the first and the second one are most common:

1. Learning strategy in a technical sense: the most efficient way towards a well defined aim
2. Learning to learn: methodological competence of the student (12)
3. Cognitive strategy: method of thinking, especially on a prevailing stage of mental development (see Kohlberg's stages of moral development; stages of development in juridical, economics or history thinking)
4. Method of the subject

Lehrkunst refers to method in the latter sense and tries to combine it with the third meaning. In some way this is a didactical variation of the design principle "form follows function". The differentiation of the actual (topic) from institutionalised procedures of collective decision (form) is constitutive for civic education. It is expressed in the so-called dimensions of politics (13):

• polity: the institutional framework, constitution, values
• policy: the topic (foreign policy, home affairs …)
• politics: the procedures and strategies (micro-politics) of lobbying and devious cheating (Kungeln und Mauscheln)

The collective procedures of decision-making grant juridical security and equal treatment. Compared to the despotism of authoritarian or totalitarian states (Maßnahmestaat - Ernst Fraenkel) this is an achievement of mankind which is to be obtained with collective effort (always painfully). The procedures are not relativistic but rather value containing in itself because the procedures are immediately connected with the basic philosophy of democracy and protected by the concept of fortified democracy (wehrhafte Demokratie) which is laid down in the German constitution and the dispensation of justice by the Federal Administrative Court after the experience of Nazism (14). It would be a deep misunderstanding to disqualify the procedures as purely "formal" which was the judgement especially by teachers of the student movement of the 60s. On the other hand, it is to be learned that the basic values (Grundwerte) which constitutes the leading philosophy of democracy don't stand high above political debate; they are part of it and can become subject to political deliberation in any moment. But in their core they are invariable:

• political principles: free and equal elections, voting out of government, balance of powers, basic opportunity for alternatives, multiparty system;
• juridical principles "in doubt in favour of the accused" (in dubio pro reo) or "no punishment without law";
• economic principles: the economic principle, coping with shortage, allocation by market prices or planned economy and so on.

"Content contains method in itself". If we consequently follow this advice given in 1848 by Adolf Diesterweg in his famous "Wegweiser für Lehrer" (guidelines for teachers) - we touch the basic constitutive procedures of politics behind daily news. With these procedures (politics) and their inherent principles and values (polity) we discover the generative structure of the subject in a true sense which constitutes the grammar of the social and political.

Search result so far: Public schools have to assure that political literacy according to the following constitutive basic methods (methods of democracy education) is developed:

 

 

These basic methods constitute the logical core curriculum (Kanon) of civic education. This minimum is thought as flexible set of rules and regulations. Its knowledge (Kenntnis) assures a common stock of experience and general knowledge in our young citizen.

The competence to use these basic methods is a contribution to the so-called "pragmatic dimension" of general education (Klafki 2003, 14-17, see Berg in this volume).

It is not so easy to move in public circles and to play the different roles of market participant or intervening citizen according to the prevailing situation and context. Or, as it was drastically said by the political scientist Wilhelm Hennis (Freiburg): "Who is looking out for truth in parliament is knocking at the wrong door. He had better consult the philosophical department."

It is a sort of modernized "Knigge" (16) - another historic pattern for a didactic drama. His famous book "Vom Umgang mit Menschen" ("On Social Life among Humans") contains much more than rules for etiquette concerning good behaviour at tea time. It is a system of rules and conventions that regulate social and professional behaviour. In any social unit there are accepted rules of behaviour upheld and enforced by legal codes; there are also norms of behaviour mandated by custom and enforced by group pressure. An offender faces no formal trial or sentence for breach of etiquette; the penalty lies in the disapproval.

The central criterion for a model lesson in civic education is the question if it connects collective procedures with the understanding of the leading philosophy and architecture of democracy, the values and principles. This bridging guarantees meaningful learning instead of accumulating the dull knowledge of the institutional system (Institutionenkunde) or the spontaneous changing of topic according to current events in the news (Gelegenheitsunterricht). The civic lesson prattles on (Laberunterricht) following the garlands of popular opinion (Meinungsgirlanden) which doesn't reach beyond the surface of sensations in daily news. Bridging (Vermittlung) as the special form of didactical thinking implicates a special concept of learning. It differs from the simple and naïve concept of "Nürnberger Trichter" - the teacher feeding the pupil with positive subject stuff which exists independently from the learning process. But it differs as well from a modernistic conception of constructivism. It implies social constructivism (Gergen 2001). Democracies and their institutional composition are learning systems - a daily civic lesson. Therefore it can be learned adequately only in a genetic, and not in a positivistic manner.

A genetic Lehrstück can be studied exemplarily in the process of building a constitution. For example, the Parliamentary Council 1948/49 in Western Germany (compare Leps and Hilligen in this volume).

The learners' genetic experience has to be the centre of teaching democracy. For this purpose the dramaturgical design of the lesson or unit must be mimetically nestled to the movement and flow of the subject. The procedures of intention building must be started up in real, or be simulated and reflected consciously (see below Chap. 3). By doing so, a correspondence of form and content is established, which constitutes the aesthetic dimension of civic education: "The content of learning is bound to a form which does not exist independently from design." (Rekus 2003, 68; Otto 1968) This is meant critically against motivational technologies without regarding the subject. In doing so, the key to the "aesthetical presentation of the world around as the main purpose of education" (Die ästhetische Darstellung der Welt als das Hauptgeschäft der Erziehung) - J.F. Herbart (17) 1802/1804) is found.

2.6. Sixth search strategy: Political anthropology and political philosophy - the conditions of human existence as developmental tasks for students

Let's regard the 3rd search strategy again: it appears poor and remains unsatisfactory, as long as it focusses on only bare technical knowledge of the institutional system - i.e. how they should function, not how they function in a real political decision process. In German didactics a technical approach is called "Institutionenkunde". It has a normative bias which has to be corrected by empirical as well as critical information about the reality of policy making.

The technology of decision-making contains only poor educational potential (Bildungspotential). The bare "exchange of opinions" and dualistic "clash of controversies" - which is an inherent problem of the lesson model in fig. 2 - becomes a productive moment of education only if we ask for the good decision and the institutional conditions which make the increased probability of such decisions possible. Only the extension of the formal decision competency to content-related design-competency constitutes an elementary thema of mankind (mankind topic): the question about the good life in the future, the search for meaning (Sinn) (George 1980, vgl. Petrik in this volume). It is necessary to qualify the decision making in a civics curriculum and the construction of a learning environment.

The shared subject of social sciences in general is social action (soziales Handeln). In principle, humans possess the liberty in all procedures to select. However society faces us as a "system", as the result of chains of action which can't be influenced. Especially the modern management of social relations by criteria of reason compels the modern human into the bureaucratically administered cage of serfdom (Gehäuse der Hoerigkeit - Max Weber).

Let's regard the consequence of this systemic perspective in relation to the domain-specific learning concept: There is a common sense learning theory, that humans learn best by practical doing - vulgo "learning by doing" (trial and error). Thus, however, the complexity of action conditions in social systems is undermined. Because humans can commit "errors" for rather a long time until these actions "fight back". Since in market systems short term strategies are economically recompensed above all, time traps (Zeitfallen) adjust themselves in interlaced systems on a long-term basis. There is a discrepancy between positive intentions and negative consequences on the system level. In a computer simulation of the strategies of intelligent development policy in an African desert region (18) even intelligent experts are inclined to spend money to put in deep wells (Tiefbrunnen) in order to irrigate drying zones for a long time until the ground-water level has dropped irreversibly causing a big famine. The logic of failing (Logik des Mißlingens - Dörner 1989) causes cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957), contra-intuitive insights (contra-intuitive Einsichten) which can cause a gestalt switch (Kuhn 1965) in student's misconceptions. Therefore a student calling out "Ah, I would not have thought that!" is criterion of a successful didactic drama!

The first experience and perception of such action paradoxes oppresses young people in the crisis of adolescence. Temporarily extreme solutions to this human condition are either

• a relativistic attitude - "everything is senseless anyway!"
• or the hasty search for a mechanism to improve the world(Weltverbesserungsmechanismus) towards peace and welfare. Young humans ask for the fundamental. A concept of civic education, which is not able to connect the topicality principle of the categorial conflict paradigm with this elementary anthropological dimension, or will never be able to satisfy the question attitude and sense search of adolescents (Ott 1969, Sutor 1996). Therefore a didactic drama must represent a lasting developmental task (Entwicklungsaufgabe) in the process of education (Bildungsgang); a hurdle, which provokes individual as well as common effort in problem solving.

Democratic societies in their various forms are a historical development of mankind, because they try an error-friendly answer to this existential question (Guggenberger 1987). Collective learning takes place not only via acting, but at the earliest via reflecting about acting and its consequences. The famous Dewey formula (1915/1993) reads correspondingly: "We learn not by doing but by thinking about what we are doing!" By distribution of power, pluralism and the participation of many in public decision-making processes these are slowed down in such a way, balanced, published and deliberated that the chance rises, in relation to authoritarian societies, to discover "errors" in time and to be able to correct them by system management. This is the so called "intelligence of democracy" (Lindblom 1965). Politics are meant to be a steady process of problem solving - and thereby new problems will be raised again and again. But the Super-MCA (GAU - Größter Anzunehmender Unfall) might become more unlikely(see Petrik).

Search result: Each didactic drama in the learning field of civics would have to reach this vital dimension of human condition ("conditio humana"). The logic of failing is exemplarily exaggerated in lesson models, e.g.

• in simulations, laboratory experiments or brain experiments ("Gedankenexperiment"). Well-known examples are the prisoner's dilemma or the paradox of the common / predicament (Allmendeklemme);
• real/material-historical cases: Here the negative and the "banality of the bad one" (Banalität des Bösen - Hannah Arendt) becomes the core learning experience. The Holocaust, among the genocides in history, is a singular one. Any didactic drama which deals with this curricular theme must be done most sensitively.

"The first demand on education is that Auschwitz will never happen again." This word of advice by the German philosopher and sociologist Theodor W. Adorno given in a radio speech in the early 60s when young Neonazis desecrated Jewish cemeteries denotes a special challenge within German civic education.

Hartmut von Hentig (1996, 111f.) recommends a film by Rolf Schuebel - "The homesickness of Walerjan Wrobel" (Das Heimweh des Walerjan Wrobel - German youth video prize, DVD 2003). It could be taken up in the film canon of the Federal Centre for Political Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung - www.bpb.de). In 1939, a fifteen-year old Polish boy is kidnapped by the Germans and brought to a farmhouse in the region of Friesland in order to work there as replacement for the man or son taken for military service. Due to homesickness, he sets fire to a barn in the naive belief that he would be sent back to Poland. In the reasoning of the final juvenile court, the paradox culminates in the sentence of the consultant who says that it would be the best for the young man if he were condemned to death and executed. Hentig: "Who saw and heard this history will never forget, and has to change his life."

Criterion for a didactic drama is that it is able to start the communication and keep it going between the generations in society over the past and the individual and collective guilt therein.

2.7. Seventh search strategy: Historical inventions of mankind (menschheitsgeschichtliche Erfindungen) - "what would have happened if...?"

Lehrkunst names as the central criteria for a didactic drama the fact that it is culture-authentic i.e. based on a realistic and important collective human-learning event. Therefore it might seem as if the didactic drama in the field of civics could only be a historical case. Some history teachers still today believe and propagate that historical case studies are the born form of political education, anyway. This would contradict our identified paradigm and the attached principle of topicality (Aktualitätsprinzip). But this assumption is wrong for two reasons:

First - Andreas Petrik (in this volume) demonstrates that the key topic "future" is a case of historio-political learning as well (besides "past" and "present").

Second - the conception of knowledge itself becomes relevant: A didactical perspective from the point of civic education shifts the perspective of instructional design in the historical case. With respect to the structure of subject knowledge two perspectives must be differentiated:

• ex post (retrospective)
• ex ante (prospective).

The retrospective is a result-orientated, positivistic representation of historical process. History appears as a "trampling path", as a "hand-held fan with one-way streets" which all inevitably result in the event selected as the view basis. Thus the possibility of cognitive dissonance (contra intuitive insights) in students is blocked. The knowledge design is positivistic which means apolitical.

The prospective is the genuine perspective of political education. The knowledge design is genetic which means political. In the learning environment of didactic drama in the field of history, the question "what would have happened if..." (Demandt 1986) has to remain open. Only an instructional design as forward-open and contingent makes the historical case an astonishing and productive political didactic drama. To "vita activa" (Hannah Arendt) belongs indispensably the discrepancy of cause and effect; of theory and practice.

Search result: criterion for a didactic drama is whether it makes this human condition (Existential) experiencable and perceivable to our students. A didactic drama in civic education focuses on border situations and its solutions, redesigning them in actual experience: How does living together have to be organized, and how can humans understand themselves therein to be able to live together with other humans in their "unsociable sociability" (Immanuel Kant)?

Appropriate border cases particularly appear in situations of social upheaval and change of the elementary structure of the institutional system (i.e. democracy to dictatorship or anarchy and vice versa). A narrative didactics of democracy tells and hands down this "biography of the democratic community" - another striking formulation by Hermann Giesecke. History curriculum could be conceptualised as a passage through history under the central question of struggle for democratisation. The leading actors and heroes of this collective biography are not famous men, but the everyday life heroes and heroines, the common men and women, who step out from social collectives ("We the people" - CCE 1985).

We have shown above, that democracies can be understood as learning systems and didactic drama themselves! Democracy is seen as the historical invention of mankind to encourage future-open decisions under the conditions of uncertainty (society at risk). Exemplary material would be case studies of prominent upheavals and revolutions: 1798, 1914, 1918, 1933, 1945, 1989... These events could/should be shown from the perspective of young people of the same age as the students. Some curricular ideas for appropriate case studies:

• the strategy considerations of the youth organizations of the democratic parties in the final phase of the Weimar Republic regarding the question of how the apparently charismatic leader Hitler and his Nazi movement is to be judged, and how the totalitarian danger is to be fought against: with political arguments or with demonstrations in the streets which could include military force as means of controversy?
• the struggle of a group of graduates (Abiturienten) for their right as critical public, which took place at a high school in East Berlin/GDR in the year 1988/89 (Grammes/Zuehlke 1993);
• the "blue men" and families of the Tuareg in their everyday struggle for survival amidst changing climates in the sahel zone which is organized as striking democratic deliberations. A source book for curriculum design is the ethnographic report by Spittler 1984.

2.8. Eighth search strategy: Embryonic Society - Island- and Robinson-Stories as an appropriate learning environment

Classical subjects and learning environments of socio-political educational work are situations where a society is founded and in which the new form of social order emerges from a severe crisis of living together. In didactic tradition there is a typical subject which can be called island-stories (Inselgeschichte) or Robinson-stories (Robinsonade). They allow to experience the process of founding a society exemplarily - a suitable possibility for genetic learning and knowledge acquisition. The subjects often start with an exodus of an oppressed minority, e.g. the Pilgrim Fathers, or it is caused by a natural catastrophe.

• Famous example in the history of education is Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his educational novel "Emile" Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" is the preferred book which the child is listening to;
• Another famous example is Johann Friedrich Herbart who as a private tutor (Hauslehrer) reads to the three Staiger sons from Homer's Odyssey preferentially.

  In any case: A documenting bibliography of basic civic education story lines must contain a chapter on island stories (bibliography started by Bittner 2003, Grammes 2000).

In the history of didactics five variations of the island story can be differentiated. They represent different forms of the genetic principle:

1. real historical situations of the foundation of society (for example "Mayflower and the Pilgrim fathers", see Hilligen in this volume);
2. fictitious historical situations typus Robinsonade (see "Lord of the flies" by William Golding; Gerd Bohlen with www.hh.schule.de/lehrer/horstleps/inhalt);
3. macro simulations of society of a type i.e. "city" or "state foundation" (Petrik 2003, computer games such as SimCity etc.);
4. micro simulations of society: vital dilemmas, in which basic theorems of political philosophy are concentrated, of social and political anthropology as well as social philosophy (Kohlberg dilemmas, "common land paradox", prisoner's dilemma, the famous thought experiment of John Rawls about distribution of goods under the "veil of ignorance" - Schleier der Unwissenheit); social-psychological experiments ("The wave", Rhue 1981, Abraham experiment …); see also the "rebellion of the Plebejer" Leps in this volume;
5. real experiences of social border situations which exist in the reform-educational tradition of the so-called Erlebnispaedagogik ("Outward Bound"). The young working class student travels in the twenties, organized by Adolf Reichwein, the first professor for history and civics at a German teacher's college Pädagogische Akademie) in Halle 1931/32. (19) (See Leps).

3. Dramaturgy: Learning environment and forms of design (didactical genres)

Didactical thinking, according to Lehrkunst, stresses the dramaturgic component as a core element of educational design (see contribution Berg, cap. 2; for the rich German tradition of dramaturgical thinking combining the field of civic education with drama education (Theaterpädagogik) see Bundeszentrale 1958 and Henningsen 1967 for the important didactical genre of political cabaret). As in literature where three basic forms of speaking - the genre of lyrics, drama and novel - are differentiated, three principle modes of production of a political learning process in the school can be distinguished. These basic dramaturgical forms differ in the mode of how classrooms and their knowledge are opened up to the surrounding learning places. Distinction criterion is what constructionalistic theoreticians of learning psychology call "creation of a learning environment". Three modes can be differentiated: Instruction in the polis, as polis and over polis. (20)

a) Real acting (instruction in the polis) - project didactics

Instruction is becoming an emergency case ("Ernstfall"). Teachers can visit real social learning places with their students or bring them into classroom by inviting experts in order to initiate experiences with routines of institutional processes and expert knowledge. We call this authentic encounter (originale Begegnung). Within genuine project didactics the learning process involves students into real social-political action temporarily at least.

Search results: Prototype in the history of didactics is the typhoid fever project of the American teacher Ellsworth Collings in the beginning of the 20s. The course of the project phases is typical, even if the report by Dewey/Kilpatrick (1935) presents an embellished success story, as far as we know today.

My personal current project favourites are

• politics accompanying instruction (politikbegleitender Unterricht)
• politics-advisory instruction (politikberatender Unterricht).

Vivid reports and good examples are given by Moegling 1998 and Koopmann 1998. Many projects in the Federal-Commission Model Program (Bund-Länder-Kommission Modellprogramm) "Democracy learning and teaching" (Demokratie lernen und lehren/DLL) encourage democracy learning using these forms - social practical courses, service learning, community education (see www.blk-demokratie.de; www.demokratisch-handeln.de).

The material learning place can also be the social science research lab. A classical didactic drama is Jerome Bruner's curriculum "Man - a course of study" (MACOS). The core idea of the curriculum is that humans are shown in a scientific-discovering attitude and appropriate "thinking habits" are trained by the students. Many of the social science curricula, which were developed in the USA and in the United Kingdom in the 60s and 70s (overview Wulf 1973, Bruner 1969, Schools Council/Nuffield Foundation 1975), represent a high standard compared to today's unfeeling high-speed shots which are thrown on the curriculum market. The curricula make an important contribution to "learning of modernity" through the promotion of a specific social science "structural thinking" (Zapf 1966, 216). Unfortunately the curriculum material is not documented in such a way that it can easily be followed.

b) Simulation (instruction as polis) - encounter training (Erlebnispaedagogik)

In this case, instruction serves as scope for playing fields for emergency cases (Spielraum für den Ernstfall) - as if it would be the real learning place. In simulations and models, reality is re-presented for the purpose of exercise. Each simulation, a role play or a decision/planning game, is based on a model of social reality. Nevertheless the simulation is not "artificial". A simulation can become completely real for young adolescents because they suddenly feel vitally provoked in their self and their position within group roles.

Candidates for didactic drama are well-documented games which simulate the complex procedures of democratic decision-making. These criteria are fulfilled e.g. by the planning games on European topics produced by the Centre for applied policy research (Centrum für angewandte Politikforschung - www.cap.uni muenchen.de).

c) Reflective acting (instruction over polis) - political rhetoric and reading unabridged non-fiction.

Instruction over polis in the learning environment of classrooms predominantly takes place in the medium of dialogue and discussion. It is thinking about reality: Politics appear as a dialogical mode of conflict solving and not as a special or somehow definable area of social acting. (Of course there are other aspects of politics for example: emotion, power and pressure.)

• verbal and written forms of dialogue are everyday practice but not particularly developed in the field of civic education research as far as Germany is concerned. At present no well-structured textbook of political rhetoric for young students is available that takes up the ancient Greek and Roman tradition (Cicero) and combines it with modern rhetoric of media democracy;
• indirect dialogues - didactic drama "public library": Amidst the high-speed ways of school enterprise, do students still know the exemplary experience of unabridged reading of a non-fiction bestseller, the enlightening function of non-fiction, the value of a public library and a well sorted academic bookstore? Do they have the patience to read volumes of more 100 pages? The curricula of the 70s and 60s recommend such fastidious works in their lists such as:
• Günter Anders (The antiquity of mankind - Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution, 1956),
• Karl Jaspers (The atomic bomb and the future of mankind - Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen, 1957) or
• John Kenneth Galbraith (The new industrial state - Die moderne Industriegesellschaft, 1957).

Current diagnoses of our society which could be used in classrooms are:

• Richard Sennett (The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism - Der flexible Mensach, 1998),
• Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order - Kampf der Kulturen, 1998) or
• scenarios and prognoses taken from the discipline of futurology (compare Petrik 2004 in this volume)

They make it possible to take up the tradition of discussing time diagnosis (Zeitdiagnosen) in civics lessons and to communicate a holistic orientation to students with regard to the basic question: In which society do we actually live?

Each civics teacher should master these three modes competently. They belong to the core curriculum of civic education teacher training.

4. Conclusion: Model units as medium-term strategy of curiculum reform (mittelfristige Curriculumstrategie)

Can there be Wagenschein-didactics (21) in the field of civics education as well?

The eight search strategies demonstrate: The history of didactics contains a surprising tradition of elementary didactic dramas which can constitute a socio-political propaedeuticum (Propädeutik). In so far as an assumption of Wolfgang Klafki is confirmed, historical didactic research can still seek out the one or the other treasures (Kleinod) in this subject. There is a didactic drama tradition with many curricular scripts, forgotten by the blood-empty academic educational science. They provide high-quality examples available for the subject teacher training. We should not hastily try to invent the wheel. The good ideas, models and practice forms are already there if one looks more closely at tradition! A domain-specific "Frenzel" (see editorial for explanation of the concept) gives an answer to the current discussion about curricula and standards in civic education.

Didactic dramas in civic education will resemble short "lesson/lecture novels", less than extensive "lesson symphonies" (22) (See Berg) . It is the above mentioned specific structural thinking (Zapf 1966) which they bring in as specific colour into school's didactic drama repertoire. It will have to be "more durable", more brief and easy to grasp in its philosophy by teachers who didn't study the subject in academic courses which is quite often the case in the field of civic education as integral part of social studies, not only in Germany. The Japanese motto and advice for lesson development "Don't Worship Originality" (see Lewis in this volume) indicates that triviality might not only be the "biotope of philosophy" - a phrase by the German philosopher of law, Wolfgang Kersting -, but also the field of didactics. Didactics should love the simple that means basic form! In our Hamburg lesson study workshops we use the following metaphor: seeking for didactic dramas in civics means looking out for a "Smart" instead of a "Mercedes". Their dramaturgy can learn from the epical theatre of Bertold Brecht and its scenic models called Lehrstücke. Didactic dramas, which are suitable for varying, are situated somewhere between "Best Practice" and good practice.

In the period of establishing the task of political education as a separate school subject in Germany during the 60s, lesson models were used to establish effective teacher training by a form of snowball system and to secure standards of classroom performance. Classic examples are given by Ohrt u.a. 1966, Gagel 1966, Rahmeyer 1968. Wulf (1973) and many others transferred the American civic education curriculum models to German teachers (Smith/van den Berg 2000). I don't share the judgement that these curricula didn't succeed just because they were top-down and teacher-proof curricula, developed "of the post-Sputnik era" and that they only "gobbled up vast amounts of dollars before dying" (Smith/van den Berg 2000, 387).

In a current period of financial shortage where teacher training in the subject field of civic education has nearly ceased, a pragmatic strategy of medium-term curriculum reform is recommended.

It is to be assumed that most of what is suggested in the hidden traditions of civic education mentioned above isn't standard in everyday teaching practice. Renovating the core curriculum of civics will afford to change more than 10% into lesson models (this margin is proposed by Berg cap. 4 in this volume . The task might be to open a complete new theater with a fresh basic repertoire. Therefore didactic dramas in the field of civic education would have to take another conceptional status: They are not only project-like highlights of the school year ("festival weeks"), but they play on the core of the task of the learning subject ("standard repertoire"). I assume that a civics teacher can put a play on with approximately 15-20 pieces from the different curricula of the prevailing national curricula already. According to fig. 3 it might be a world-wide repertoire.

What might be a first step in classroom practice? A group for lesson development distributes the didactic dramas of a democracy curriculum and grade them. With respect to the key topic "future", it is demonstrated by Petrik in this volume. A mind map results in the reliable agreement of modules and could look like the following figure:

Fig. 4: Lehrstücke in the curriculum of the secondary school I (mindmap)

A first step in academic research would be the composition of vivid didactic drama reports and original materials in a storyline/direction book, in order to sharpen the sense for didactic drama culture in scientific community and professional teacher culture. All media of reporting should be used especially inspiring film and video documentation (Petko u.a. 2003). Because: "The theory of instruction is neither world-far speculation, nor pure experience out of a psychological laboratory, but scientific criticism of understanding instruction action." (Schwerdt 1948, motto)

Notes

 

(1) An adaequate English term for "Lehrstück" is not easily found. "Best Practice performances of model curricula and lessons/units" is a suitable translation. It maintains both aspects of the concept, the curricular and the performance (practice). To abbreviate, the German term is left sometimes, or I refer to it by "Best Practice".

(2) Lehrkunst is translated as "teaching art/art of teaching", even this might overstress the component of classroom performance dependent from a charismatic and skillful teacher personality. Readers should keep in mind the strong curricular aspect (model unit, script) of art, which makes it learnable for a wide range of educational staff. Art is no miracle here. Teaching art - like drama play - needs authors (curricular script writers), dramaturgy (advisors) and direction (performance).

(3) In contrast to the concept and subject of social studies (geography, history, civics) civics (Politik, Sozialkunde, Gemeinschaftskunde) is taught separately in most German schools. Civics includes material knowledge in aspects of economics, law, political science and sociology. The common German term "political education" (politische Bildung) is avoided and translated as civic education, because in English it connotates "politization" by instruction (manipulation, overwhelming). Civics is not identical with citizenship education which refers to cross-subject goals.

(4) Friedrich Copei (1902-1945) is a scholar of the German philosopher and educational scientist Eduard Spranger. His doctoral thesis 1924 "Der fruchtbare Moment im Bildungsprozeß" (The Productive Moment in Educational Process), published just before the Nazi regime came to power. It become a paedagogical bestseller after 1945. The productive moment is illustrated by the famous milk-can example. Copei couldn't keep up his scientific career but worked as ordinary teacher at a German Volksschule. He died in the end of World War II.

(5) Martin Wagenschein (1896-1988) worked as a teacher at the famous Odenwald Schule. He gave regular lectures as Honorar Professor at Tübingen University but never became an ordinary professor.

(6) Max Weber wrote this in his famous article "Politics as Profession", first held as a speech to students at Munich university in the chaotic situation after World War I (1919).

(7) Kurt Gerhard Fischer (1928-2000), professor at Gießen University.

(8) This consensus found its famous formulation in the so-called Beutelsbacher consensus in 1977: www.lüb.bwue.de/beutels.htm

(9) Der Spiegel is the most important German political magazine, in its public role comparable to Newsweek or Economist.

(10) August Hermann Francke (1663-1737), pietist, founder of a school for orphans in Halle/East Germany, later called the Francke'sche Stiftungen.

(11) The production of an appropriate chapter in a civics "Frenzel", in which these instruction units are once carefully gathered and analyzed comparatively, is overdue. Anybody interested in this work is invited to contact the Hamburg group of training arts for further literature.

(12) "The student should gain/have method", said Hugo Gaudig (1860-1923). "The student should have didactics too", Wolfgang Hilligen added. This means metareflection and consciousness of learning subjects.

(13) Of course this is an analytical differentiation only!

(14) The Weimar constitution didn't contain this security: Parliamentary democracy could abolish itself by majority voting of political representatives - and so it happened step by step.

(15) The German title "Familienkonferenz" (familiy conference), "Schulkonferenz" (school conference) and "Managerkonferenz" (management conferences) stresses the democratic educational intention much better than the English titles ("Parents Effectiveness Training") which sounds like bare instructional psychology.

(16) Adolf Freiherr von Knigge 1752-1796.

(17) Herbart (1776-1841) followed Immanuel Kant as chair in Königsberg.

(18) The simulation is called "Tanaland".

(19) Adolf Reichwein (1898-1944) was discharged in 1933 by the Nazis because of his engagement in the Social Democratic Party. On his own wish he did not emigrate but worked as an ordinary teacher at a Volksschule in the small village of Tiefensee. In Berlin he joined the Resistance and was murdered by the Nazis in 1944 (Huber/Krebs 1981).

(20) The metaphor of "Polis" refers to the ancient Greek form of democracy, the invention of collective decision making by male adults in a city. Of course this analogy is limited: schools are not parliaments and modern parliamentary systems function completely different from Athen's polis state.

(21) Compare fn 2.

(22) For a slightly different opinion see Berg in this volume. "Lesson symphony" is a term used for holistic learning environments throughout nearly all curricular subject of a grade by the German teacher and educational reformer Wilhelm Albert (see Moser 2002). Themes of the symphonies were "The sun", The moon", "water" and other.

 

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Keywords: General Education, Curriculum, Democracy-Education, History of Didactics, Erlebnispädagogik, Didactics of History, Liberal Education (Kanon), Categorial Didactics, Core Curriculum, Didactics of Civic, Political Education, Political Anthropology, Political Philosophy, Project Didactics, Lesson Models, Lesson Plans, Newspapers in School

 

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