Gerald Hüther: Potentialentfaltung – Was wir sind oder was wir sein könnten

Ladies and gentlemen, I have just arrived from Göttingen and I have traveled

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e by train for several hours, many hours. I have to wake up slowly and get in the mood. What makes me very happy is being able to be here today. What makes me even happier is that so many people came and what I hope now is that after this event you will have a lot to think about and talk to each o

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and maybe one or the other will get going because the learning processes are not no It is there to help you learn something, but rather to use what you have learned in your life.

Now I am a biologist and that is why it always makes me very happy when I find something like this somewhere that does not fit at all into our current concept of learning and the most beautiful one I have found is about peas, that is, plants. . That's why I was happy with the photo with the flower here. So if you blow the pea leaves with a fan from one side and from this side you always send the light to the pea leaves with a lamp and you always do this regularly - lamp on - always blower and in the end you see that the leaf The pea en The light grows, if you turn off the light and simply turn on the fan, it will continue to grow.

He learned, like Pavlov, a process of pure conditioning that leads you to grow to where you are now. Because normally the light always came, even if it doesn't, that's where it grows. This means that these are actually quite banal processes that actually take place everywhere in nature. So, if we dig a little deeper into this whole learning problem, we find that learning is obviously a basic property of living beings. That's why what you do is so important. So, like a pea leaf, you obviously learn without a brain. A brain is not needed for such learning processes.

Even single-celled organisms can learn and if you have a brain, it might be a little better, but what is even more interesting is that you all know that we can also learn something in communities, for example as a family or as a university of education Companies, even as cultural group, they may learn something or suddenly they are asked where the family's brain is, where it is anchored and then they realize that we basically have to rethink some things when we talk about learning and The second problem we have It's that we think that learning is about acquiring knowledge and that may have been very advantageous in the past, that people saw it that way, but I already suspect that we are growing towards a world in which knowledge per se is really no longer It has so much importance, I'll go into that in a moment, but simply because you can get knowledge from somewhere.

So knowing that someone has told me that I know how long the Amazon is is good if I want to participate in a guessing game on TV, but otherwise it doesn't necessarily help me cope with my life. And that knowledge also has the property that if it does not acquire meaning for me now, I will immediately forget it. Of course, these are terrifying figures. I don't know, you don't like hearing that. People really don't want to admit it, but it is evident that children and young people who are in school for ten, twelve or thirteen years, almost two years later, of all the knowledge that is imparted to them, there is nothing left.

And then you have to ask yourself if focusing on imparting knowledge is really what is needed. So they always say you need education. Yes, it is true, but when there is education, when there are people who do things throughout their lives, for example as investment bankers or as manufacturers of new technologies in agriculture, that means that all plants, flowering plants, already They are not there and the bees die or if they are people who work in factories where weapons are then manufactured and then sent to another place in the world. These people responsible for this have had the best education we can imagine.

They went to the best schools, they went to the best universities and that's probably why education alone is the case, so if it's that kind of education, it's not enough on its own and you should actually expect an education that It is also provided in educational institutions that cannot be used to acquire the knowledge that one would like to have and then, in the end, use all this education to achieve one's own goals and intentions at the expense of others. All this is interesting. We are currently in a big phase of transformation and of course you will feel it in your daily work or when you finish as a student.

Then you will feel more clearly that something is about to start moving and we still don't know exactly where. is happening, so it could be very helpful if we remembered that something would be better than just knowledge and that the German language is so nice that it would be better if you could recognize something, that is, if you had recognized it instead of knowing it. because every process in which a student becomes able to recognize it for himself, this process is always a process carried out by the student himself. This means that the student constructs this knowledge and perception himself, which is a very important point to guarantee that the learning processes are sustainable.

Only when I myself have acquired knowledge as a cognitive process does it become so deeply anchored in my brain that it then connects with me. Recognition is great, but, as you may have guessed, it is always a fairly cortical process. It is located right at the top, where the most cognitive networks are located and that is why it is good that in German we have a term that goes a little deeper and we call it understanding. Understanding is beautiful and now the body comes into play, so that suddenly you realize that it is not only what we have up here, but that it cannot be grabbed with your hands and that is the most beautiful concept that I will talk to you about today.

What I like to talk about most when I have to talk about learning processes is understanding. That's a really cool term because understanding means you've understood it from head to toe. Obviously, culturally in a language like this you can understand something like this, that the learning processes can be deeper, so to speak, and if we can say: I have understood something, then it has reached my core. at the feet, so to speak. Standing on it and can't get rid of it. People who have really recognized something can no longer continue as before and that is why it is so important that we help each other not to know, perhaps to recognize, but above all to understand things a little.

We then create this world from this understanding; What you have understood can also be shaped. If you don't understand it, it's no use knowing what it's like. So if you want to change or if you are striving for a change, then there is no use in knowing it, then you should have understood it, then you can also change it. What worries us at the moment and which of course is not so popular in the public eye is a dramatic transformation process that comes from the economy and is spreading to all areas of this society and is known by the term Industry 4.0. and it means nothing other than that in the coming years we will witness a development in which all the human activities and skills that we previously thought were human and where we thought we were the only ones who could do them, all these skills, if they can be algorithmic somehow.

In some way, they are also expressed in algorithms and then taken over by computers, by automatons, by robots, and I myself would not have thought that was a possibility five years ago when I heard the first reports about it that someone other than a Un A living human being is capable of driving a car. So that a machine can drive a car. As you know, there are assistive robots. There are also computers that can play chess so well that they can beat all the world champions, that my smartphone, which I have now taken away from it, thank God, knows more than me and if I don't know something, I know that Now that I have it I can see that I can also use this device to orient myself in space, in and around Linz and around the world.

These were all human skills that we were proud of and could perform, and now everything has been transferred to machines. We can simply safely assume that within twenty years at the latest all human activities that can be described in a way that can be written down, everything that must be done during the day by someone doing that job. So if it can be written, machines can program it and then they can also execute it. This means that all those people who today pass through our educational systems (kindergartens and schools) will find themselves in the foreseeable future in a situation in which they will no longer be needed if they do something just because it must be done according to the rules. .

That means that all those people who only work to earn money and who, therefore, do what is written for them, so to speak, what they must do every day to earn money, those people will no longer find work. This does not apply to lower professions, as is often thought, but also applies to lawyers who simply do what needs to be done. In reality, this applies to anyone who is interchangeable with another person in a job description. Of course, this also applies to university professors, if they do nothing more than what they are told to do. This also applies to doctors.

These computers, these calculators, these machines and robots are simple, that is why they are presented. It is not because they are cheaper or because they save costs, but because they are more reliable and do more things, they do not have vacations, they are not in a bad mood, they are always well rested, they can work 24 hours a day. This is such a huge advantage that we can honestly admit that soon there will be very many people left, not only in Austria but all over the world, and not all of them will be left, but those who have more or are less likely to simply work on something to make money from it. .

To make it concrete. They can never replace a gardener who loves his flowers with a machine, but a gardener who does his work with his leaf blower according to the rules and cleans everything like that, they can also replace the gardener with a machine. This means that in the future it will happen that those who do not enjoy what they do will no longer have a job. Now we can think a little about what will happen then, I want to do it, but I don't want to discuss it in detail with him, but the fact that people in Silicon Valley and also in Germany, for example from Siemens, It is already assumed that soon there will be pay an unconditional basic income, which is actually the answer to all this development.

And now we don't want to think anymore about what people will do with this money and what they will get when they suddenly no longer have to work. The idea that since they don't have to make any more money, they'll go out and find something fun to do that they like. It's a good idea, but I don't think there's much hope for it to come true, because once someone loses the joy of working, they don't recover suddenly you give them money without having to work. And that is actually the crucial issue that I would like to discuss a little bit with you today.

It means nothing more than that we have to ask ourselves, why are there so many people who don't like doing what they do? Why have so many people lost their innate joy of discovery and their desire to create? And now you know where I want to go. Unfortunately, the place where this happens most often is where most of you work and so there is a basic requirement that I would like for your university. It's a university, right? What I hope for your university is that you start talking about how you can ensure that not a single child still being taught in schools around here loses their innate joy of learning.

That would be all. If we could get kids out of school or grow year after year and still have the joy they once had when they weren't in school yet. Then we can be sure that these children will have this tremendous joy of learning and acquire everything they need, but if we create situations where children have lost their joy of learning, it will be a very, very strenuous effort that we will have to make. teach them what we think could be important for their lives and that is why the question is so interesting: How can that be?

It happens that the joy of learning is lost. And I can explain this as a brain researcher and the answer is: it is not a law of nature and it does not depend on the brain. It goes even further if you wonder, because you may be one of those people who is no longer so happy to learn and discover and create on your own, so you may wonder where you are missing, it's arrived and I'm pretty. Of course, because I ask a lot of people and I ask people seriously and they also begin to think about it seriously, they may even point it out.

Not only in an institution, but mainly in a person. Someone found you during your development period and ruined your joy. Apparently this happens more often than we think and when I ask students leaving school why they go to school, and that is always the case in Germany, I get the same answer: it's because I have to. This is the biggest accusation and the biggest bankruptcy declaration that a society can make against itself: that the institutions to which the next generation is supposed to have the opportunity to acquire everythingneeds in life, so to speak, must be attended to because they have to go and that is why it is so exciting as a neurobiologist to observe this discrepancy between what is there at this moment and between what should really be there and what we have brought to light. the light in recent years, in fact in the last 20 years. of new knowledge is, in principle, totally banal.

It's really not something that will blow your mind. The most important finding is that we were probably a little bit wrong in the last century with the idea that genetic programs could be responsible for the fact that these billions of connections in the brain can be controlled by some genetic program. That just doesn't work. Geneticists have also seen it and it would be totally absurd, because at the moment of birth the genetic program cannot yet know where the person in question will grow up and what type of brain they will then need. That is why these genetic programs in man have developed so much that they lead to the production of surpluses.

Too many nerve cells, yes, all this often happened before birth, but the fact is that we once had a third of extra nerve cells in our central nervous system; If we have a third left over, nature or genetic programs have given it to us. much more equipped than we really need and just as the nerve cells are already structured, so are the networks. Many more connections are provided and then the system waits for something to happen. You can really imagine that in a three-month embryo, for example, the first connections are already in the brain and then the limbs have also developed a little and the first muscles have already developed and then there are the first connections with the areas of the brain which are then responsible for regulating the movements of the arm and then it starts to contract because the muscles contract from time to time and this signal of this movement is now directed upwards, it generated an irritation, that is, a kind of incoherence . , and the brain system now tries to compensate for this inconsistency by finding a solution that will make it go back again.

And then suddenly it becomes a movement and it's like that and at the end of the pregnancy you look like the fetus, when you feel like it, you just put your thumb in your mouth and the special thing is that, have you learned it? It is innate, but it is learned. He has learned based on his own physical condition, because the arm only bends like this and the thumb only bends like this; the brain can't learn anything other than how it would be handled if the arm were twice as long and rotated around the back and also a little bit devoured, then the brain would have enough capacity to learn to restrain the thumb at the back.

This may be very helpful if you understand that each child contributes surpluses in the different areas of the brain or that it is provided to them and that then it is decided which of them stays and which one is decomposed again and then you can say: that the The first forces The structuring elements of these network patterns in the brain come from the body itself. It is the patterns of signals coming from the body itself that stabilize the new networks and that is why it is inevitable that it is not just about the arms, but about all the signals that come from the body, from the various organs and areas of the body and As each Child has a different body, each child is born with a different brain.

Each brain has learned exactly this body, it has optimized itself, so to speak, based on this specific body, it has built its network and the result is that when a child is born, it has a brain that adapts perfectly to its own body and that is why the child is fine as he is born: it could not be better and just as the brain is initially structured based on patterns of relationships, patterns of signals that come from his own body, so it is later structured based on them as born. Progress experiences with people from the surrounding area.

There are families in which this is particularly important and in other families something else is particularly important and each child learns to build these connections in his brain in such a way that he can fit into this family or this culture or the place where he grows up. optimally and it means that basically based on the title of this conference "What we are and what we could be" it means that we all are, wherever we live as humans and come into the world and raise our children Seekers. Nobody knows how to do it. We do not have genetic programs that help us become humans.

We have to figure out how to do it. And we can also make mistakes and temporarily develop ideas about how things could work, which then turn out to be wrong, and if I can say this in all honesty, I think we are on that path right now, because what is happening right now there are events that they will not lead to our survival as a species on this planet. So maybe now I can say it a little more clearly. I have asked myself quite often why I take this on, why I give lectures and write books and try in some way to educate people and awaken understanding in other people and try to get something out of themselves and the world that you live in and the The real reason for this is that as a biologist, as a child, I fell in love with the diversity of living things - the many plants and animals and how they are all connected, which is why I studied biology and I can't just stand it when a temporarily wayward species is about to ruin everything in a very short time.

That is why I am here. And that's why I think I should try yours. You continue to accompany children and young people so that I can try to awaken in you the understanding of the incredibly great task you have and that means that if you take this task seriously, you... you too would have to say goodbye. to some of the ideas you may have had so far. That is why I would like to guide you through three areas that I consider crucial for the future of the school and where I would simply like to invite, encourage and inspire you to discuss them with me, think about them carefully and then maybe do them. the best you can, to implement.

I already mentioned the first one. It's that love of learning. A university must be able to support its students in such a way that the central concern of all this support is that these students, who then go to school, feel within themselves this deep concern that not a single child is under their support. You may lose the joy of learning. Of course, you have to have an idea of ​​what causes this. So far I have only said that this is not a law of nature and the answer to this question of how a child comes to lose his own joy in learning is relatively simple.

A child only does this when he is forced to do it, when there is no other option for the child, and what he does then is not simply developing it, but he actually learns that his joy of learning is something that he has. that really cannot be affirmed in this world. And a child does this because at some point he finds himself in a situation where he has to experience that he is no longer allowed to be the designer of his own learning process. This is relatively easy. We all know that in this first period, at least in the prenatal period, but also in the first years of life, children learn so much that they probably will not be able to learn again in their entire lives.

We don't really understand what it means to learn to walk on two legs out of nowhere in a year. It's no joke: one year and suddenly they can walk on two legs. What this means, anchoring the motor skills of the entire body in such a way that they then function safely, is simply an incredible process and what is even more impressive is that a child learns a native language from nothing. That's outrageous. While at first you don't even know how a sound is formed, you have to try to get the first sound out with your tongue and then suddenly you can speak.

So, just like role models and it is no longer an art when you have already established a mother tongue, the act of learning another foreign language is banal. But first of all, know that sounds can be loaded with meaning and that you yourself can produce them, that you can understand that sound and that others can understand what you said. These are incredible and fascinating learning processes, and they all happen because the child does it alone and they work because the child wants them to. They can't teach that and that means, in other words, that as long as the child is in motion as a subject and is allowed to be the designer of his own learning process, he learns like crazy.

Now there comes the point where you feel like he is tipping over and that is the moment when the child becomes an object. Where, so to speak, from this state in which you have experienced yourself as the designer of your own learning process, you suddenly have to experience becoming an object, that is, becoming the object of expectations and intentions. of instructions and evaluations, of measures and orders. Cognitively, we can all understand that it is actually a bit stupid, but we can't remember how much it hurt and if we now dig a little deeper into this situation and know what is available, then we know that it is extremely painful. experience when suddenly you are no longer allowed to be the subject and co-creator of your own learning process, but instead you have to learn something that others tell you to do, if you have to do something that others tell you to do, when you have to meet expectations that others have and when they make you the subject of evaluations that nullify others and the fact that this is so painful is because this has not happened all the time until this happens, the child is also in your prenatal state is where it has two basic experiences all the time and these are the two basic experiences: on the one hand, connection and security.

Thus, even children who no longer experience this after birth had it before they were born, otherwise they would not have been born and in this sense the child also has a life that a little one has every day. A piece grows beyond itself, that when you learn something new, it acquires more and more skills and, in fact, one could say that it also becomes more and more autonomous and, today we would say, more free. And that means that there are two basic experiences, one is that of connection and the other is that of autonomy and as long as both are breastfed, a child remains in this phase of discovery and creation until old age.

He cannot stop and the moment a person like a child becomes an object, sooner or later, these two basic experiences are violated at the same time. That's the bitter thing: when someone judges you, this feeling of connection disappears, it breaks, it leads to an incoherence in the brain, which you then experience: that it is not what you expect and when it comes. When someone becomes an object, you also lose the feeling that you are autonomous, that you can do something for yourself, that you can make your own decisions, that you can take responsibility for yourself, and that then we We feel hurt at the same time. and now we can even with the imaging process show that even adult men who are in a situation where they cannot show what they are made of and whether they come from a communityIt can be ruled out that these fMRI exams show that they activate the same brain regions that are also activated during physical pain.

This means that the brain uses the same mechanisms and networks to signal a disturbed relationship in your own body or in social interaction with others that it also uses to signal a disturbed relationship in your own body and that is why everything is correct, it what we popularly say. To say, it hurts when they don't see you, when they exclude you, when they treat you and evaluate you. And at this point, if you allow this to happen again, this idea and this thought, then it becomes clear why a child to whom this happens, a person to whom this happens, why he cannot develop any potential, now has a problem and most people in our culture spend the rest of their lives trying to solve this problem.

This means they are driven or attracted; In any case, they are no longer free people who, like a child, can playfully deal with what interests them and who, in the process, acquire the knowledge and skills they need to find their way in the world. Of course yes, we know that too. A solution must be found, I am firmly convinced that if a child does not find a solution for this, he will die from stress and tension and that is why these children find all solutions disgusting, because we tell them that, how the solution works and is We demonstrate it and the only solution when one becomes an object is that I also turn the other person into an object.

Such a stupid teacher or such a stupid mother. These are the strategies with which you learn to turn others into objects in the evaluation and you can learn this much better if you hook the other person to your cart in kindergarten and use them increasingly better for your intentions and goals and the from those who have learned. The best will then be the leaders of our society: politics and business. People who are particularly good at using other people as objects for their own purposes and then there is a group of children who obviously are not capable of confronting their own mother or the other person in such a way that they make that object, sothey themselves make the object.

I am not a man, I am ugly, I am not beautiful enough, I am not lovable. This is also a stupid strategy and some people spend the rest of their lives perfecting it. This means that if you want to help a child who is now in school or a student who is now in college to develop their potential, there is really only one thing: you have to awaken them as a subject, give them the opportunity to feel that they belong. , that they take him seriously, that not only can he give his opinion, but he is the designer of this entire event, like everyone else.

And these are completely new communities. To be honest, we have no idea how these communities should really be built, because many times we only know the other communities and that has to do with this previous development that we have gone through as humans has made it necessary at some point for people, I had already hinted a little about creating some kind of organizational structure to regulate how they live together. We are seekers, we don't know how to do it. But we can only live together with others, because everything we learn throughout our lives, everything we anchor in our brain in terms of abilities and skills, we obtained from others.

I mean, the idea that we are individuals is a little absurd. We can only live with each other, but I also tried to make it clear. We are so different because we have all had different experiences and no two really fit together. And now we have to form a community in which coexistence is somewhat fruitful and you can already guess that some type of organizational structure is needed for it to work and the organizational structure that we found about 10,000 years ago with the settlement and with the appropriation of Property means hierarchy. Pecking order is a wonderful thing.

Then someone will tell you how to do it. The others do that and then you can continue to refine the hierarchical pyramid and this organizational structure has proven to be extremely successful in our society and has spread to all areas of our lives - not only in the military but also in business, the economy and even in the private sector. church, in families - we built these hierarchical organizational structures everywhere because they also had an advantage and not only did they have the advantage that they could now regulate life together to a certain extent, but the real advantage was that there were always people in down and because that's not so nice, and the further down you are, the more they turn you into an object and then they wanted to go up and that's why they made a terrible effort, that is, the hierarchical order structure also provides the fuel for people to make an effort, to get out of this object role and to reach a higher level of this hierarchical order and in this way, for 10,000 years, people have discovered an incredible amount through such efforts, invented, developed new technologies and Every time someone found something great, they not only ascended, but what they found also spread accordingly, with the result that the world has become more and more complex and today we live in a world that has become so complex who can't stand it.

With a hierarchical order structure there is more to direct. That is what characterizes this great transformation process and now we have to try to find ways to organize our coexistence, how we organize the learning processes that we generate together, so that we no longer need hierarchical ordering structures. The process is currently in full development. You see, in business they look for flat hierarchies. Families have already abandoned these hierarchies anyway. That has largely dissolved: the hierarchy between men and women, the so-called patriarchy, has already diminished quite a bit, so we are currently fully involved in this development, where these hierarchies are being dismantled and now we need a new generation, which is capable of regulating their coexistence in a different way than following a principle of hierarchical ordering and therefore the second requirement for the future of the school is: Students must be given the opportunity at school to experience that they are like this, something like to have dignity, to be valuable, to be important, to be recognized, to be given the opportunity to develop an idea and an awareness of their own dignity, because if someone has an idea of ​​their own dignity, they are nothing more than objects , no longer allows it, it is no longer offered as an object, for example for advertising strategies and it no longer turns others into objects and this dignity that a person possesses would then be the inner compass that helps configure coexistence with others in such a way. that a hierarchical order is no longer necessary.

We currently live in times of change. Dignity has not yet been developed. Hierarchical structures don't work and that's why there is disorder all over the world and what happens to people when they experience it is that they are asking for a hierarchical order structure to give them back the old order. These are the so-called right-wing populist currents, as they also exist here in Austria. Now to wrap this up. I promised you three things. The third job we urgently need to do in our schools is to ensure that children and adolescents have the opportunity to feel connected to what is important to us.

So a child who has never been in the forest, who has never been in a museum, who has not yet experienced the culture and who has not yet experienced human contact, a child who has not experienced any of this, can deal with this gift. I don't feel connected either and now comes the crucial phrase. You can't protect what you don't feel connected to. That's why all of our conservation efforts don't work and our attempts to achieve climate change and similar sustainability don't work. Not because people's hearts are not actually so connected to the world of the living and for this reason we are currently seeing events occur that we all know are anything but something that affects ourselves, strengthens us and offers us the opportunity to develop the potential inherent in us and therefore, ultimately, my calling, my hope, my desire.

Try to tackle this very important problem together first and try to ask each other how you can develop a type of pedagogy that will never again turn any child into an object: neither the object of your evaluations, nor the object of your teaching, nor the object. become the object of your expectations and your intentions and actions. This would mean that children would not have to lose their innate joy of learning and would have to keep it open, and then learning processes could emerge in a, so to speak, self-organized way, so we, as adults, are not who we say we are. children what they have to learn but that help children in their quest not to lose and that it is a wonderful educational task that helps children recognize what is really important to them.

I'm going to do this specifically because it's always better when you can take a small example home. I recently received a letter from a mother who thanked me profusely for the book on dignity I wrote. That would have opened her eyes and that's why she would like to briefly tell me this story. She has two children. One was 10, the other was 12 and then the youngest one poured himself a glass, drank half of it and then put this glass of juice a little to the side, hidden, so he could drink from it later and he was ten.

A few minutes passed before the older man drank it all. This is the usual situation that you always know and then the mother said: Then I remembered that a child should not be turned into an object and I asked the eldest what he thought: Fritz, what do you think about what your brother thinks? you now. The answer was: he will think that he can't trust me. And then she asked him more and asked him: Do you want to become someone who, later in life, has to live in such a way that no one trusts you? And then he said: No.

That is, if the education process is returned to the child, leading him to assume his own responsibility and turning him from an object into a subject and giving him the opportunity to make decisions for himself, and that is even possible in situations like this and something completely different. Something else came out of this and ever since then this family has been talking about how they can help each other master the situation in such a way that they really feel that, in this oneness and subjectivity, they are able to come to closure. connection with each other. Yes, this is all a bit short and I tried to hurry up, but I still hope I was able to stimulate you a little; a conference like this can only be a suggestion that I managed to stimulate them a little to discuss some topics among themselves and when I return at some point or when I read in the newspaper that an impulse arose from the University of Linz that set in motion a movement that led Parents, educators, daycare teachers and vocational school teachers all immediately put this concern at the center of their pedagogical efforts: that no child or adolescent lose their innate joy of discovering for themselves and then creating together.

Then, of course, he would be infinitely happy and then I could also sit and rest. chill out. I would like to thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. But since what I've done here is a bit provocative - on purpose - I don't have much time, but perhaps those who think that everything I've said is cheese, perhaps let's say it briefly. so we can clear this up and not have to leave here feeling like he never arrived or that he'll be wiped off the table again with one of those hand movements. So I'd love it if you'd like to talk to me for a moment, especially to make clear once again your concerns and objections to what I've said here.

Is there anyone who would like to speak this way again? That is not the case. That is the most beautiful sign that exists. Does anyone have any suggestions on how this can be implemented here at the university so that when I come back I can't see what has become of this in a year? That's okay too, right? So then the confusion is perfect. But? I would like to address the first question; This is not a criticism, but a question about whether you could say something more about it. You spoke of the call for hierarchies, for authoritarian leadership: something of a sign of excessive demands in times of upheaval.

Do you also think that the call in education - children need limits, children need structures - also goes in this direction? Can you say more about that? Yes gladly. I think that is very important and I think that a lot of misunderstandings arise because the only time that most people can remember when they said that we want our children to learn freely was in '68 with their children's stores and that was not accompanying a child in their search for knowledge, but that was probably more of an organized irresponsibility and that is why it is very important that we realize that the educational art does not consist in letting children do what they want, but in letting them do what they want to invite, encourage and inspire, that is, create a space in which your interest is awakened.

So I can repeat it very briefly. Learning processes are only successful in the long term if they are emotionally charged. You don't need to activate the emotional centers of your brain; otherwise nothing will stay there. And the easiest way for this to happen is when the child is the designer of his or her own learning process. So when you say interest-driven, as an educator, of course, you have the opportunity to guide this interest. The child does not know what there is to discover in the world and what to create, especially together with others. Therefore, the child needs guidance that helps him recognize what is really important to him and then has an emotional charge on his own, because the child does things that he does when he works in a team, that is, even at school. primary.

There are approaches in which certain topics are worked on together in groups. Then it is even the case that the child can contribute his special skills and talents to this process, which often occurs at all ages. They are completely new ways, but they make you feel connected and also have the feeling that you can contribute something. So that's the technical term for this: individualized community, so it would work, but it has to be organized by someone who understands it and who really helps the children and it can't be left to work on its own, so the learning could be loaded of emotions, so to speak, as it normally should be.

The two unfavorable variants mean that the child learns something because the teacher likes them, they also exist and they also work. Then they learn math because they think that elementary school teacher is cool, but then you realize that the kid isn't actually learning math, but rather what you have to do to please a person. Then you have to make it clear to yourself that you are not falling into the trap and the third thing is that you can also load the learning material with the promise of rewards or the threat of punishments, the granting of evaluations and grades and then the The learning material also has a emotional burden, because they do not want the reward or the punishment.

And unfortunately that means that they don't learn mathematics, but rather howobtain rewards or how to avoid punishments. It must also be made clear. So if you ultimately want to have children who have learned particularly well to get rewards and avoid punishments, then you should go this route. In general, I did not say that I assumed that schools do not have the task of developing children's potential, but rather that schools mainly have the task of ensuring that the next promising generation emerges who will be able to stabilize social system . That's why we had different schools in the imperial era than under National Socialism.

And I can even tell experiences from the socialist sphere. That already happened. And in reality, they were all created in such a way that the respective system was supposed to be stabilized - what the children have gone through, have experienced and of course it is a bit absurd to believe that our current school system is free from such limitation of purpose. Of course, we are not aware of this, but we can say it simply in one sentence if our schools were full of children who knew what they wanted, who were experienced personalities, who were aware of their own dignity, who had these bonds.

If we had this desire to learn, our consumption system would cease to be sustainable overnight. They don't even need what is offered. So children who are well need very little. The worse off you are, the better off you are as a consumer. You also have to think about that when you become a teacher, if you want to contribute to it. Please what do you say? I'll say it out loud again. Would it then mean, on the contrary, that you advise against the use of these study programs that say that at the end of the school year the multiplication tables must be correct, the spelling must be correct, the capitals of the federated states must be known, because the child has to do that.

Yes, you heard the beginning, the rest was enough, so the question is: does it have to be everything? And that is why I said that if the central concern of all educational work is that the child does not under any circumstances lose the joy of learning, that is, of discovering and creating, then he will not be allowed to use any of the plans or exam. You see, I will say it again now, then you will see that you are actually being abused as educators, because not only do you work pedagogically, you are also selectors. You have to make sure that the wheat is separated from the chaff and that you separate the good from the bad.

And I can only encourage you to stop this abuse you are being subjected to. Just refuse to hand out censures and give reviews. Do it like this or suggest it as it is done in the driving school. The stupidest student you ever had in your class had no problem passing his driving test. And why does that work? Because the driving school instructor is not also the one who tests. We destroy all educational efforts because in your educational work you approach the child, you make him believe that you are someone who cares about him and the next moment you say: Please, censor.

And you just have to slowly say that we no longer do that as teachers and today it is no longer an art, it should be possible to find instruments at the end of the school year that can easily check if the children have gotten there. are. So in fifth grade, the student can log into biology class somewhere, he can open a quiz that contains ten stochastic biology questions this year, and then he has the answer, then he gets the certificate that he passed it, and then He takes it to his biology teacher and says, look, I did it and then they're both happy.

Do you know what other educational work this is? So there are a lot of creative possibilities that we just don't use and I think we don't use them because we don't realize the seriousness of the situation. We dwell on ridiculous things about whether 12 or 13 year olds should go to school or whether they should learn according to this or that reading program and we don't get to the real, really hot topics and finally, I can only encourage you. wake up. Unfortunately I have to go now. I thank you and wish you all the best.