Interview with the head of the teachers’ association: “The countries only run after Corona”

The President of the German Teachers’ Association, Heinz-Peter Meidinger, doubts that the federal states will actually back up their promise to stick to face-to-face teaching “through appropriate national measures”. He does not expect meaningful decisions at today’s conference of the ministers of education. “They will say for the hundredth time that face-to-face teaching is very important, but again they will probably not agree on a common emergency action plan”.

So far, the countries have only lagged behind the pandemic with their corona measures at schools. Meidinger also generally doubts the meaning of the KMK resolutions on Corona: “The question is what resolutions of the KMK are worth if, on the one hand, they usually only represent a minimum consensus and, on the other hand, it is clear that the actual decisions are made by the Prime Ministers and prime ministers fall with the federal government. “

ntv.de: At its meeting in December, the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs decided that “continuous face-to-face teaching in schools (…) should continue to have the highest priority”. Have the federal states created the prerequisites to ensure classroom teaching?

Heinz-Peter Meidinger is President of the German Teachers Association.

(Photo: ntv)

Heinz-Peter Meidinger: That is indeed the big question of whether the KMK has done and is doing everything so that the goal of permanent full face-to-face teaching, which it constantly asserts, can really be achieved and ensured.

It can?

We have great doubts about it. Basically, with their health protection measures in schools, the federal states have in the past lagged behind the development of infections and the resulting requirements. The test concepts were inadequate for a long time, the introduction of the mask requirement was often too late, and the funding programs for room air filter systems were too much time. In terms of vaccinations, it does not look any better, when it comes to prioritizing teachers, one “forgot” about teachers in secondary schools and only in a few countries there are low-threshold vaccination offers for schoolchildren. In addition, the countries still do their own thing and have so far not been able to agree on the joint action necessary in a pandemic. You saw that again during the Christmas holidays, some countries had already lifted the requirement to be present beforehand, others brought the start of the holidays forward or extended the holidays a few days back, some left everything as it is and a federal state even has a phase of change – and distance lessons attached. That makes me doubt whether the federal states are really capable of safeguarding their promises made to stick to face-to-face teaching by means of suitable nationwide measures.

Today the ministers of education join together in a kind of Omikron crisis conference. What resolutions are you hoping for?

I believe it is and was right to start with full face-to-face teaching after the holidays. It is currently not foreseeable how much schools will be affected by the Omikron wave. What we need, however, is a strategy, an emergency plan, with which additional measures we must react at the schools if the infection numbers there develop explosively. Now simply to say that everything is fine, we have the situation under control, the measures taken will be enough, will not be enough. There are already federal states that have sensible concepts for this.

Which?

Let’s take Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with its three-phase plan, which enables schools to take additional health protection measures up to restoring the minimum distance and to alternate classes in the event of a rapidly worsening infection rate. In phases like now, in which we do not yet know exactly how the pandemic development will develop, two things are important: firstly, we need an orientation framework that describes and provides the necessary range of options for action, depending on the infection, and secondly, the schools need one great scope for action during implementation, because the conditions on site can be very different, regardless of whether it is the number of infection and quarantine cases or the personnel supply, the room situation, the digital equipment or the vaccination rate and the provision of room air filter systems.

And what resolutions do you expect?

I always like to be positively surprised, but I’m afraid that after the KMK meeting we won’t be any smarter than before. It will be said for the hundredth time that face-to-face teaching is very important, but again you will probably not agree on a joint emergency action plan and thus attempt to finally stop chasing the pandemic. The question is what resolutions of the KMK are worth if, on the one hand, they usually only represent a minimal consensus and, on the other hand, it is clear that the actual decisions are made between the prime ministers and the federal government.

At the end of the year you proposed a “narrowly limited distance learning phase after the holidays”. Do you want to protect teachers or students?

The German Teachers’ Association has never specifically called for a distance teaching phase after the Christmas holidays. We even expressly criticized the corresponding announcement by Thuringia as being premature. Unfortunately, this was presented in an inadmissibly shortened form in many media. What is correct, however, is that we have warned against completely excluding alternate or distance lessons as an emergency measure in view of the new threat posed by the highly contagious Omikron variant. If I see it correctly, not a single state government is doing that, not even the Federal Education Minister of the FDP and, by the way, not even the President of the Child Protection Association. I only said that in the event of a general lockdown for society as a whole, it would make little sense to generally exclude the schools and that I would prefer to bring the infections down with a short hard lockdown than continue the rest of the school year with massive ones Having to fight restrictions due to high numbers of infections. It may therefore be necessary to insert a short distance learning phase, especially in the interests of continuous, permanent classroom teaching. But that is currently a theoretical question, because a lockdown for society as a whole is not an issue in the current political discussion.

CoronavirusNew infections reported daily

The Federal Association of Pediatricians (BVKJ) is about to close schools warned And that connected with a reproach to you, among other things: “If representatives of teachers’ associations then always immediately call for school closings when the incidence increases, then that is basically a declaration of bankruptcy of the school system in Germany.”

It is the right and probably also the task of such an association to stand up for the interests of children. But I think it is wrong and indecent if teachers’ associations or teachers are generally assumed to only care about their own interests and not the concerns of children and young people. Politicians, not teachers’ associations, are responsible for the long school closings. Incidentally, it was the German Teachers’ Association that developed the model of alternating lessons in order to finally bring children back to schools after the first wave. Conversely, the BVKJ must be reproached for having rejected effective health protection measures in schools such as the mask requirement for a long time, i.e. measures that were intended to safeguard teaching. As recently as October, the spokesman for this association criticized the fact that we torture children in schools with tests and masks and that we spoke out against low-threshold vaccination campaigns in schools. I understand that this association advocates open schools, but not that it opposes all measures that are intended to ensure that schools are open through high health protection in schools. In January 2021, the German Teachers Association, together with the German Academy for Child and Adolescent Medicine (DAKJ), the umbrella organization to which the BVKJ also belongs, made a joint appeal to politicians to implement a hygiene level plan in schools that ensures open schools, if necessary with alternating lessons. It’s a shame that the BVKJ is now moving away from it. Adolescent doctors and teachers, the vast majority of whom started their profession because they love children, should act together in a pandemic and not assume that each other is hostile to children.

General school closings to prevent the spread of corona have not been permitted since December. In your opinion, was it a mistake by the traffic lights to take this instrument away from the countries?

It was at least surprising that the moment the pandemic emergency was declared over when the largest and most violent wave of infections to date rolled through Germany and the next challenge, Omikron, was just around the corner. It remains to be seen whether it was wrong for the countries to be deprived of this last measure by the traffic light coalition. It was already shown in December in countries such as Thuringia and Saxony that the lack of such a regulation cannot prevent school closings if the loss of control is too great. Ultimately, in view of the limited range of instruments in the federal states, there will be no avoiding granting individual schools more decision-making power if necessary.

Many parents fear that their children will be contaminated; many others, like the KMK, categorically refuse to close schools again.

We are also experiencing this as a teachers’ association: opinions on how to deal with the pandemic often drift very far apart among all those involved – teachers, parents and students. We receive letters from parents who no longer understand at all that a school contamination should be worrying, and those from parents who are very worried about the health of their children or from their contact persons in the family. I think the time for Freedom Day in schools will be a long time coming.

CoronavirusOperating situation in intensive care units

What do you think of the abolition of the compulsory attendance as a compromise between the two positions?

The abolition of compulsory attendance can contribute to better health protection, because it would reduce the number of contacts and make the group sizes at schools easier, for example with regard to compliance with the minimum distance. However, even with intensive parental support and good technical equipment, homeschooling can never replace face-to-face teaching. At its core, school works best as a social place of learning. For the teachers, too, there is an enormous double burden of long-term lifting of the compulsory attendance of shouldering the full face-to-face teaching together with the care of the absent students. The suspension of the compulsory attendance always means a hindrance or impairment of the regular school operation and thus also the learning success.

Hubertus Volmer spoke to Heinz-Peter Meidinger

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