Reading, arithmetic and science – these are the notorious Pisa subjects, named after the “Program for International Student Assessment”. It has little to do with the Leaning Tower, Italy and Dolce Vita. The Pisa studies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which have been carried out every three years since 2000, examine school knowledge in the supposedly most important school subjects around the world. The next survey is to take place in 2022, delayed by the corona-related lockdowns. The OECD is meanwhile very concerned that the deterioration in learning conditions over the past year and a half has had a major impact on the development of children and young people.
Several current studies from the summer of 2021 deal with the psychosocial effects of the pandemic on children. And interestingly, right now, the Pisa inventors are dedicating themselves to the importance of non-Pisa subjects like sports, music, and the arts. Many people recognize that these very subjects, which so often fail and are treated as subordinate in many schools, have a value that should not be underestimated when it comes to developing emotional resilience, self-confidence, an optimistic worldview, and an active and resourceful handling of challenges only when the problems and long-term damage suffered by children and adolescents can no longer be suppressed. Like so much, Corona has also revealed this grievance.
The two poles of modern education: Pisa and Palermo
“If one pole is the Pisa study and the associated focus on measurable knowledge, then the topics that are close to our hearts would be more geographically and mentally assigned to Palermo, southern Italy. It’s the playful things that shape our identity in so many ways. ”That’s what Henning Harnisch, 1993 European basketball champion, cultural scientist and now head of the youth department at Alba Berlin wrote three years ago. In doing so, he formulated a holistic educational concept as the motor of sports club work, which currently seems particularly relevant: Reaching children in their neighborhood, networking as a club with local institutions, creating interdisciplinary learning opportunities and thus promoting health and social participation.
Pisa = hard skills, Palermo = soft skills? That would be shorthanded. Because what used to be called soft skills are now proving to be essential pillars of mental and physical health, general well-being and resilience. A Palermo-oriented education not only helps children to cope better with the consequences of the pandemic in a very acute way. In the long term and sustainably, she supports adolescents in developing strong personalities and thereby becoming active members of society.
What children need today: curiosity, compassion and courage
The recently published OECD study “Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills” hits the same line: “Successful education today consists not only of cognitive, but also of character strengths. It’s about curiosity – open your minds; Compassion – open hearts; and it’s about courage – turning cognitive, social and emotional resources into action. These qualities, or social and emotional skills, as our report says, are weapons against the greatest dangers of our time: ignorance – the boarded-up head; Hatred – the closed heart; and fear – the enemy of all action, ”writes Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD.
In the study mentioned, school children between ten and 15 years of age around the world are examined to see how their social and emotional intelligence is and what factors are in order to determine important character traits such as curiosity, creativity, tolerance, tenacity, trust in themselves and others, compassion and Promote a sense of responsibility. If you ask one of the youth coaches for an answer, he’ll laugh: Exactly these values are what he wants to convey to the children through sport. And children have similar experiences with art and music.
imago images
Concert by a youth orchestra.
You also need creative power in inartistic professions
Certainly, talent for painting, sportiness or musicality are of great value in themselves, without them no great athletes or artists are conceivable. But we must not forget that the OECD is always concerned with economic development opportunities. In the study, creativity and curiosity are seen as the essential skills of adult employees in order to be able to do meaningful and successful jobs in a globalized, digitized world.
Many of today’s professions will be automated in the future. In addition to the role of general social character formation, the OECD sees curiosity as the drive for scientific and medical work, and creativity as the basis for communicative, marketing and creative activities. If you want to use this terminology again: Soft skills are the hard skills of tomorrow.
So how can children learn these skills that will determine their future? Many schools lack specialists and resources. And there are still reservations between representatives of the world of sport and the arts. The similarities between the spheres are evident, not only in the anthropological derivation of playful forms of culture.
The orchestra as an image for a successful school community
In addition to the cognitive and physical effects, the effects on children are very similar in these areas: developing a feeling for one’s own talents, taking on one’s role in a group responsibly, working on a task in a concentrated manner, adopting a set of rules, learning non-violent communication and the ability to criticize, self-efficacy feel and – especially in the interest of socially disadvantaged children – open up new horizons in shaping life. Sport and the arts should consequently be considered together in school education. “Like orchestral musicians, pupils can reach their maximum socio-emotional potential if they find their own role in the concert and practice until they have mastered the game,” says the OECD report. “All of this underlines why it is so important that education systems strive for the holistic development of their students.”
In the study, the OECD particularly identified extracurricular activities as positive factors for social and emotional development. However, outside of school in the narrower sense, these activities do not have to be compulsory, even if many schools can provide few resources in these areas.
Alba brings sports clubs and music schools into all-day schools
Alba’s idea, which the association pursues as the sponsor of an all-day school in Berlin Wedding and at the more than 160 Alba partner schools throughout Berlin and Brandenburg, is precisely this cooperative one: the sports club comes to the children at the school – and brings its cultural partners out of the Theater and music world to support a holistic education, especially for socially disadvantaged children. Elementary school students who have never come into contact with classical music or stage acting develop their own performance. Alba Berlin has not only developed the Palermo concept, but is already filling it with life.
What should be done now, especially in view of the effects of the corona? Palermo must become a movement, an educational power center. The many well-known cultural and sports institutions in Germany have to connect with one another, set up reliable joint programs regionally or nationally: Sports teachers and music educators speak different languages? Not if they share this holistic pedagogical claim to enable children of all social and cultural backgrounds a future as active members of tomorrow’s society. Let’s make schools, children and their imaginations dance!
Photo: Silke Janovsky
Author and initiative:
Rabea Weihser has been cultural director at Alba Berlin since April, before that she headed the cultural department of Zeit Oonline. ALBA Berlin is Germany’s most successful and largest basketball club. The club has been continuously expanding its youth and social work since 2005, and today it cooperates with more than 200 daycare centers and schools in Berlin and Brandenburg. Around 10,000 children take part in Alba’s programs, guided by full-time educators and coaches. In 2020 the association took over the sponsorship of an all-day school in Wedding. The digital learning platform Albathek has developed from the viral success of the “Daily Sports Lesson” since the first lockdown.