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Main Article Primary Sources (1) Times Educational Supplement (21st December 1940) Eighteen East London elementary schools were reopened on Monday, December 15th. The recent house-to-house canvassing undertaken to encourage evacuation revealed that there were 2,680 children of school age still in Stepney and Whitechapel, and 2,800 in Poplar and Bow....
- Evacuation
Sections. Primary Sources; Student Activities; References;...
- Conscription
The longer the war continued, the lower the percentage...
- National Service Act
Main Article Primary Sources (1) Ernest Bevin, the Minister...
- John Anderson
Biography of John Anderson. After returning to Britain in...
- Whitehall Cinema
On 9th July 1943, ten German aircraft crossed the Sussex...
- Margaret Cole
Primary Sources Margaret Cole. Margaret Postgate, the...
- The Home Front
Read the essential details about the Home Front, including...
- Evacuation
- Overview
- Changes after World War II
- The Third Republic
After Adolf Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, the Nazis set out to reconstruct German society. To do that, the totalitarian government attempted to exert complete control over the populace. Every institution was infused with National Socialist ideology and infiltrated by Nazi personnel in chief positions. Schools were no exception. Even before coming to power, Hitler in Mein Kampf (1925–27; “My Struggle”) had hinted at his plans for broad educational exploitation. The Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda exercised control over virtually every form of expression—radio, theatre, cinema, the fine arts, the press, churches, and schools. The control of the schools began in March 1933 with the issuing of the first educational decree, which held that “German culture must be treated thoroughly.”
The Nazi government attempted to control the minds of the young and thus, among other means, intruded Nazi beliefs into the school curriculum. A major part of biology became “race science,” and health education and physical training did not escape the racial stress. Geography became geopolitics, the study of the fatherland being fundamental. Physical training was made compulsory for all, as was youth labour service. Much of the fundamental curriculum was not disturbed, however.
Immediately after World War II, the occupying powers (Britain, France, and the United States in the western zones and the Soviet Union in the east) instituted education programs designed to clean out Nazi influence and to reflect their respective educational values. These efforts were soon absorbed into independent German educational reconstruction. The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) of May 1949 granted autonomy in educational matters to the Land (state) governments. Although efforts to strengthen the federal government’s presence waxed and waned, Land governments remained independent and divided along political lines on educational reforms.
The two main political issues dividing the states had always been confessional schooling and the tripartite division of secondary schooling, with conservative states like Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg on one side and socially progressive states like Hessen and West Berlin on the other. After a 20-year period of reform discussion on these issues, marked by influential state or national proposals, the balance shifted in the mid-1970s to the conservatives—albeit with a great deal of internal liberalization. That is, confessional schools and confessional instruction in schools remained, but the latter was increasingly in ecumenical or ethical versions. This change, like others, was supported by the presence of a large number of non-German children representing various cultural beliefs and behaviours. On the issue of dividing secondary schools, in spite of continued strong intellectual and political support from some quarters, the movement toward comprehensive schools had, at least for the time being, died out. Even where comprehensive schools (Gesamtschulen) existed, they usually incorporated separate secondary paths. Nevertheless, the effective extension of common schooling through an “orientation stage” between elementary and secondary schooling, the attempt to develop each level so that it better served more youth—even if differentially—and the functional integration of school branches through curriculum reform and transfer possibilities all pointed to a comprehensiveness within the system.
Education was compulsory from age 6 to 18. In general, pupils spent four years in the elementary school (Grundschule), six years in one of the lower secondary branches, and two years in one of the upper secondary branches. The first two years of the lower secondary school constituted the “orientation stage.” Long governed by entrance examination, the choice of secondary school was now made by the parents. However, performance at the orientation stage—especially in the subjects of German, mathematics, and foreign language (English)—influenced decisions.
In the late 20th century about 25 percent of secondary-school-age children entered the Gymnasium, which, with different academic emphases, remained the successor to its Classical ancestor. Roughly 40 percent attended the nonselective Hauptschule (“main school”), which offered basic subjects to grade 9 or 10 and was followed by apprenticeship with part-time vocational school or by full-time vocational school. Approximately 25 percent attended the Realschule (formerly Mittelschule), which offered academic and prevocational options. It led to vocational school or technical school, which in turn led to commercial, technical, or administrative occupations. The vocational-technical sector was always given careful government and industry attention, and the network included a wide range of methods and content alternatives, with levels up to a university equivalent. All these institutions encompassed general education, theory of the trade or industrial field, and work practice. The schools could be reentered from work and could provide an alternative path to the university.
One of the means of coordinating differences among Land systems was through the Conference of the Cultural Ministers of the states, and one of the important resolutions of this body, in 1973, was for reform of the upper secondary stage. Attention was given to equalizing opportunities at this stage. This affected the Gymnasium by shifting much of the traditional load to the upper level. Although the first stage was still academically demanding, the foreign-language requirement was much more flexible, and many students left for work at the end of the 10th school year. The upper level was required to reach the Abitur, qualifying the student for university entrance. Although the range of subjects was extended, courses were diversified, and final achievement was indicated by a cumulative point system. The upper level of the Gymnasium was characterized by breadth of knowledge at a high intellectual standard, including cultural essentials as well as an academic concentration, and thus still captured the German educational ideal.
Whether due to periodic change, German tradition, or inadequate understanding of the reform process, the educational system had irresistibly returned to basic principles. The incorporation of new alternatives and individual opportunities yielded an open rather than a fundamentally changed system. This may have been the best way for education to meet the major political themes of 20th-century Germany: individual rights as the criterion of policy determination and the European community as the broader context of national development.
The establishment of the Third Republic (1870) brought about the complete renovation of the French schools, in the process of which education became a national enterprise. In 1882 primary education was made compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 13. In 1886 members of the clergy were forbidden to teach in the public schools, and in 1904 the teaching congregations were suppressed. France had thus established a national free, compulsory, and secularized system of elementary schooling. (Although secularization was a necessary government strategy, it was also necessary to permit private Catholic schools, and these continued to enroll a significant number of French children.)
In spite of the attempt to unify education through national purpose and centralized means, two parallel systems existed: that of the public elementary schools and higher primary schools and that of the selective, overwhelmingly intellectual secondary lycées and their preparatory schools. The lycées emphasized Classical studies through the study of Greek and Latin. It was not until 1902 that this exclusive emphasis was challenged by a reform promoting the study of modern languages and science and not until the period between World Wars I and II that education was seen to have a vocational function, other than grossly in a social-class sense, and thus to require democratization.
Children often shared beds with brothers and sisters or parents. During the war, over 200,000 houses were totally destroyed by enemy bombing. Many children had to re-locate several times, often into prefabricated, emergency homes like the one shown in this photograph. In all, 34 million changes of address took place during the war.
6 days ago · Education - Postwar Reforms, Globalization, Technology: On Aug. 14, 1945, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and surrendered unconditionally to the Allied powers. The overriding concern at the general headquarters (GHQ) of the Allied powers was the immediate abolition of militaristic education and ultranationalistic ideology. This was the theme of a directive issued by GHQ to the Japanese ...
This short essay focuses on education within schools and universities during the Second World War in order to explore the relationship between war and learning. In elementary schools, high schools, and universities, the war affected enrolment, the availability of teachers and professors, lessons and curriculum, extracurricular activities, and student culture. It also brought militarized forms ...
The legacy of the Second World War shaped the world we live in today. It caused human suffering and physical destruction on an unprecedented scale. An estimated 60 million people lost their lives. Many towns and cities in parts of Europe and East Asia were all but wiped out, and millions of people were displaced, made homeless and hugely affected by all they had been through. As well as these ...
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Apr 9, 2015 · This Special Issue explores the various ways in which the Second World War shaped children's experiences in the post-war period. It maps the multifaceted interest or non-interest of states all over Europe in children in the years after the war, filters out groups of children who recall that the consequences of the Second World War significantly influenced their childhoods, and investigates the ...
