Frau Dr. Nour warso freundlich, uns ihre Materialien und ihren Beitrag zum Workshop in verschiedenen Dokumenten zu überlassen. Hier alle Dokumente als PDF Datei:

• Vortrag ohne Bilder als normales Dokument (95 KB)
• Votrag als Präsentation (550 KB)
• Flüsse in Afrika (70 KB)
• Seen in Afrika (48 KB)

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50 Jahre Private Kant-Schule – was kann uns das lehren?

Die möglichen Lehren, die ich nach dreijähriger Befassung mit einer Schule, die zu Recht als erfolgreich gesehen wird, und nach über 100 mehrstündigen Gesprächen mit Schulaktivisten auf allen Ebenen, also Schülern, Lehrern, Eltern usw. ziehe, fasse ich in vier Themenblöcken zusammen:

Es gibt ein grundlegendes Bedürfnis der Schüler/Schülerinnen danach, die Schule als ihren Lebensmittelpunkt erfahren zu können. Eben nicht als einen Lernort, in dem sie sich von 8 bis 12 Uhr, oder, im Falle erkrankter Lehrer, vielleicht auch nur bis halb elf aufhalten. Die enorme Wichtigkeit von Schule als Lebensmittelpunkt wurde mir immer wieder bestätigt. Die Private Kant-Schule hat von ihren Anfängen an dieses Prinzip gelebt, Ganztagsschule angeboten und sich damit von staatlichen Offerten unterschieden. Ehemalige Schüler der Kant-Schule haben mir wiederholt erzählt, mit Spaß und Vergnügen gelernt zu haben, nicht selten nach eher frustrierenden Jahren an staatlichen Institutionen. Als Beleg dafür nannten sie sehr Unterschiedliches. Den einen hatte es gefallen, nachmittags auf dem Gelände der Domäne Dahlem Gemüsebete anzulegen, anderen, im Kunstunterricht Bühnenbilder für eine Theateraufführung zu entwerfen, dritte, an Mathematik-Olympiaden teilnehmen zu können usw. usw. Die Lehre daraus könnte sein, dass Schulen nie den Versuch machen sollten, eine homogene Schülerschaft aufzubauen. Schulen werden dann als großartig erlebt, wenn sie vielen viel Verschiedenes offerieren, und dies in hoher Qualität. Denn so und nur so konnten Kinder an den Kant-Schulen eigene Talente entdecken, die andernfalls wohl unentdeckt geblieben wären.

1. Was bedeutet das? Es meint die Aufhebung der Trennung von Schule und außerschulischem Alltag, von innerem (Schul-) und äußerem Raum. Schulen haben den Alltag nach innen, in die Schule herein geholt, aber dies nicht als bloße Spiegelung, sondern pädagogisch vermittelt. Jetzt kommt der nächste und absolut ausschlaggebende Faktor für ein Gelingen des schulischen Auftrags ins Spiel:
2. Die Persönlichkeit des Lehrers, der Lehrerin. Ich stimme völlig überein mit Prof. Alt und Prof. Ittel und auch Niklas Luhmann und würde einen Verzicht oder auch nur eine Verringerung der Lehrerpräsenz als kontraproduktiv ansehen. Aber ich will noch weitergehen. In allen Gesprächen über die Geschichte der Privaten Kant-Schule landeten wir natürlich immer schnell beim Thema Lehrer. Dabei gab es einen roten Faden. Fast ausnahmslos waren die Lehrer und Lehrerinnen, an die sich Schüler noch nach Jahrzehnten erinnerten, die sie als prägend beschrieben, die eine Rolle in ihrem Leben gespielt hatten, solche Menschen, die nicht den kurzen gradlinigen Weg von der Schule über die Universität in die Schule gegangen waren. Fast ausnahmslos alle der Erinnerten hatten sich, manchmal viele Jahre lang, an anderer Stelle bewährt, ehe sie lehrten: als Opernsängerin, als Ingenieur, der jetzt Physik unterrichtete, als Schauspieler und Ballett-Tänzer, der nun qualifiziert Drama unterrichten konnte, ein Junglehrer hatte nach dem Studium erst einmal ein paar Jahre auf dem Bau gearbeitet, eine Fünfzigjährige stieg nach ausgedehnter Mutterschaft wieder ein, eine Tischlermeisterin unterrichtete jetzt Arbeitslehre. An den Kant-Schulen fand sich ein breites Spektrum an Persönlichkeiten mit ganz unterschiedlichen Ausbildungen und Fähigkeiten als Lehrende ein. Als Fazit daraus scheint es mir ganz zentral, Quereinsteiger als Lehrende zuzulassen. Sie sind eine enorme Bereicherung jeder Schule.
3. Warum aber sollten Menschen mit Neigungen und Interessen und Fähigkeiten, die ihnen ein außerschulisches Berufsleben ermöglichen, nun Lehrer werden wollen? Doch nur dann, wenn ihnen eine Schule Raum bietet für Projekte, Unternehmungen, Aktivitäten, die wahrscheinlich nicht in den Schul-Rahmenplänen verankert sind. Warum blieben Lehrer über Jahrzehnte an der Privaten Kant-Schule, die, wie alle Schulen in privater Trägerschaft, nicht verbeamten kann und damit nicht die viel gepriesene Arbeitsplatzsicherheit bieten konnte? Im Gegenteil, für den Erhalt ihrer Arbeitsplätze an Schulen in privater Trägerschaft mussten und müssen Lehrende selber Sorge tragen, indem sie Schule so attraktiv machen, dass Eltern bereit sind, Schulgeld zu zahlen. Lehrer können das hervorragend, wir wissen, dass Schulen in privater Trägerschaft sich nun auch in Deutschland steigender Nachfrage erfreuen. Dazu aber benötigen Lehrer Räume, Freiräume. Mir sind hunderte Beispiele außergewöhnlicher Unterrichtsgestaltung erzählt worden, unternommen von Lehrern, die Profis in ihren – außerschulischen – Berufen waren. Ich ziehe daraus den Schluss, dass die Autonomie der Schule, in materieller, organisatorischer und kognitiver Hinsicht, stark und möglichst umgehend, morgen und nicht erst in 50 Jahren, zunehmen muss.

Zusammenfassend scheinen mir die wesentlichen Faktoren einer erfolgreichen Schule in der Zukunft in dem zu liegen, was die Kant-Schule schon seit langem praktiziert: Die Schule zu einem pädagogisch verarbeiteten Lebensmittelpunkt mit vielfältigen Angeboten zu machen, die die Vielfalt der Schülerschaft und auch der Elternschaft bedenkt, ausgeführt von Lehrern, die Lebenspraxis einbringen, in großer Unabhängigkeit von nur konventionellen Modellen.

Dr. Marlene Müller-Rytlewski

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Thesen zur Podiumsdiskussion am 19.03.2010 zum Thema

“Zukunft der Schule – Schule der Zukunft”

Wissen und Wissensverfügung

In der Geschichte des Wissens ist eine Entwicklung vorherrschend, die auf eine Vermehrung von verfügbaren Wissensbeständen zuläuft. Während für Antike, Mittelalter und Frühe Neuzeit überschaubare Wissensbestände vorhanden waren, die zusätzlich durch Steuerungselemente wie Traditionsbildung, Topik und Autoritäten (oftmals im Kontext theologischer Normierungen) hierarchisiert und verknappt wurden, wächst seit dem Zeitalter der Säkularisierung (Aufklärung, Rationalismus) die Menge des Wissens stetig an. Im Zeitalter digitaler Wissensorganisation ist Wissen anders zu definieren als früher; nicht mehr der Zugriff auf Wissensressourcen, die durch das Internet in unüberschaubarer Vielfalt bereitgestellt werden, ist problematisch, sondern die Möglichkeit der Gliederung. Schulische Aufgaben liegen künftig in diesem Bereich: Es geht um Instrumente der Ordnungsstiftung, die es Schülerinnen und Schülern erlauben, in der Flut des weltweit digital zugänglich gemachten Wissens Orientierung zu schaffen, Abgrenzungen vorzunehmen und Hierarchien herzustellen. Die Schule der Gegenwart überlässt allzu häufig den Schülern die Entscheidung darüber, was sie selbst für wesentlich halten. Wenn im Zeichen der Digitalisierung Traditionsbildung, Kanon und Autorität innerhalb von Wissensordnungen eine geringere Rolle spielen, muss die Schule (ebenso wie die Universität) Angebote für Ordnungsleistungen unterbreiten.

Originalität und Bildung

Wenn Wissensverfügbarkeit zunächst durch Informationsflüsse hergestellt wird, ist der Begriff der Bildung notwendig anders als früher zu definieren. Nicht mehr der Zugang zum Wissen ist aufgegeben, sondern die selbständige Sicherung des Gewussten. Urteilsbildung und Reflexion über Informationen, die jedem zugänglich sind, kennzeichnen das, was Bildung ausmacht. In diesem Sinne sind Kompetenzen vor allem in der Fertigkeit zur Auswahl und zur begründeten Entscheidung verankert. Es versteht sich, dass in einer Zeit, die Quellen nicht mehr verifiziert oder falsifiziert, Autorisierung anders läuft als noch in der Frühen Neuzeit. Autorisierung bedeutet nicht Rekurs auf die durch die antiken Philosophen, die Kirchenväter oder die scholastische Philosophie gesicherten Wahrheitsannahmen, sondern muss durch Vergleich erarbeitet werden. Das ist schwierig, denn in Vielzahl von Informationen, die im Internet bereitstehen, ist Orientierung erschwert, zumal diese Vielzahl gerade durch den Verzicht auf Autorisierung gekennzeichnet ist; man könnte hier förmlich von einem Hierarchieverbot des Internetwissens sprechen (dem analog die Abkehr vom Copyright, dem seit 300 Jahren geltenden Urheberrecht stattgefunden hat). Wo Originalität und Wahrheit als Leitkategorien ausfallen, muss jedoch nicht folgerichtig Beliebigkeit zum Prinzip schulischen Unterrichts werden. Vielmehr sollte ein künftiges Schulsystem den Anspruch erheben, Normen zu schaffen und zu verfolgen, die der reinen Quantität des Wissens entgegenzusetzen wären.

Kommunikative Kompetenz

Das deutsche Schulsystem ist seit 30 Jahren dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass es, stärker als in anderen europäischen Ländern üblich, auf die Ausbildung der kommunikativen Fertigkeit der Schüler setzt. In dem Maße, in dem die körperliche Anwesenheit des Lehrenden durch Omnipräsenz von Medien und Unterricht auf der Basis von Teilhabe an medial vermittelten Unterrichtseinheiten möglich werden kann, verliert dieses Moment an Bedeutung. Nicht mehr das Charisma des Lehrenden, sondern die Teilhabe an medial vermittelten Angeboten könnte für die zukünftige Schule relevant werden – so, wie es auch weltweit im Universitätssystem bereits sich zu entwickeln beginnt, dass Lehre über elektronische Medien stattfindet. Hier sollte gegengesteuert werden, denn die Qualität schulischer und akademischer Lehre hängt wesentlich ab von der Präsenz des Lehrenden. Wenn Bildung mehr ist als nur Wissensanhäufung und mit persönlicher Prägung, Begeisterung, ja Leidenschaft des Lehrens und Lernens zu tun hat, liegt ein Auftrag der zukünftigen Schule darin, Möglichkeiten des bisherigen Unterrichts zu erhalten und auszubauen. Verzicht auf die körperliche Präsenz des Lehrenden, der mit Niklas Luhmann zu sprechen eine Kommunikation unter Abwesenden erzeugt, ist nicht sinnvoll.

(Prof. Dr. Peter-André Alt)

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Andy Hargreaves

Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education

Boston College

KANT 2059, URANIA, March 19, 2010, Berlin

Foreseeable or unforeseeable future developments in education:  “School of the future”

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions.

Won’t be nothing,

nothing you can’t measure anymore.

The blizzard, the blizzard of the world

has crossed the threshold

and it has overturned

the order of the soul.

Leonard Cohen: The Future

Four Change Imperatives

Ten years ago, generational researchers William Strauss and Neil Howe (1997) anticipated a great disruption when our world would take a great Turning. After three earlier turnings that defined a time of prosperity, optimism, security, pragmatism and social conservatism in the 1950s; a period of cultural and spiritual awakening in the 1960s and 70s; and an era of individualism, self-centeredness and general unraveling in the 80s and 90s; Strauss and Howe predicted a Fourth Turning which, they claimed, would be as dramatic as the last Fourth Turning in the Great Depression of the 1930s. This turning, they argue, brings economic collapse and financial ruin, insecurity and conflict, and a shaking of society to its very foundations, with the emergence on the other side of structures, cultures and politics, as well as value and belief systems that are profoundly different. At the Fourth Turning, people can start to turn outward again, beyond themselves, in search of the spirituality, sustenance and support that can connect them once more to their fellow women and men. But this is not guaranteed.

Although the Fourth Turning is borne of crisis, it beckons with the prospect of great transformations and opportunities. Yet it does not show what these are. This is a defining moment for us all. In the Fourth Turning, we face three immense challenges and one ambiguous opportunity of worldwide and earth-shattering proportions:

• the aftermath of global economic collapse,
• the spread of excessive affluence that has reduced the quality of most people’s lives.
• the imminent impact of climate change that threatens the very survival of our species.
• the generational renewal of the workforce heralding a new generation that will soon assume the leadership of the future.

First, as international financial guru Mohammed El-Elrian (2008) argues, in the midst of a great global disruption when economies are collapsing, it is a time in economic and educational life either to pare down our budgets, reduce our ambitions, and turn in on ourselves or to embark on a new course that can lead us towards a better place, a new high point of innovation, creativity and prosperity. Education is an essential part of this better economic path. So are 21^st Century skills of the kind being advanced by OECD and in developed countries.

Second, beyond a minimum level of comfort and adequacy, increased wealth and affluence do not lead to an improved quality of life. In The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better, Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) bring together compelling data accumulated by a range of international organizations that show disturbing inverse relationships between economic and consumer affluence on the one hand and quality of life on the other. Beyond a basic level that removes people from poverty, they show, affluence combined with high economic inequality does not improve people’s quality of life, and often actually worsens it.

Among the most unequal societies are the United States, Portugal and Singapore, though economic inequality also tends to be high in many of the Anglo-American nations. The UK and US, for example, rank last and next-to-last respectively on UNICEF’s (2007) international comparisons of 40 indicators of child wellbeing. The US has far higher rates of obesity than the more equal Scandinavian countries (so you can’t blame the cold winters!), and within the US, more children are overweight in the more unequal states. Rates of more violent crime and of incarceration for any given crime are greater in more unequal countries like the UK and US, than in more equal societies like the Netherlands, and again, in the US, inter-state variations follow the trends on inequality with Louisiana, for example, imprisoning people at more than six times the rate of Minnesota (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009: 149). Very similar patterns are evident in incidences of unhappiness, depression, anxiety, teenage births, and also lack of community life. As inequalities have increased since the early 1980s, so have deteriorations in the quality of life. Affluent and unequal societies pull people apart and away from their communities in relationships of diminishing trust, whereas more equal societies tend to draw people together in support of each other.

These problems have profound implications for educational achievement. Looking at international comparisons on the highly influential PISA tests (Programme for International Students Assessment), Wilkinson & Pickett find that “more unequal countries…have worse educational attainment” (p105). They also discover that “more children drop out of high school in more unequal US states” (p107). They reach the inexorable though politically unpopular conclusion that schools cannot turn everything around by themselves. “If…a country wants higher average levels of educational achievement…it must address the underlying inequality which creates a steeper social gradient in educational underachievement”  (p30).

In Collateral Damage, Nichols and Berliner (2007), show how white US students from the dominant culture perform just as well as dominant cultural groups overseas. It is poor and minority students who perform as dismally as international peers in under-developed nations. The reasons, they also show, have to do with poverty – with children from poor families lacking effective prenatal care, screening for health and sight problems, adequate and nutritious diet, or protection from lead poisoning and from toxic waste dumped in close proximity to lower class communities. Poor children also tend to be surrounded by other children and families who have multiple problems arising from lack of local services, poor transportation, residential segregation, absence of available employment, and so forth.

For Oliver James (2008), it comes down, in the end, to the kind of capitalism you want. Also drawing on international data from the World Health Organization and similar bodies, he argues that the Anglo-American group of nations has, over the past quarter century, developed a model of what he calls Selfish Capitalism characterized by increasing individualism, consumerism, materialism, inflated self-esteem and narcissism (Twenge & Campbell, 2009). Elsewhere, he defines this as Affluenza! (James 2007). This has created heightened and increasing emotional and mental distress. For instance, the USA and New Zealand have double the rates of distress of Japan and mainland Western European nations – France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Germany and Italy (p41). This second set of countries practices what James calls Unselfish Capitalism in which social justice and quality of life are accorded as much importance as economic growth.  This does not mean giving up economic goals for social ones. Indeed, socially responsible Finland is arguably the most successful capitalist society of all – ranking Number 1 in the world on economic competitiveness according to the International Monetary Fund. But educational reform in the 21^st Century must clearly not be driven by business ends and business values alone. It must attend to issues of social responsibility and social justice as well. There is a danger that in uncritically adopting Anglo-American models of educational reform, European schools and economies may promote prosperity and economic development at the cost of other vital social goals and outcomes.

The third challenge is an ecological one. In her brilliantly tragic novel, The Stone Gods, Jeanette Winterson (2008) portrays end-of-the-world scenarios from Easter Island to the near future, as cataclysmic events that are repeated time and again.  All of these societies and ecologies are destroyed when prosperity turns into complacency, greed and conflict that despoils the environment on which the prosperity itself was founded. In his discussion of the challenge of climate change, Anthony Giddens, former Director of the London School of Economics, describes this phenomenon as over-development where “affluence itself produces a range of…profound social problems” (Giddens 2009, p72). As long ago as 1972, the Club of Rome controversially foresaw the time when there would have to be limits to growth because civilization would exhaust the resources on which its continued development depends (Meadows et al 1972). More recently, environmentalists like Bill McKibben (2003) have urged us to acknowledge when we have achieved or acquired “enough” information, choices, work, possessions or growth. The insatiable demand for never-ending increases in student achievement scores, everywhere, could be added to his list.

With former Vice-President Al Gore (2006), Giddens (2009) has brought these ideas into the mainstream. While development should be allowed and even encouraged for less developed countries so they can catch up, he argues, it is time for the affluent nations to cut back.  Greenhouse gas emissions are reaching a tipping point of irreversibly disastrous consequences for the planet and our species. Many traditional energy resources are running out fast. By contrast, prudent and sustainable living can actually enhance quality of life. This ecological moment, he advises us, should not just be a negative one of sacrifice. It should also create better lifestyles and new economic opportunities. The challenge of climate change is therefore an economic and social challenge as well as a strictly ecological one.

The much-used phrase of the 1987 Brundtland Commission of sustainable development or growth is clearly no longer achievable or desirable in the developed nations. It is a contradiction in terms. Sustainable living must now be the goal instead. The challenge is so massive that education for sustainable living (not sustainable development) is an indispensable imperative for 21^st Century learning and change. It is a matter of life and death.

Finally, the early years of the 21^st Century also hold out an immense but ambiguous opportunity. As the Baby Boom generation retires and moves on from teaching and other leadership positions in society (OECD 2005), it will be replaced by the more direct and demanding generational successors of Generation X and even more of Generation Y – sometimes called the Millennial Generation (Howe and Strauss 2000). This generation, now entering its early 30s, is a generation that is already introducing ideas and incorporating technologies that are closer to the cultures of today’s children and youth. When this generation moves into leadership in great numbers towards the end of this next decade, it will bring approaches to life and leadership that are swift, assertive, direct, team-based, task-centered and technologically savvy. At last, almost effortlessly, this will herald in many of the classroom and organizational transformations that have been advocated, dreamed about and merely experimented with for decades. But will these transformations be deep, critical and sustainable – bringing communities together to solve common problems in the public interest? Or, will their activities be technologically slick and superficial in a self-centered world of iphones and MySpace? Will social networking sites strengthen communities or, as Pope Benedict has worried aloud, will they destroy the more substantial ties that bind us together? When families get up for breakfast and all go online on their separate laptops, rather than eating and conversing together, something significant in intimate human relationships has been lost (NY Times 2009). Responding to these issues is a generational challenge of 21^st Century learning and leadership.

There are, then, four imperatives of change in leadership and learning for the 21^st Century:

• the economic imperative of developing 21st Century skills for an innovative and creative economy;
• the social justice imperative of developing better lives for all in a world that reduces inequalities;
• the ecological imperative of education for sustainable living;
• the generational imperative of developing dynamic and responsible leaders for the future who can properly address the other three imperatives.

Before examining how these are being and can be addressed in educational and social reform today, it is important, first of all, to get some sense of reform directions, and their strengths and limitations, in the past. This provides insight into the relative value of different reform approaches for the change imperatives of the present, and into why a new way needs to supplant them.

Two Old Ways of Change: Venus and Mars

A few years ago, with Ivor Goodson, Dean Fink and a group of other colleagues, I undertook a major study of educational change over time, from the 1970s to the beginning of the 21^st Century (Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). Collecting data from almost 300 interviews with teachers and leaders who had worked at different time periods in eight Canadian and US secondary school – half of them innovative, the other half traditional – we discovered that these very different schools went through remarkably similar periods of change defined by clear shifts at similar points, from one period to another. These periods had some overlap with the periods of social and economic reform defined by Giddens (1999), as part of his thinking and writing on the Third Way of social change that was adopted and advanced by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Gerhard Schroeder. They also overlap with but do not numerically repeat Strauss and Howe’s four turnings – partly because the historical starting points are different.

This work, and contemporary research on educational reform that I have continued with my colleague Dennis Shirley and others, points to four stages or Ways of change in many of the developed countries (Hargreaves & Shirley 2009a). For metaphorical and pedagogical purposes, I liken these ways here to the mythical properties commonly attributed to the four planets of the inner solar system: Venus, Mars, Mercury and Earth. First, I begin with the two past ways of Venus and Mars, highlighted by our work on Change Over Time.

This Way of Venus has been described by Giddens, as the First Way of social reform (Giddens 1999). Its presence was very evident in the schools of the Change Over Time study. In the First Way, the welfare state defined the status quo from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s. Economist John Maynard Keynes and his followers presented investment in state services and welfare safety nets not just as a social good but also as a benefit for the economy as it developed the pools of talent that would fuel future prosperity.

In the United States, First Way thinking came to full fruition during the Johnsonian Great Society and through federal programs such as Operation Head Start for early childhood education. There was enormous confidence in the state’s ability to solve social problems, fueled by a booming economy and spurred by the rising Baby Boomer population.

In the latter years of this age, these structural changes brought forth a cultural revolution. Social movements such as women’s liberation, civil rights and anti-war protests provided avenues for historically marginalized groups to push their freedoms. This rebellious and creative spirit of the times entered public schools, albeit unevenly, in the form of experimentation, innovation, and child-centered or progressive teaching in elementary schools especially. Teachers and other state professionals had great autonomy in the First Way. They enjoyed high levels of passive trust from an increasingly prosperous public and were left alone to get on with the job.

Teachers in the Change Over Time study who had entered education during this First Way expressed immense nostalgia for the schools of the 1960s and early 1970s (Goodson, Moore & Hargreaves, 2006).  But there were two diametrically opposed nostalgias, not one. Teachers in more innovative schools were nostalgic for the freedom to develop curricula to meet the varying needs of their students as part of a mission to change the world and felt that the modern reform environment of high-stakes testing and curriculum prescription had stolen the mission, passion and creativity from their teaching.

Teachers in more traditional schools were also nostalgic for their lost professional autonomy, but to teach academic subjects just as they chose. They remembered schools as being smaller, where unmotivated students left early for employment and the rest “wanted to learn”.

The First Way of Venus therefore suffered from huge variations in focus and quality. For every teacher who understood and brilliantly enacted the deep principles of curriculum integration and group learning that engaged the whole child and his/her interests, many later converts to the cause implemented them superficially or badly, and more than a few high school teachers had no interest in them at all. Teaching was improved largely intuitively and individually, through improvisation, on-the-job.

Teachers in the Change Over Time study remembered their principals as larger than life characters who left their stamp on the school, but this was no always in a good way (Fink & Brayman 2006). The kind of school that teachers taught in therefore depended on this lottery of leadership within an unregulated profession of little and only local accountability.  The First Way brought some innovation but also a lot of inconsistency.

The theories of change-in-action during this First Way could start innovation and spread it among a few enthusiasts (Gross et al 1971; Smith & Keith 1971). However, there was no leadership development or professional development to create widespread diffusion (Havelock & Havelock 1973; Havelock & Zlotolow, 1995) or consistency of impact or effort.

The Way of Venus was one of optimistic change driven by passion, idealism and good will. But good intentions were not possessed by everyone or not in the same way and so there was little success in spreading change around. Love was not enough.

After an intermediary period running into the 1980s, a Second Way followed of markets and standardization. With rising oil prices, long gas lines and economic recession, coupled with a labor force in teaching that was now maturing and becoming more expensive, politicians, business-people and the public began to question whether the state was still the answer. Driven by Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, many Anglo-American nations placed schools in competitive systems of market choice for students and their parents. The currency of this market was more-and-more detailed standards, linked to high stakes tests that were widely publicized in league tables of performance and often combined with weakened levels of resourcing, as well as impossibly accelerated timelines for implementation. This political strategy of educational change was subsequently also adopted within the bipartisan, federal No Child Left Behind legislation in the US.

Some benefits of this Mars-like way of force, competition and conflict were evident in the emergence of clearer focus, greater consistency, and attention to all students with a stronger sense of urgency. But the negative effects were considerable. Achievement gains often occurred for a year or two, but then soon reached a plateau. Parents had more choice, but it was the affluent ones who knew how to work the system to advance their interests and protect their privileges. The passive trust of the First Way was replaced by the active mistrust between teachers and the public in the Second. Standards raised the bar but shortfalls of professional support did not help children reach it. The costs to the quality, depth and breadth of children’s learning, to increased dropout and reduced innovation, as well as to the caliber of teachers and leaders the profession could recruit and retain were considerable (Nichols & Berliner 2007; Oakes & Lipton 2002; Hargreaves 2003: New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce 2007).

The comments of teachers in the Change Over Time study on the heyday of this Second Way captured the profession’s feelings of fear, frustration and lost effectiveness. In US schools, teachers bemoaned the “taking away of professional judgment and autonomy.” “There just seems to be so much focus on meeting the standards set from the outside that I don’t think we get to spend as much time thinking about what we’re going to be doing in the classroom and enjoying it,” one said. Though some teachers were “still excited about teaching,” they confessed that they couldn’t  “deal with the system…and (were) tired of fighting it.” (Hargreaves 2003). Professional judgment was being replaced by compliance with or, as it has sometimes euphemistically been called, fidelity to prescribed methods. The Second Way of Mars precipitated a crisis of sinking professional motivation and lost classroom creativity. As one of the Canadian teachers said in the Change Over Time study, “the creativity is gone!”

Early in 2007, the US National Center for Education and the Economy released a report by its New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (2007) that launched a blistering critique of the inability of the nation’s underperforming and inflexible public education system to meet the opportunities and seize the challenges of the contemporary global economy.

The Commission pointed to America’s declining educational performance compared to other advanced industrial nations.  The reasons for the decline, the Commission argued, were rooted in the relatively poor quality of the nation’s teaching force, and in a system that had become skewed by the excesses of narrowly tested standardization that was ill-equipped to produce the creativity and innovation necessary for a high-skill, high-wage workforce in a rapidly changing global economy.

In the Second Way, leadership renewal also became problematic because the leadership itself was seen as increasingly overloaded, unattractive and excessively exposed in the context of punitive accountability (Fink & Brayman 2006, Cusick 2002). Leadership had turned into line management.  Teachers in the Change Over Time study remembered their leaders now as managers who had forgotten how to lead. They saw their principals rotating in and out of their schools with increasing frequency and having more attachment to implementing the priorities of their district or advancing their own careers than being loyal to or serving the needs of their own schools.

A new Way was needed in society and also in education to restore professional energy and teacher quality, and develop the higher levels of creative learning and skill development essential for competitive economies and cohesive societies. This would become the Third Way of social and educational change: one in which the discourse of 21^st Century skills would quickly gain prominence.

The Third Way of Mercury

The 21^st Century skills agenda has its origins stretching back more than thirty years. As long ago as 1976, Daniel Bell invented the term knowledge society to describe a post-industrial world beyond large-scale factory production that would require an educated workforce capable of working in services, ideas and communication. By the early 1990s, management guru Peter Drucker (1993) was anticipating a post-capitalist society where the basic economic resource of society would no longer be capital or labor but knowledge, and where the leading groups of this society would be “knowledge workers”. In education, Phillip Schelchty (1990) was among the first to proclaim that the business of public education should shift to developing knowledge workers who would perform knowledge work. Meanwhile, former US Secretary of Labour, Robert Reich (2001) argued that in a world of spiralling consumer choice, competitive companies needed the skills that could advance speed, novelty, cleverness, creation, invention, communication and empathy with customer desires. Those who possessed these skills were what Reich called symbolic analysts. The direction of public education, he argued, needed to move towards producing more of these people.

In the early years of the 21^st Century, as the Martian way of standardization, memorisable content and tested basics was ironically entrenching itself more and more deeply into many public education systems, leading international organizations like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) began to take up the knowledge economy cause. Their report on Knowledge Management in the Learning Society (OECD 2000) linked knowledge management to the challenges created by acceleration of change, which, they argued elsewhere, raised “profound questions for the knowledge students are being equipped with and ought to be equipped with” in the schools of tomorrow (OECD 2001, p29). A world of fast capitalism characterized by just-in-time production and instant, widespread global communication (Harvey 1989), required people with individual and collective ingenuity who could innovate and solve unanticipated problems swiftly and efficiently together (Homer-Dixon 2000).

By 2003, I had discovered the pervasive negative effects of excessive competition and standardization in US and Canadian schools, and was comparing these to a vision of knowledge society schools that gave priority to

• deep cognitive learning, creativity and ingenuity among students;
• research, inquiry, working in networks and teams and pursuing continuous professional learning as teachers; and
• problem-solving, risk-taking, trust in fellow professionals, ability to cope with change and commitment to continuous improvement as organizations.

Teaching for the knowledge society, in other words, would promote creativity, flexibility, problem-solving, ingenuity, collective (shared) intelligence, professional trust, risk-taking and continuous improvement.

Critiquing the excessive emphasis on tested basics that has placed the US at a disadvantage compared to more innovative competitors, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce (2007: pp. xviii) argues that America should have “a deep vein of creativity that is constantly renewing itself.” This requires  “much more than a conventionally and unimaginatively tested curriculum focusing on basic skills and factual memorization”. Instead, as well as strong skills in literacy and mathematics and core subjects, 21^st Century students must be comfortable with ideas and abstractions, good at both analysis and synthesis, creative and innovative, self-disciplined and well-organized, able to learn very quickly and work well as a member of a team and have the flexibility to adapt quickly to frequent changes in the labour market (p xviii – xix).

Harvard professor, Tony Wagner (2008), argues that there is a global achievement gap between the US and more innovative competitors and identifies seven essential skills for adolescents and the modern economy that are reminiscent of the knowledge economy skills listed before: critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration and leadership across networks; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurialism, effective communication; accessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination. Yong Zhao (2009) points out that many Asian competitors are already moving far faster in these directions than the US.

The strategically influential Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (2009) amplifies many of these preceding emphases in listing the essential skills that should be infused throughout the 21^st curriculum – creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem-solving; communication and collaboration; information, media and technological literacy; flexibility and adaptability; initiative and self direction; social and cross-cultural skills; productivity and accountability; and leadership and responsibility.

In some respects, 21^st Century skills are a sort of Third Way of educational reform – neither child-centred and permissive, nor basic and standardized. Instead they are like the winged messenger of Mercury – characterized by speed and communication in the pursuit of profit, trade and commerce. This Mercury-like Way promotes economically useful cross-curricular skills in learning; new patterns of professionalism as well as professional interaction and networking among teachers: and more rapid and flexible ways of managing change in organizations.

This Way of Mercury directly addresses three of the four 21^st Century imperatives outlined at the beginning of the chapter. Its capacity to develop the skills and processes that accelerate innovation and knowledge circulation are vital for regenerating a floundering economy. This culture of innovation and ingenuity may equally be indispensible in dealing with the environmental challenges of climate change. Engaging with the digital and attitudinal realities of 21^st Century learners also creates harmony rather than discord between the educational system on the one hand and the students along with their younger teachers who have been born digital on the other. Economically, environmentally and demographically, the 21^st Century skills agenda and its implications seem to make a good deal of sense – but not completely!!

The 21^st Century skills agenda and the version of a Third Way of change it represents falls short in four respects.

• It overstates the advanced nature of the skills required in the new economy;
• It does not address the missing imperative of social justice and increased equality;
• It corrupts and compromises 21st Century ideals by clinging on to time-pressured performance goals related to standardized testing;
• Its addiction to speed leads to uncritical superficiality and mercurial unpredictability.

First, not all or even most of the work skills of the 21^st Century are 21^st Century skills. Matthew Crawford (2009) argues that many members of today’s middle class are not dealing at work with complex problems using judgment and discretion together. Instead, a great deal of white-collar work has been reduced to standardized operations. This is routine cubicle work, not advanced knowledge work. If you doubt this, observe how customer service agents respond to complex problems or surprising information when you are applying for a bank loan, hiring a car, asking for an airline seat change or trying to explain to someone in the overseas call-center that you have already tried all the standard and scripted responses to your software difficulties, that they are now reciting! Phillip Brown and Hugh Lauder (2001) have uncomfortably pointed out that not all new so-called knowledge economies are actually high-skill, high-wage economies like Finland.

What kinds of education do so-called knowledge workers or cubicle workers actually need? Prepare them to think critically and deal with complexity in this unchallenging world of work and we may merely be sowing the seeds of white-collar dissatisfaction and disaffection. It’s not just the people and their skills that need to change in the 21^st Century economy. The meaning of work has to be transformed as well.

Second, the 21^st Century skills agenda omits the knowledge, skills and qualities that are beyond the world of business and sometimes directly opposed to it.  Where, in the 21^st Century skills agenda can we be sure that schools will develop future leaders who will practice corporate integrity? How can we be sure that our teachers will teach that torture is always wrong, even in the name of democracy?

Attending to diversity sounds fine as a 21^st Century skill, but it can mean little more than learning to get along better with a range of others in the workplace. How can we be sure that this skill will also include the necessity of understanding that not only do Israel and Palestine, Hutus and Tutsis, or Hindus and Muslims have a right to exist, but that they must learn to live together? Bland statements of skills can let too many of us off the ethical hook.

And where in this list, is there any attention to ecological and organizational sustainability – to being prudent and thrifty in our lifestyles, buying smaller rather than bigger homes and vehicles, repairing rather than discarding broken items, sharing resources with our neighbours instead of guzzling greedily alone, avoiding working our people to death, refraining from exporting our pollution-producing factories to developing countries as a dubious method of meeting domestic environmental targets, having students participate in local and global projects of environmental renewal and so on (Senge forthcoming)? How, in this list of skills, can we be sure we will fight for sustainability, agitate for the eradication of poverty, and increase our common commitment to quality of life and social equality? None of these things are, of course, explicitly prohibited. Any of them are possible. But unsustainability is not and cannot afford to be an option!

As I argued in Teaching In The Knowledge Society, how do we teach beyond the knowledge economy as well as for it (Hargreaves 2003)? In 1996, the leadership of the US Democratic Party signed a new declaration which argued for a political approach that could engage with a globalized economy, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the big institutions of industry and the state that used to coordinate and control people’s lives. The New Democrats surrounding Bill Clinton referred to their approach as the Third Way.

Though Americans did not succeed in pushing the Third Way agenda ahead, and arguably sank right back into the Second under No Child Left Behind, Britain’s New Labour government successfully broadened its base beyond the old working class and the unions. It sought to govern between and beyond the state and the market (Blair and Schroeder 1999; Giddens 1999). The Third Way emphasized responsibilities as well as rights, being tough on crime as well as the causes of it, maintaining social cohesion while stimulating a dynamic economy, and providing stronger support for state professionals at the same time as demanding more accountability from them.  The Third Way was about developing the economy, but not only that. It was also about renewing the community and the social fabric of society. In the end, though, this larger Third Way went awry – and the third and fourth shortcomings of the 21^st Century skills agenda illustrate why.

Third, the Third Way in social policy and in education was undermined by persistence with and amplification of too many negative aspects of the Second Way. In public education, a widely adopted Third Way solution beyond the permissive innovation of the 70s and the stringent standardization of the 90s, was a re-branded version of large-scale reform which has been even tighter in its imposition of ends, yet considerably more flexible in its orchestration of means (Elmore & Burney 1997; Barber 2007; Hopkins 2007; Fullan 2006; Levin 2008; McKinsey 2007).

In this rebranded reform model, government establishes a small number of specific goals, such as system-wide literacy and mathematics targets and provides greater oversight in their prescription and pacing. Test score data are the focus of professional learning communities of inquiry in schools and districts that identify gaps and inconsistencies and design swift interventions accordingly. Collegial coaching and leadership supervision through “walk-throughs”, “instructional rounds” and other methods, provide technical support to teachers while also ensuring they comply with or demonstrate “fidelity” to the reforms. League tables and school comparisons printed in newspapers and digital media inform the public about student achievement results and parents in underperforming schools are given opportunities to transfer their children to others with better results.  Educators are encouraged to build lateral learning networks to generate professional motivation and drive change and the public has access to information about teacher quality and student achievement levels.  The government sponsors semi-private alternatives such as charter schools or supplementary programs for students who had been in struggling schools. Politically imposed timelines for improvement are linked to short-term election cycles, and the failure of schools to meet these leads to escalating amounts of intervention, so that, in general, intervention is inversely related to success.

Advocates of this reform model claim increased standards in measurable improvement, narrowed achievement gaps, enhanced professional quality and motivation, system-wide impact and increased confidence in public education and the capacity of political leaders to manage it. Critics are more circumspect (see Hartley 2007; Chapman & Gunter 2009; Hargreaves & Shirley 2009a). The continuing overemphasis on tested and targeted basics marginalizes attention to arts, social studies, innovation, and creativity that are essential for competitive success in 21^st Century knowledge economies. There is also an inverse relationship between narrowly tested achievement and the development of the whole child and its overall wellbeing (UNICEF 2007; Honore 2008; BBC 2009). The persistence of Second Way standardization in order to appease short-term political contingencies, both limits the economically-relevant skills that schools can develop, and ignores all those socially beneficial outcomes that exist beyond the economy. This is double jeopardy. Indeed, the 21^st Century skills agenda proposes to infuse new skills into what can easily remain an unchanged curriculum..

This raises the fourth issue: speed. In 2005, Dennis Shirley and I inquired into and reported on a large school improvement network that had been established as a response to the plateau that England’s achievement results had reached under its LSR 2.0 strategy. Raising Achievement Transforming Learning (RATL) comprised over 300 secondary schools that had experienced a dip in student achievement scores over one or two years. Its approach was to promote improvement by schools, with schools and for schools in peer-driven networks of lateral pressure and support, where participating schools were connected with each other and with self-chosen mentor schools, and invited to conferences that supplied them with inspiration, technical support in analyzing achievement data, as well as a menu of short, medium and long term strategies for improving teaching and learning and also achievement results. The network’s architecture emphasized transparency of participation as well as of results, and most of its momentum and cohesion was basically lateral, rather than top-down in nature (Hargreaves et al 2006).

The network was astonishingly innovative and, in conventional outcome terms, also highly successful. Two thirds of the schools improved at double the rate of the national secondary school average in just two years. Pushing beyond and against the surrounding context of England’s Third Way, RATL elicited immense enthusiasm from educators. They were grateful for assistance in converting mountains of data into practical knowledge that could be acted upon to improve student achievement, and they were appreciative of the concrete strategies they had gathered through conferences, visits with mentor schools, and ideas exchanged on the on-line web portal. Here was a change network that recognized how, with a little external organization and support, energized educators could find and apply solutions in their own settings that produced demonstrable success!

Yet RATL still had to accommodate to the pressing accountability processes of Third Way England with their relentless and politically-driven pressure for ever-increasing and publicly displayed scores in examination results and standardized achievement tests. The consequence was what we call addictive presentism.

Teachers’ effervescent interactions amounted to a kind of hyperactive professionalism where they hurriedly and excitedly rushed around swapping successful short-term strategies with their mentors and each other in order to deliver the government’s narrowly defined targets and purposes. The vast majority of strategies that teachers adopted were simple and short term, or “gimmicky and great” ones such as paying former students to mentor existing ones, having examiners share their grading schemes with students, establishing ways for students to access study strategies online from peers in other schools, and supplying bananas and water to hydrate the brain and raise potassium levels on test days. At conferences, school leaders engaged in professional speed-dating activities, where they rotated in brief interactions of two or so minutes, swapped a successful strategy and then exchanged business cards as they left (Hargreaves & Shirley 2009b).

What was missing was a process where educators could also develop and realize inspiring purposes of their own, or engage in deeper professional conversations about transforming teaching and learning.  Schools become addictive organizations, on successions of obsessive yet evanescent highs concerned with meeting targets, raising performance standards, identifying microscopic achievement gaps and adjusting strategies right down to continuous, just-in-time interventions and miniscule managements of progress with every individual child.

The ironic result of all this is a new conservatism where collaborative interactions are pleasurable, but also hurried, technical, uncritical and narrow. Preoccupation with data-driven improvement distracts teachers from deeper engagements with teaching and learning. An overwhelmingly short-term orientation leads to opportunistic strategies to improve results that secure only temporary success.

In the Way of Mercury, the age of instant information conspires with the political pressures of short-term election cycles to create a mercurial system of superficiality and unpredictability. It is not surprising that some of the strongest and most forward-looking educational systems in the world like Singapore, Alberta and Finland have, for different reasons, high degrees of political stability.

We need an educational reform and leadership strategy that attends to the long term as well as the short term. This strategy must recognize that many business environments require not just speed and agility, but also the carefully honed craft skills of cooking, carpentry or even software development that take 10,000 hours or more of practice and persistence to hone to an expert level (Sennett 2008, Gladwell 2008).  It must also recognize that children and adults should not be obsessively overscheduled; endlessly inundated by the truncated and accelerated interactions of email, texting and twitter; or digitally immersed in the seductions of cyberspace at the cost of enjoying the outdoor challenges and renewing fulfillments of natural space (Honore 2008).

The Third Way of Mercury is driven by a fast world of rapid learning where personalization of learning is actually consumer-like customization of how learning is accessed (quicker, slower; online, offline; in school, at home) rather than a way of connecting learning to personal interests, family and cultural knowledge and future life projects. It is a world of fleeting interactions, of inescapable and endless targets, of constant accountability, of delivering services to communities as if they were individual consumers, and of obsessions with making continuous just-in-time adjustments to never-ending flows of statistics.

The Way of Mercury witnesses greater frequencies of interaction and communication but in the hurried teams of commerce, not the enduring relationships of communities. Leaders who possess and value all these quicksilver attributes are identified and developed early and accelerated quickly as individuals who suit the new system, but collaborative work in depth with other leaders is limited. In the Way of Mercury, the nimble and the smart prevail over the steady and the just.

The Fourth Way of Earth

It’s time to come down to Earth – to think about the future as well as the present, to care about our world as well as our work, to push for sustainability as well as success, and to commit ourselves to the common good of others and not just to the narcissistic pursuit of acquiring or increasing things for ourselves.

Let’s look at three brief, down-to-earth examples of a Fourth Way alternative of educational leadership and change that I have directly studied and witnessed in partnership with colleagues. These will be followed by a set of principles that arise from these examples.

First, is a report for OECD on the relationship between leadership and school improvement in the world’s highest performing country on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of educational performance – Finland (Hargreaves, Halasz & Pont 2008). Rebounding from an unemployment rate of almost 19% in 1992, Finland now tops the world on economic competitiveness, and on the international PISA tests of pupil achievement. The secret of its astonishing recovery, our team learned, is its inspiring mission of creativity and inclusiveness. This attracts and keeps highly qualified and publicly respected teachers on whom the country’s future depends. In cultures of trust, cooperation and responsibility, these teachers design curriculum together in each municipality within broad national guidelines, and care for all the children in their schools, not just those in their own grades and classes. Schools also collaborate together for the benefit of the cities and communities they serve.

Second, is a cross-sector study co-directed with Alma Harris on Performing Beyond Expectations, in education, health, business and sport. This includes the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which I researched with Alan Boyle. Unlike racially homogeneous Finland, Tower Hamlets serves an immigrant population from poor parts of the world like Bangladesh. In 1997, it was the worst school district in England. Now, it performs at or above the national average on primary school test scores and secondary school examination results. Refusing to apply the punitive interventions or develop the market-like academies that characterize England’s Third Way reform strategy, Tower Hamlets’ inspiring district leaders have communicated high expectations to and developed collaborative and trusting relationships with leaders in their schools. District administrators are very present in the schools. Relationships with people precede spreadsheets of performance. Schools set ambitious performance targets together. If one school falls behind, others rally round to help. Better teachers are cultivated and kept as a result of positive partnerships with local teacher training providers. And droves of paid teaching assistants, hired from the local community, work alongside classroom teachers, easing the workload, and developing active trust and committed engagement with parents and the community (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009a).

Third, is a review of the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI), conducted with colleagues at Boston College and across Canada (Hargreaves, Crocker, Davis, McEwen, Shirley & Sumara, 2009). AISI contributes significantly to the strong educational performance of its province that almost matches that of Finland. Created by the teacher’s union and other partners with the government, AISI involves 90% of schools in self-initiated changes such as innovative teaching strategies, assessment for learning, and engaging aboriginal parents in their children’s schooling. Schools select or design their own measures that extend far beyond test scores, to monitor progress. They are also being increasingly networked with each other to promote peer learning, assistance and success.

What do we learn from these examples that is different from everything that has gone before? What is at the heart of the Fourth Way?

The Fourth Way begins with an inspiring and inclusive mission, not a vague embracing of “World Class Standards” or a limiting of our sights to increases in test scores. The teaching and learning of the Fourth Way is deep and mindful, and so is the learning of professionals. It addresses the deep structures of disciplines, the lasting metaphors and legacies of different cultural traditions, the compelling questions and concerns of our times, and the interests that learners pursue in their individual and community lives. This learning is often slow, not speedy; reflective and ruminative, not just fast and slick. Indeed, says psychologist Guy Claxton (1997), it is this very kind of learning that is essential for developing creative thought. Reflecting, slowing down, stopping – these are the things that foster creativity and breakthroughs (Honore 2004, MacDonald & Shirley 2009).

Fourth Way schools act urgently in the present in order to protect and sustain the future. Their short-term targets are connected to long-term commitments. And the targets are shared and owned by them, not politically imposed from elsewhere.  As with the Finns, responsibility precedes accountability. Accountability remains but not through a census of everyone. Effective industries only test-drive samples of their products. Exactly the same should be true of educators. While samples prudently elicit accurate quality controls; a high-stakes and profligate census exerts pressure, inflicts excessive costs, over-focuses on what is tested, and leads to opportunism and cheating.

The Fourth Way of Earth doesn’t merely deliver services to the poor and their communities as if they were low-cost consumers, but develops community with them in relationships of active and engaged trust through extended school days, paid community appointments, and the kind of robust community organizing that President Obama has made famous (Obama, 2005).

In the Fourth way as in the Third, teachers and schools work together, but teachers work in thoughtful, evidence-informed communities that value both hard data and soft judgment, applied to deep and compelling questions of professional practice and innovation. They do not just hurtle into hurried meetings to produce just-in-time reactions to streams of test score data. And schools do not merely network with distant partners. They also collaborate rather than compete with immediate neighbors, in pursuit of a higher common good, within a culture and a shared community where the strong help the weak.

Leadership here is not individual or idiosyncratic but systemic (Hopkins 2007). Effective leaders help other schools. The system provides resources to replace their time when they and their key leaders assist their peers in this way. This distributes leadership around them and develops successors behind them. In the Fourth Way, leadership is not merely fleetingly successful. It is also profoundly sustainable.

The current agenda of 21^st Century skills will largely throw us all into the quick, commerce-driven Third Way of Mercury. Back on an integrated and sustainable Earth, there is a clear and more socially just alternative. The emerging cohorts of Generation Y are not only born digital. They are also more ecologically responsible (Giddens 2009). Left to itself, the 21^st Century skills agenda of Mercury will poison them with speed. But when this generation’s gifts of speed can be combined with its earth-bound commitment to social justice and sustainability, then it can become the guardian of our future.

The Fourth Way of Earth meets all four of the change imperatives that were outlined earlier – economic, social, ecological and generational. We need to address all of them.

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Beitrag von Dr. Alexander Dix, LL.M.

Berliner Beauftragter für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit

Wie sehen Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit im Jahre 2059 aus ?

„Wer Visionen hat, sollte zum Arzt gehen.“ Dieser Satz wird Helmut Schmidt zugeschrieben. Auch wenn ich nicht vorhabe, deswegen einen Arzt aufzusuchen, wage ich einen Blick in die Zukunft von Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit. Das setzt voraus, dass diese beiden Grund- und Menschenrechte – denn darum handelt es sich – eine Zukunft haben.

Manche bezweifeln gar, dass zumindest der Datenschutz überhaupt etwas in der Gegenwart zu suchen hat. Der Chef von Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, hat gerade in einem Interview erklärt, die weltweit größte Online Community passe sich den geänderten sozialen Normen nur an. Als er mit Facebook in Harvard begonnen habe, hätten sich die Leute gefragt, warum man überhaupt Daten über sich ins Web stellen sollte. Mittlerweile würden die Menschen immer mehr Informationen über sich preisgeben und mit anderen teilen. Dem entsprächen die neuen Facebook-Grundeinstellungen. Zuckerberg ist offenbar der Meinung, Datenschutz sei nicht mehr so richtig zeitgemäß. Er hat übrigens auch 300 eigene Privatfotos öffentlich zugänglich gemacht, unter denen sich versehentlich auch private Aufnahmen seiner Freundin befanden. Tatsache ist aber, dass Facebook mit diesen Grundeinstellungen seinen Nutzern praktisch vorschreibt, was sie wem zu offenbaren haben. Wer nicht aufgepasst hat, dessen Daten waren seit Dezember 2009 von heute auf morgen für alle Facebook-Mitglieder sichtbar und nicht nur für die „Freunde“ des jeweiligen Users. Um das zu ändern, mussten die User Einstellungen ändern. Wem das zu umständlich war oder wer die geänderten Voreinstellungen überhaupt nicht mitbekommen hatte, der musste damit leben, dass das hochgeladene Profil einschließlich Foto und anderen Informationen wie Hobbys, Musik-Vorlieben etc. Leuten offenbart wurden, für die sie ursprünglich nicht gedacht waren. Offenbar hatte auch der Gründer von Facebook nicht mitbekommen, was die geänderten Voreinstellungen bedeuteten, denn er sperrte wenig später einige private Bilder seiner Freundin in seinem Profil, die durch die Umstellung für alle Facebook-Nutzer zugänglich geworden waren.

Das führt zu der Grundfrage, worum es beim Datenschutz überhaupt geht. „Datenschutz“ ist ein veralteter Begriff, der so klingt, als gehe es um den Schutz von Daten um ihrer selbst willen. Worum es wirklich geht, hat der Chef von Google, Eric Schmidt, in schöner Offenheit so formuliert: „Wenn es etwas gibt, dass Sie andere nicht wissen lassen wollen, hätten Sie es vielleicht gar nicht erst tun sollen.“ Mit anderen Worten: wenn es nach Google geht, sollte kein Mensch mehr irgendwelche Geheimnisse vor irgendwem haben. Er sollte sich so verhalten, dass alle es wissen können (denn mithilfe von Google werden alle es wissen). In einer solchen Gesellschaft will aber niemand leben – heute nicht, und ich behaupte, auch im Jahr 2059 nicht. Letztlich brauchen wir den Datenschutz auch und gerade im Web 2.0, um uns frei bewegen zu können. Datenschutz schützt keine Daten, sondern das Grundrecht jedes einzelnen Menschen auf Verhaltensfreiheit. Verhaltensfreiheit gibt es nur, wenn jeder selbst entscheidet, was mit seinen Daten geschieht.

Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat in seiner am 2. März 2010 verkündeten Entscheidung zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung erklärt, es gehöre zur „Verfassungsidentität der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, dass die Freiheitswahrnehmung der Bürger nicht total erfasst und registriert werden darf.“ Zur Wahrung dieser Verfassungsidentität sei die Bundesregierung auch in europäischen und internationalen Zusammenhängen verpflichtet. Das bedeutet: Die Bundesregierung darf keinen Abkommen oder EU-Normen zustimmen, die in Zukunft evtl. vorschreiben könnten, alle Flugreisen und Bahnfahrten personenbezogen auf Vorrat zu speichern, um so die Wege möglicher Terroristen rekonstruieren zu können. Das ist keine Vision, sondern eine zwingende Vorgabe unserer Verfassung.

Im Jahr 2059 werden nicht nur der Staat, sondern auch die großen internationalen Unternehmen wie Google oder Facebook erkannt haben, dass es geschäftsschädigend ist, wenn sie ihre Kunden lückenlos registrieren. Nur solche Portale oder Internet-Dienste (bzw. Dienste in einem Nachfolge-Medium des Internet) werden noch akzeptiert werden, die dem einzelnen Nutzer ein Höchstmaß an Autonomie und Wahlfreiheit hinsichtlich der Verwendung seiner Daten einräumen. Digitale persönliche Agenten werden unter einem oder besser mehreren Pseudonymen des Nutzers Informationen im Netz sammeln und digitale Medieninhalte auswerten. Jeder, der Daten über sich ins Netz stellt, kann diese Daten mit einem Verfallsdatum versehen, so dass ihn diese Daten oder Fotos (z.B. Party-Fotos, auf die man nicht bei einer Bewerbung von einem Personalchef angesprochen werden möchte) nicht ein Leben lang verfolgen. Das Internet wird 2059 etwas gelernt haben, was es heute noch nicht kann: das Vergessen. Zudem erhält jeder Mensch von Unternehmen und Behörden, die seine Daten speichern, einmal im Jahr unaufgefordert eine Mitteilung (elektronisch oder auf Papier), welche Daten über ihn für welche Zwecke gespeichert sind. Schließlich hat jeder Mensch die technische Möglichkeit, jederzeit „seine“ Daten elektronisch einzusehen und – falls sie falsch oder zu Unrecht gespeichert sind – zu korrigieren oder zu löschen. Dazu muss er sich durch eine elektronische Signatur authentifizieren.

Völlig neuen Herausforderungen werden sich für den Datenschutz durch die rasante Entwicklung der Biotechnologie ergeben. Bereits heute spielt die Molekulargenetik im Bereich der Identifikation von Tatverdächtigen im Strafverfahren praktisch eine wichtige Rolle. Allerdings darf man sich das nicht so simpel vorstellen, wie es in manchem „Tatort“ dargestellt wird, dass eine Übereinstimmung eines Gen-Profils des Verdächtigen mit einer am Tatort genommenen Spur bereits den definitiven Schuldbeweis ergibt. Eine solche Übereinstimmung sagt noch nichts darüber aus, in welcher „Rolle“ die identifizierte Person am Tatort war: sie kann dort als Zeuge, als zufälliger Passant oder als Opfer gewesen sein. Der Fall der „Heilbronner Trugspur“ hat außerdem drastisch gezeigt, dass auch Strafverfolgungsbehörden sich verrennen können in dem Glauben an die absolute Aussagekraft des sog. „genetischen Fingerabdrucks“. Bekanntlich stammte das Gen-Profil, das an allen Tatorten gefunden worden war, von einer Arbeiterin bei der Firma, die die Wattestäbchen hergestellt hat, mit denen die Proben genommen worden waren. Das macht deutlich, wie wichtig hohe Qualitätsanforderungen im Bereich der DNA-Analyse sind. Im Jahr 2059 wird – so hoffe ich – die DNA-Analyse im Strafverfahren weiterhin beschränkt sein auf den „nicht-sprechenden“ Teil des menschlichen Genoms, der keine Auskunft über äußere Merkmale oder Krankheiten einer gesuchten Person gibt. Denn eine Nutzung von darüber hinausgehenden Informationen aus dem menschlichen Bauplan würde zu einem noch tieferen Eingriff in die Intimsphäre des Menschen führen. Der Gesetzgeber in Deutschland hat (anders als etwa in den Niederlanden) hat deshalb aus gutem Grund die Genomanalyse im Strafverfahren nur zu Identifikationszwecken anhand des „nicht-sprechenden“ Teils des Genoms (junk DNA) zugelassen. Weiter gehende Informationseingriffe in das menschliche Genom wird das Bundesverfassungsgericht aller Voraussicht nach mit dem Grundgesetz nicht für vereinbar halten. Schließlich wird es im Jahr 2059 hoffentlich eine gesetzliche Regelung über Biobanken für Forschungszwecke geben, die der Gesetzgeber bei der Verabschiedung des gerade in Kraft getretenen Gendiagnostikgesetzes unterlassen hat. Denn es muss sichergestellt werden, dass Daten aus solchen Biobanken vor jeder Zweckentfremdung durch private oder staatliche Stellen geschützt sind.

Neben dem Datenschutz wird die Informationsfreiheit immer wichtiger werden: Jeder Mensch wird 2059 elektronisch auf solche Daten bei Unternehmen und Behörden zugreifen können, soweit sie nicht – wegen des Datenschutzes oder zum Schutz von Betriebs- und Geschäftsgeheimnissen – geheimhaltungsbedürftig sind. Gegenwärtig gelten die Informationsfreiheitsgesetze des Bundes und der Bundesländer, die solche Gesetze haben (alle außer Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Hessen, Niedersachsen und Sachsen) nur für Behörden, bei denen Informationszugang beantragt werden muss. 2059 werden Staat und Unternehmen verpflichtet sein, ein Mindestmaß an Informationen von sich aus elektronisch zu veröffentlichen (Informationen als Bring- statt als Holschuld).

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Ein Kanon von elf wichtigen Lern- und Bürgertugenden für heute und morgen

Thesenpapier von PD Dr. Jürgen Overhoff (Universität Hamburg);
zur Vorbereitung der Sektion „Werte und Identität“ der Bildungskonferenz „Kant 2059 – Wie sieht Bildung wohl in Zukunft aus?“, Urania Berlin, 20.03.10

Im 2003 erschienenen Fischer Lexikon Geschichte fasst der Hamburger Historiker Franklin Kopitzsch in seinem Artikel „Aufklärung“ bündig und pointiert zusammen, worin die bleibende Bedeutung der historischen Aufklärung für unsere heutige Gesellschaft besteht: „Die moderne demokratische Gesellschaft ist ohne die Vorarbeit der Aufklärung nicht zu denken. Sie wird ohne ihre kriti-schen Impulse keinen Bestand haben“. Wenn die Aufklärung also noch immer ein wesentlicher Teil unserer Identität ist und wenn uns tatsächlich daran liegt, unsere freiheitliche Bürgergesellschaft, die Demokratie und den Rechtsstaat auch in Zukunft zu bewahren, sind wir aufgerufen, uns immer wieder neu mit den Werten der Aufklärung vertraut zu machen und ihren Ansprüchen zu genügen. Diese Werte sind zugleich Bürger- und Lerntugenden, da die Aufklärung seit ihren frühesten Anfängen im 18. Jahrhundert bis heute nicht nur als emanzipatorisches politisches Projekt, sondern auch als eminent pädagogischer Prozess verstanden wurde und wird. Im Verlauf dieses Prozesses sollten und sollen möglichst viele Menschen dazu befähigt werden, sich selbst immer umfassender und vorurteilsfrei zu bilden, um mit dem so erworbenen Wissen selbständig, phantasievoll, wohltätig, gemeinnützig, Freude spendend und Frieden stiftend in einer freien Gesellschaft wirken und teilhaben zu können.
Im Zuge meiner eigenen Beschäftigung mit den führenden Pädagogen, Schul-gründern oder erzieherisch tätigen Männern und Frauen der europäischen und amerikanischen Aufklärung – zu denen ich John Locke, Joseph Addison, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Johann Jakob Bodmer, Christian Fürchtegott Gel-lert, Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Bernhard Basedow, Moses Mendelssohn, Mary Wollstonecraft und Immanuel Kant zähle – ist mir nun aufgefallen, dass es letztlich elf Werte, Haltungen oder Tugenden sind, die sich im Laufe des 18. Jahrhundert als die bis heute zentralen Einstellungen zum Leben und Lernen in der freiheitlichen Bürgergesellschaft herauskristallisierten. Ich möchte diese Werte, die auch noch im Jahr 2059 gelten sollten, nun auflisten, mit kurzen Erläuterungen versehen und zur Diskussion stellen:

1. Wissbegierde … ist die Grundvoraussetzung des Lernens, denn man kann nur dann gut lernen, wenn man mit Lust und Neugier sein Wissen täglich erweitern will. Wissbegierde kann von guten Lehrern mit Liebe und Witz geweckt werden
2. Anschauung … kann das Weltbild jedes Menschen erweitern. Alle sind berufen und befähigt, durch die gezielte Schulung der eigenen Beobachtungsgabe auch im Alltag auf spannende Entdeckungsreisen zu gehen.
3. Vernunft … schützt vor falschen Schlüssen. Wer logisch denken und folgern lernt, und die kombinierend erkannten Zusammenhänge auf einen allgemein-verständlichen Begriff zu bringen vermag, kann Ideologien entlarven.
4. Einbildungskraft … hilft bei der kreativen Suche nach Lösungen von verzwickt erscheinenden Problemen. Sie nährt auch Hoffnung. Wer phantasievoll ist, ex-perimentiert gern und entwickelt Mut, die Welt zum Besseren zu verändern.
5. Aufrichtigkeit … ist eine Tugend, die Übereilung im Denken erschwert. Nur wenn man sich dann und wann eingesteht, dass man etwas noch nicht weiß oder noch nicht genau verstanden hat, lässt sich gründliches Wissen erwerben
6. Gemeinnützigkeit … ist ein Ideal, das, wenn es ernst genommen wird, den besten Schutz davor bietet, dass Gelehrsamkeit nicht zur selbstgefälligen Pe-danterie verkommt. Der Ertrag des Lernens sollte auch anderen dienen.
7. Mitgefühl … erzeugt beim Lernenden einen Sinn für die wahren Prinzipien der Rechtlichkeit, die wahren Vorbilder des Schönen, alle moralischen Bezüge der Menschen untereinander und alle Begriffe der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung.
8. Toleranz … entwickelt derjenige, der erfahren durfte, dass die Wahrheit vielgestaltig sein kann. Der tolerante und aufgeschlossen Lernende sucht ge-radezu divergierende Auffassungen und Theorien, um seinen Geist daran zu schulen.
9. Gottvertrauen … kann uns Menschen eine heilsame Gelassenheit lehren, ohne die wir uns leicht in unlösbare Aporien verstricken. Ein undogmatisches, überkonfessionelles Gottvertrauen gibt da Trost, wo auch Wissen nicht hilft.
10. Chancengleichheit … sollte von jedem angestrebt und befördert werden, der glaubt, dass in uns allen, ob Mann oder Frau, ob alt oder jung, ob reich oder arm, ein kostbares Talent steckt, das sich entfalten will.
11. Selbstdisziplin … hilft uns immer wieder, aus dem allzu oft spürbaren Bann der Trägheit und Faulheit zu entkommen. Denn lethargische Momente kennt jeder, auch der, der das Lernen und Arbeiten im Grunde als Glück erlebt.

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