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Gustav Wyneken

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33-702: Gustav Wyneken (1875–1964) was a German pedagogue and founder of the Wickersdorf Free School Community . He was also a leader in the German Youth Movement and briefly contributed to school policy during the German revolutionary period after World War I . He failed to regain support for his school reform ideas after his conviction as a pederast . Gustav Wyneken was born April 19, 1875, in Stade , northern Germany. After passing his teachers' exam, he became

66-704: A matron . She was the daughter of Prussian Oberstleutnant (= Lieutenant Colonel) Paul Vincenz Gerwien (* 7 December 1843 in Neisse; † 12 September 1923 in Dresden). The couple got four children, one girl and three boys: Ursula (* 20 January 1910 in Wickersdorf; † 1987), Klaus (* 6 October 1912 in Wickersdorf), Heiner (* 4 August 1914 in Wickersdorf) und Dieter (* 15 September 1918; † 17. February 2005). Between 1938 and 1968 Auguste Schwarting became Luserke's housekeeper. He became

99-537: A cap. Influenced by German Revolution of 1918–19 he was one of the authors (along with George Bernard Shaw ) of a book series by Marxist Karl Korsch (1886–1961). In his book Luserke opted for a socialist ethics of work which should follow common interests. In school pedagogical conflicts with Gustav Wyneken were persistent. Wyneken was part of several paedophile scandals and later got sentenced. Some other teachers also were paedophiles. Luserke, Rudolf Aeschlimann (1884–1961) and Dr. Paul Reiner (1886–1932) first formed

132-779: A field excursion to Brittany , where he hiked for several months through the remains of Celtic culture of Stone Age . Via the lecture of a bard on the island of Molène he got inspired to use oral and written tradition like myths , sagas and legends for his own work. He also travelled to Italy and Egypt. He got influenced by his academic teachers, the Nobel Prize winner Rudolf Christoph Eucken , Ernst Haeckel , Wilhelm Rein and later by Hermann Lietz . Luserke's ideas about an idealized lifelike education to develop an attitude can be traced back to them. Disappointed from academic teaching programme and classical pedagogy he dropped out of university in 1906. In 1931 Luserke completed

165-452: A freelance writer and unsuccessfully attempted to re-enter West Germany's school and youth policy debate. Wyneken died in Göttingen on December 8, 1964. In his 1913 book, Schule und Jugendkultur ( School and Youth Culture ), Wyneken defined the Wickersdorf school as cultivating individual consciousnesses as a refraction of the world's unified, metaphysical spirit, each consciousness bringing

198-565: A mate's certificate in Leer , East Frisia. At Easter 1906 he joined Hermann Lietz and started to work as a teacher at Deutsches Landerziehungsheim (D.L.E.H.) in Haubinda, Thuringia. Three years before there had been a controversy about the admittance of Jewish pupils. According to Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) only Luserke and Gustav Wyneken (1875–1964) formed an opposition against the daily military drill at this school. Its resulting conflict with

231-605: A pupil of the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine in Berlin. When he was fifteen, his parents sent him to Herrnhuter Lehrerseminar in Niesky , Lusatia , to become a teacher. Between 1900 and 1904 he worked as an elementary teacher at Pädagogium Niesky . There he got estranged from Pietism which he found cold-hearted. He moved to Thuringia and studied Mathematics and Philosophy at Friedrich Schiller University Jena . In 1905 he made

264-431: A so-called triumvirate in opposition to Wyneken and his followers. It resulted not only in a polarization but in a development of factions which divided teachers, employees and pupils. Luserke decided to found a new school "at the border of the habitable world". Aeschlimann, Fritz Hafner (1877–1964), Luserke and Reiner together with their families including eleven children plus employees and sixteen of their pupils moved to

297-574: A stage at Schauspielhaus Berlin where he watched the drama William Tell by Schiller. The play fell short of his high expectations so he was badly disappointed. Later this experience might have been an influence on his own conceptions of theatre works. In the age of fifteen, he broke with his family. The catalyst was a moment when his mother burnt his Shakespeare books which he had read secretly. In 1908, he married Marie Anna "Annemarie" Elisabeth Gerwien (1878–1926). He met her through his work for Wickersdorf Free School Community , where she worked as

330-464: A teacher at Hermann Lietz 's progressive school in rural Ilsenburg , central Germany. Wyneken became its director in 1901 and eventually left due to differences with Lietz. In 1906, Wyneken founded the Wickersdorf Free School Community in Thuringia with Odenwaldschule founder Paul Geheeb and others. The Ministry of Saxe-Meiningen dismissed Wyneken from his teaching post following infighting at

363-531: A teaching assignment at Meldorfer Gelehrtenschule (founded in 1540) where he introduced his community theatre again. There he named his fully developed play as Meldorfer Spielweise which he characterized as a special style of community theatre. From the start all participants are involved in the play's development. Actors, musicians, handcrafter and technicians are part of a team which composes, writes poetry and thinks about elements like dance, singing, period costumes, signs and symbolism, technical effects. Along

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396-600: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Martin Luserke Martin Luserke (3 May 1880 in Schöneberg near Berlin , Prussia , German Reich – 1 June 1968 in Meldorf , Holstein , Germany) was a progressive pedagogue , a bard , writer and theatre maker. He was one of the leading figures of German progressive education and a precursor of outdoor education . As his distinguished achievement counts

429-590: The East Frisian island Spiekeroog and Heligoland in the German Bight . According to his mother's memoirs he very early felt attracted to the Sea. His parents refused to let him go to the Sea. Starting at the age of ten, he read works by Friedrich Schiller , at the age of thirteen those written by William Shakespeare , Goethe und Ibsen , all comprehensively and passionately. Reportedly he had his first contact with

462-735: The Eisner government . Wyneken was involved in two decrees, on school community ( Schulgemeinde ) and religious education, that were assailed for their democratizing and secularizing effects and quickly repealed. In 1919, Haenisch helped restore Wyneken to lead the Wickersdorf school, but he was ousted the next year upon a guilty conviction for homosexual contact with students. Wyneken responded by publishing Eros (1921), which advocated for pederastic relations between teachers and boys said to exist in ancient Greece in defense of his actions and philosophy. Wyneken continued to live nearby and influence Wickersdorf in person and in writing. He continued to work as

495-559: The North Sea and settled on Juist Island in East Frisia . On 1 May 1925, Luserke founded Schule am Meer (= School by the Sea), where he established the first and only theatre building of a German school. The unique project primarily spanned a group of five school buildings which were planned in 1929 by Berlin-based architect Bruno Ahrends . The theatre was erected between 1930 and 1931. It

528-498: The Nazi party line. Instead, his ideal and book topics were in some extent similar to Völkisch movement . His literary work was mostly fiction with a revival of Norse mythology , Breton legends and Continental Germanic mythology so it contains no Nazi propaganda. Nevertheless, it matched some popular Völkisch and Nazi topics which was convenient during dictatorship to get accepted as a professional writer. Between 1947 and 1952, he got

561-547: The Wickersdorf school was seen as progressive during a period of experimental cultural policy for its opposition to existing schooling models. Wyneken's ideas influenced the Zionist return to Palestine and the Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair . Siegfried Bernfeld was a proponent of Wyneken's ideas. Wickersdorf Free School Community The Wickersdorf Free School Community ( German : Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf )

594-525: The administration ended with a secession of both teachers. Together with so-called pedagogic rebels like Gustav Wyneken, Paul Geheeb (1870–1961) and August Halm (1869–1929) in autumn 1906 Luserke founded the Freie Schulgemeinde in the small town Wickersdorf near Saalfeld in Thuringian Forest . Whereas Wyneken is described more as a theoretician the practitioner Luserke is considered to be

627-796: The child's natural abilities appear gradually, to teach through experience rather than academics. Unlike other experimental schools, Wickersdorf focused on humanities, centring the school on finding the "objective spirit" in philosophy, literature, and music. Music theorist Ernst Kurth 's year as Wickersdorf's head music instructor was a pivotal moment in his life, with the influence of August Halm and Wyneken. Wickersdorf co-founder Martin Luserke continued on to found Schule am Meer in 1925, and Wickersdorf teacher Bernhard Uffrecht  [ de ] continued to found another school in 1919, both with music pedagogy they had learned from August Halm at Wickersdorf. This German school-related article

660-685: The integration of community theatre into school and youth work . It was also integrated in German Youth Movement . He was one of three sons of the construction expert Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Luserke (1851–1931) and his wife Amalie Elisabeth Luserke (1855–1942), née Lindhorst. She originated from Westphalia , whereas the Luserke family originated from Breslau , Silesia . Both were Pietists . His siblings were his older brother, Johannes Fridrich Wilhelm (* 6. April 1877 in Berlin; † 4. April 1949 in Dresden), and his younger brother, Otto Karl Gottfried Luserke (* 19. November 1887 in Berlin). From his father's side

693-555: The men had been carpenters for generations. His father worked his way up from a builder to a construction supervisor and became an architect who worked as an examination administrator at public works service of Berlin. During his childhood, Martin Luserke got the chance to become acquainted with the port of Hamburg , the river Elbe and the German coast along the North Sea and the Baltic Sea . Via sailboat and steamboat he got to know

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726-525: The newspapers. Heinrich Meyer started his career at Schule am Meer , Hans Hess , Walter Georg Kühne , Felicitas Kukuck , and Beate Uhse belonged to its pupils. The school created a botanical garden right in the dunes of the sandbank and developed eleven vegetable gardens for self-supply. In the school's workshops detailed ship models were built as well as seakeeping sailboats (dinghy cruisers) but also parts to build up wooden shacks . Its sports programme included gymnastics and cold baths in

759-414: The one who added substantial stimulus. His conception of a didactics which offered immediate hands-on-experience influenced several other pedagogues like Hans Alfken (1899–1994). In Wickersdorf Luserke worked with Hans-Windekilde Jannasch (1883–1981), Peter Suhrkamp (1891–1959) and Bernhard Uffrecht (1885–1959). Right from the school's foundation he started to perform community theatre . His stage work

792-650: The school. Wyneken joined the Youth Movement and lectured for the Association for Free School Communities  [ de ] . Wyneken became a personal advisor to Konrad Haenisch , a German social democratic politician with the Prussian Ministry of Education , during Germany's post-World War I revolutionary period . Wyneken also advised Johannes Hoffmann , the Bavarian social democratic Minister of Education in

825-527: The sea, athletics , boxing , fistball , association football, handball , field hockey , ice skate , prisonball and sailing . When Luserke's renowned school was closed in spring 1934 due to Nazi Gleichschaltung (= Nazification) and Antisemitism he decided to work as a free writer. In the Netherlands he bought the old Dutch fishery vessel ZK 14 , which he named Krake (= octopus). Henceforward he deployed it as his floating poet's workshop to sail

858-519: The shallow waters of the coastal regions of The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Southern Norway and Southern Sweden. In the harbours he opened his ship for tale-telling and readings. Mostly young people visited his ship, some attended during trip sections. One of the later well-known listeners and passengers was Beate Uhse , one of his former pupils. In 1935 he got awarded with Literaturpreis der Reichshauptstadt Berlin (= literature award of Reich 's capital Berlin) for his historic novel Hasko which

891-626: The way Luserke's most appreciated activities helped to save the school's survival which was endangered after WWII. Luserke also held advanced training courses for youth group leaders at Jugendgruppenleiterschule in Bad Harzburg -Bündheim. In 1955 he completed his late work about his Shakespeare studies Pan-Apollon-Prospero which got published in 1957. He died in the age of 88 and got buried in Hage , East Frisia, next to his wife Annemarie. In 2018 his descendants abandoned his grave. However, his gravestone

924-472: The world to greater consciousness of itself. The purpose of life and the goal of education is to serve the world's one, objective spirit. Wyneken's ideal school life drew from the progressive rural school model and development of a school community that included deliberation by a democratic general assembly of both teachers and students. Emphasizing art's role in expressing the spirit, Wyneken also supported musical education and community theater . In its time,

957-525: Was a progressive school in Germany, founded by Gustav Wyneken and Paul Geheeb in 1906. In particular, the concept of "movement play" on the school stage can be understood as the original contribution of the Freie Schulgemeinde to a school culture of movement and physical culture, which continues to have an impact on the subject of performing play today. This concept, which goes back to Martin Luserke ,

990-544: Was based on William Shakespeare . His first play Blut und Liebe (= Blood and Love) which is performed in many schools until today, is a Grotesque based on Hamlet . Between 1910 and 1914 and again between 1922 and 1925, he served as the school's principal. From 1914 to 1918 he served as a soldier in World War I . In 1917 he got severely wounded in France and became a POW . His head injury marked him for life so he always wore

1023-525: Was both theoretically elaborated and practically tested by him over decades. German pedagogues Gustav Wyneken and Paul Geheeb founded the German : Freie Schulgemeinde in Wickersdorf in September 1906. Wyneken, who had previously taught at a Hermann Lietz school , modelled Wickersdorf on his experimental, neo-Idealist ideas: to treat children as distinct from adults, to pique natural curiosity, to let

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1056-483: Was published in German, Dutch and French. He also wrote his most favourite book Obadjah und die ZK 14 and a Viking trilogy. At the end of 1938, he went off board to settle in Meldorf , Holstein . There he continued his work as a free writer. His most successful books were published during the 1930s and 1940s. Several of his books were also printed for army postal service of German Wehrmacht (army and navy) during World War II . Luserke cannot be described as toeing

1089-423: Was used for community theatre, the school's choir and the school's orchestra, conducted by composer and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer (1890–1972), the older brother of famous writer Carl Zuckmayer who visited and worked at Schule am Meer . With their pupils Luserke and Zuckmayer went on tour through major German cities like Berlin, Cologne or Stuttgart to perform on stages where they got very positive critics in

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