Teaching Community via Biology in Late-Nineteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

In the 1880s, the German schoolteacher Friedrich Junge proposed reforming the school biology curriculum away from taxonomy and replacing it with a hands-on curriculum organized around the concept of the Lebensgemeinschaft, or "biotic community." Junge's ideas spread rapidly across Germany, eventually becoming the basis for an entirely reformed curriculum. This paper argues that Junge's reform scheme appealed primarily for two reasons: first, its presentation of nature as a harmonious community resonated with the goals of schoolteachers who wanted to use nature as a model for inculcating proper behavior among their pupils, especially in light of the threat of socialism; and second, it afforded teachers-especially low-status elementary school teachers-a chance to claim much-wanted autonomy for their classroom practices. The paper thus shows how educational reform may be seen as a key historical zone of interaction at the meeting points of science, civil society, and the state.