WEBVTT - The School That Raped Everbody 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.320 M ah, that's the how we're starting this episode. I needed. 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.600 I'm Robert Evans, host Behind the Bastards, and I'm I'm 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.880 trying out new introduction techniques because I just got off 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.360 of forty hours of plane flights. My guest today is 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:24.000 Mr Miles Gray. Miles full disclosure is the show? This 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.960 show is about? I call it, well, I call it 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.160 behind the Bastards. I don't know what everyone else calls it. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.320 Do you also refer to it as behind the Bastards? 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:34.839 That's a great name. I think we might have to, 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:37.239 Sophie make a note of that one so we can 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.320 steal it from Miles. So if you don't just make 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:44.120 a note of it, get it tatted for posterity. Wait 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.839 where were you? Where are you traveling for forty hours? Uh? 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.080 Not just just a lot of layovers and you know 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:51.760 it was only Europe, but you know you wind up 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:58.279 getting stuck in airports here and there. I hear your brother. So, Miles, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:03.080 how do you feel about school rules? Uh? Fuck school, dude? 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.399 You know I'm a cool yea fu school. You know 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.839 that answer, Miles that you gave is going to turn 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.880 out to be very appropriate for a couple of reasons, 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.560 most of them unfortunate. Um, because I don't even you're 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:21.280 talking about we are talking about a school today, and 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.040 it is a It is definitely a Fox school, Um, 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:30.280 but not in any kind of good way. In a 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:37.560 horrible crimes were child molestation. Dark. Yeah, this is a 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.039 bad way to introduce this episode. But there's no good 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.120 way to introduce this episode. This isn't Behind the Fun Times. 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.960 It's behind that. Behind the Fun Times is my other podcast. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.520 Could you imagine it? Actually we're very dark where you're 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.320 hosting it and you're just doing like behind the scenes 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:57.640 of like some of like the happiest like you know, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:01.800 pleasant moments in our history. Hey released one happy episode 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.680 we did release well, he died at the end, but 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.960 the work was good. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like I'd like 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.400 to have an episode where Werner Herzog and I just 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.680 talk about different puppets we think are cute. I think 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.120 if I like the baby Yoder, I'd like to hug 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.680 and caress him. I like that he really kept his 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:30.040 vibe up in the Mandalorian. He keeps he's never anything 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.119 but Werner Herzog, and that's that's all we ever want 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:38.480 from him. Now, speaking of a German. This whole episode 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:43.359 is set in Germany. It is now uh so yeah, 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.720 uh schools miles, none of us, none of us is 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.840 is I'm going to say, overwhelmingly happy with the school 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.519 system in the United States. I think that's the same, 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.400 especially our life. Educational system is meant as like a 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.600 barrier to entry for a certain class, so out when 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.560 you look at school like that, rather than like, hey, 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.200 education is available at everyone puts a bit of that 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.800 bad taste. I mean I literally just went to college 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:09.800 because it was drilled in my head. It's like, well, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.480 you can't get a job unless you go to college. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:16.080 I was like, yeah, that's why I spent twenty grand 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.880 in debt, failing to get a degree, and then dropping 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.160 out because they didn't want to spend another fifteen Yeah. 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.920 So yeah, there's problems involved with college or involved with 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.480 education in general in this country, and that there have 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.120 been for a long time. Um. I think most of 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.320 what I still remember from my high school days is 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.400 how to install Doom on a T I eight three 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:41.520 calculate you could get oh yeah, dude, yeah, or Wolfenstein. 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.960 It was one of the two. I forget exactly what Wolfenstein, 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.960 but the best I could do is get that one 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.480 thing that was called like drug wars or like the 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.600 Mafia drug war, drug wars, which the ship you know, yeah, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.080 drug wars be like press one to deal heroin. And 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:58.200 I'm like, yeah, here we go. But I don't know 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.440 like algebra. Um so, and I never learned how to 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:08.280 pay my taxes. Um shout out to my account. Um. Yeah, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.440 he's he's a cool guy. Now. My point here in 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.120 this rambling introduction is that in the year of our 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.560 Lord two thousand nineteen, we're not we're not great at 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.839 educating the young. Uh. And this state of affairs is 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.320 not new, and in fact, we we've been shitty at 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.280 educating kids basically since we decided it was important to 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.960 start educating kids. Um. And today, Miles, we're gonna talk 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.599 about one of the boldest and most brilliant reformers in 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.839 the history of education, a man whose ideas and intellectual 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.000 courage were in some ways still way ahead of even 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:47.120 our time. Have you ever heard of Paul Gheb Paul 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:55.239 Gahb Geheb. But yeah, well, uh, paulus Gehb is actually 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:57.880 the actual nagmebor. We're gonna call him Paul. This episode, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.919 because I don't truck with any of that police nonset. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.840 What kind of name is Paulus? Anyway? It's some infuriating 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.640 German name. Those people stick extra use and s is 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.640 on all sorts of ship. Wow, it sounds like someone 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.279 who would be like the son of like Caesar, like 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.240 a Roman. Yeah, a Roman leader would be Paulus. Well, 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.080 I'm gonna guess actually all of the US names came 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.159 from Romans just fucking and conquering all over the place. 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.680 And yeah, Paul Paulus is a Latin surname meaning small 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:35.880 or humble. Well, he was a small, humble man. Uh, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.080 so we'll talk about him for a little bit. Uh. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.640 Paul was born on October eighteen seventy and Gisa on 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.880 the Rhone Mountains in Germany. His father and grandfather were 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.000 both pharmaceutical chemists, and his dad was also a botanist 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.320 who specialized in mosses. So he grew up surrounded and 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.880 influenced by people who lived lives of the mind. Now, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.760 some of Paul's earliest memories were following his father through 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:01.479 the forest to look for where mosses. By age eight, 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:06.279 Paul signed his letters Paul geheb student of natural sciences. 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.200 So he's a he's a he's a knowledge lover miles 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.279 because his dad was dragging to the force and like 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.000 I pick up that grass over there and put in 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.920 your pocket. Yeah. Well but he I think he liked it. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:18.720 I think his dad was good at in culcating a 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:21.320 love of the natural world and you know, excitement and 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.800 all that stuff. Uh, So there's something was good at it. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.800 There's something like really when I when you said eighteen 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.080 seventy and they were pharmaceutical chemists, I'm like, that sounds 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.680 like a comedy. Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna guess most 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.359 of what his dad is working with is like a 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.680 mix of heroin and snail poison, and you can give 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.200 it to little kids. Yeah, and eugit. Now, there's a 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.680 little bit before they're doing much eugenics. I'll give that 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.400 to them. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think Paul would 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.560 have been down with that, but we'll tell you what 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.160 he was down with a little later. Now, Paul graduated 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.039 primary school and he went to the universities of Berlin 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.400 and then Jenna for a total of ten years. He 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.200 almost got a doctorate. He was a wonderful student who 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.160 was renowned by his teachers for his sheer thirst for knowledge, 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.640 he came to hold an almost religious belief in what 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.480 he called the perfectly integrated human, a person whose mastery 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.520 of humanism, science, philosophy, and physical activity would blend into 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:21.160 one being of almost complete perfection. So this is his 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:25.000 his his dreams of a chad. Yeah, I think it's 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.320 his version of like Enlightenment. It's kind of like a 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.960 quasi Buddhist. Yeah, the perfect man. You know that that 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.840 that education can build a perfect person um. Now, in 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:40.440 pursuit of achieving this end, he studied theology, philosophy, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.440 anatomy and physiology, and the nascent science of psychiatry. He 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.640 also got ordained as a pastor and studied religion. So 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.480 that's that's cool. I'm said theology early, So am I 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.640 Now everybody's ordained thanks to the Church of Life. Yeah, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.800 me too, That's what I mean. I mean, you know, Miles, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:01.800 if you want, there might still be room on the 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.080 boat that where Billy and I are gonna go get 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.240 trained to put bleach at people's asses so we can 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.840 become reverend doctors. I'm I'm down for that. I mean, honestly, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.480 you know, my strength is in scamming and motivational speaking. 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.239 So if you know, if I can be of service 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.520 to that greater vision, I would be more than honored 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.600 to help. Well, uh, well, we'll keep your name on 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.280 the on the shortlist for the ass bleaching trailer because 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:26.880 I just see a lot of people out there who 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.280 are really, really struggling, could use some kind of light 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.360 at the end of the tunnel. And you know, there's 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.400 no there's no better way to have light at the 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.560 end of the tunnel than by bleaching your asshole. That 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:44.120 literally light different. Yeah yeah, so uh. Paul spent some 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.800 time as a preacher um, but he felt himself more 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.280 strongly drawn to teach and mold young minds, so he 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.240 started pursuing this doctorate and he got as far as 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.480 working in his thesis. But in those days, there was 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.560 a fee to take your doctor at exam marks, and 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.880 rather than spend that money on reaching the apex of 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.120 his ten year educational dreams, Paul Key he decided a 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.160 wiser use would be to donate the money to a 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.760 family he knew who faced financial collapse due to their 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:14.400 alcoholic father. So yeah, Mr Preacher yeah, so far it 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.720 seems pretty great right right now? Not sounding like a 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:22.080 bastard to me. Yeah, like a man of God who 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.400 really puts his money where his doctor it isn't. Um. Yeah, 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.920 he never became a doctor, and instead he decided that 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.240 he was called upon to educate the poor children of 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.320 Germany's great cities. In nineteen o two, he met up 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.120 with a fellow named Herman Ltz, who was working towards 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.560 much the same goal. Both men were part of a 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.199 movement of educational reform in Germany focused around changing the 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.000 authoritarian structure of German education at the time, which wouldn't 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:48.559 have looked out of place in a movie about the 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.679 Hitler youth set forty years later. So, like, German education 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.840 is uh not focused on shall we say, treating children 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.880 like complete human beings. Like, so, what does that look like? 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.160 Just screaming corporal punishment. I don't think much screaming. I 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.000 think more of that like quiet but very stern and 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.680 unbending German discipline. Um, you know, they're not a shouty people. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:12.959 A lot of the time. I think it was more 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.840 just sort of um, you know, everything was kind of 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.240 military like it would it would have there would have 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.560 been a quasi military feel to education. Talking up would 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:26.400 not have been tolerated yet, very rigid, very uh, very 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.800 shame based. I'm sure too. That was probably their great motivator. Yeah, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.360 shame based. And also everyone does the same thing and 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.199 follows the same structure, so like whether you know we 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.160 now know kids. You know, different kids learn different ways. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.280 They wouldn't put in any they would not like none 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.360 of that bullshit. In German school all do the same thing. 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.600 They're like, yeah, we do exploration time where we let 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.680 the children just sort of do as they want to 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.000 do to discover themselves. Children don't want things would be 0:10:53.000 --> 0:11:01.360 the German uh want things they don't want. Paul became 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.280 part of what the was called sort of the back 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.559 to nature movement and education UM. He worked with a 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.440 number of experimental learning institutions and wind up co running 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.040 what they called a school community in a place called 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.679 Wickersdorf or Vickersdorf since it's German. Uh. The basic idea 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.320 behind this place is that it was a democratic learning institution. Students, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.720 parents and teachers all elected representatives to vote on decisions 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:25.760 about what curriculum to learn. And you know, how to 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.880 handle different things, so it seems like a pretty cool idea. 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.160 I'm worth trying. Yeah. Now, Paul's partner called this a 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.720 self educating community, and for several years it flourished. Now, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.679 one major aspect of the Vickersdorf School was a focus 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.960 on play, dance, music, and sports as all necessary in 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.760 helping to craft well rounded people. So he didn't just 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:49.880 you know, train kids to do whatever it is they 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:51.640 were going to do as adults. You you, you know, 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.240 everyone needed to learn how to dance, everybody needed to 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.760 learn how to play an instrument, everybody needed to learn sports, 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:58.800 like the you know, it's it's this kind of idea 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.960 of the perfectly integrated man that that Paul's obsessed with. 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.040 Is that kind of born out of this idea like 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.800 if you know more things and you push yourself in 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.080 as many different directions as possible, Like that's that's stretching 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.720 yourself out for more growth or balance. Basically, Yeah, I 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.719 think that's kind of the idea that reminds me like 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.960 Dirk Navitski, the basketball player. He had a shooting coach 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.880 that sort of had this same mentality that was like, 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:25.520 we're gonna work on your jump shot, but this summer 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.320 you're learning how to play saxophone. You're gonna do You're 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.560 gonna you're gonna canoe, and you're gonna start doing like pottery. 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:34.760 Now that it's necessarily the same, but it's sort of 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.040 more like, we're going to help improve your skills by 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.200 creating new skills that you didn't have in general. Yeah, 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:44.040 it's kind of like how Karate Kid taught the karate 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.640 kid how to do karate by teaching him how to 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.800 clean how to karate. Yeah, well it's all karate. That's 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.960 the that's the secret message of Karate Kid is that 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.040 all of life is karate. Thank you. Shout out to 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.920 Pat Morita, Mr. The only person who taught me any 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.920 thing but how to install Wolfenstein on a T I 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.840 A three. But also he also told you he did. 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.480 He did teach me that too. It was weird that 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.160 that karate class required a hundred and sixty dollar graphing calculator, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:18.320 but hey, everything's karate man, even that graphic. Yeah. So 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.319 the Vickersdorf School did very well for for years um 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.000 but by personality conflicts between paulka Heb and his partner 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.000 Winikin led to the breakup of the school. Paul resigned 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:30.640 and decided it was time for him to start his 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.160 own school. Now well he'd been at Vickersdorff, Paul had 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.319 fallen in love with one of his employees, Edith Casseerer. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.760 She'd started as a kindergarten teacher, which was not a 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.000 very common job for a woman at the time, particularly 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:43.839 a woman of her social stature, so she was a 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.760 bit of a boundary breaker. Edith's dad was a wealthy industrialist. 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:49.839 The fact that she decided to devote her life to 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.360 educating the children of the poor rather than marrying rich 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.960 and increasing the family wealth was something of a slap 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.800 in the face to her father Max initially, but while 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.000 he opposed her marriage with Paul, by nineteen ten he'd 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.720 been won over by Paul's charismatic enthusiasm for educational reform, 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.800 and when his son in law decided to start a school, 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.120 Max was only too happy to pour his own money 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.079 into the project. So very happy story, so far, no way, 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.640 any of this turns horrible, great great step great father 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.920 in law. Supporting your dreams sounds like a dream, really 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.520 sounds wonderful. Yeah. In nineteen ten, the oden Vale School 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.240 was open for business. Now this is the school that 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.560 that Paul created with his his dad in law's money. 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.840 The Odenwald School was a massive evolution from the Vickersdorff School. 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.360 Paul called it an educational laboratory and considered it a 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.200 place for daring, bold experiments in educational reforms, which he 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.680 hoped would spare all of Germany and then the world 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.360 beyond what he called the sluggish, the sluggish organism of 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.120 public education. Now, he believed the key to reforming public 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.840 education was to recognize that the individual personality of the 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.280 child could not be developed in isolation with Pew builds 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.680 quietly taking information and taking in tests. Instead, what was 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.640 needed was a living community of adults and children working 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.320 together to develop each other. The odin Bold School was 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.520 a democratic learning institution uh students and teachers had equal 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.600 votes on the school council, and Paul Gieb's words quote, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.000 the authority of the teacher is replaced by the authority 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.880 of those who together represent the idea of the school. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.720 This authority is heated by adults as much as by children. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.600 That's the that's theity this is based on. Now, it 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.320 sounds like it could work. Now, Obviously the adults are, 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.680 you know, the more experienced and mature individuals, and so 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.040 they were seen as having the responsibility to guide their 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.920 students towards knowledge, but they weren't in charge of them 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.600 in the authoritarian way typical and most of the world 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.440 at the time, as Paul said, to be governed is 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.800 completely unknown in our school, for it as a community 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:54.360 without superiors, a school without a director, stuff, a school 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.480 disappears without I mean, it's funny when you started talking 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.680 about this new school he made, I'm like, uh oh, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.560 he's starting to sound like he's getting a bit of 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.480 a god complex here, where he's almost been like, nah, 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.040 this is where the new ship is happening, and I'm 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:13.080 completely changing everything and it's me yeah, you know, at 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.080 least on paper. Uh, it sounds like it's kind of 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.320 a mix of that, because like he's definitely saying the 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.680 whole system needs to be torn down, and but he's 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.080 also um saying that, like we as a learning community, 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:25.800 you are going to figure out what works better, because 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:29.640 that's the real way to to to to spur innovation. Now, 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.120 I I've had a bunch of details on the organization 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.160 of the olden Vulge School. In a nineteen two article 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.720 by Henry Casseer, who was a nephew of Paul Geheb's 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:41.920 who attended the olden Vulge school as a child, and 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.360 here's what he said. He therefore introduced a new structure 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.440 into the lesson plan, the Curse system. It's essential feature 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.280 was that for a period of one month, each child 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.760 had to choose courses in three subjects each time daily 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.320 for eleven hours. This made it possible for the student 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.720 to concentrate on intensive studies in limited fields. Other subjects 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.400 were been taken up during subsequent periods. The emphysis and 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.119 teaching was less on learning facts than upon learning to 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.119 learn to work independently, to study and to understand. Another 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.440 feature of the Curse system was that the children were 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.680 to be gathered in study groups according to their level 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.560 of maturity and knowledge, rather than according to age groups. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:17.920 Thus a child might find himself with older children and 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:19.720 one subject for which he was gifted, but with the 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.800 younger children and another subject where he had little previous schooling. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.600 That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it sounds about 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:31.400 right balanced, like people around your intellectual level and whatnot. Now, 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.880 Paul was critical of gender segregation, which was very much 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.240 common in German public schools at the time. The olden 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.080 Vold School did not segregate students by gender. It was 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.960 divided into families. Each family run by a teacher who 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.479 helped guide the children. Families consisted of both boys and girls, 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.080 because he believed it was critical to human development to 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.280 have gender integration. Before his career as an educator, he'd 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.680 been a militant crusader for women's emancipation. His forty four 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.520 page application to the Imperial German government to start the 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.600 oden Vall School had included thirty pages on the importance 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:07.240 of gender integration. He wrote, co education means joyfully to 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.560 affirm the polarity of the sexes in both theory and 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.120 practice and attitude and living, to integrate pedagogically the rich 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.320 sources of wealth it produces into all fields of life 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.600 and culture, and to apply them fruitfully to the development 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.200 of the child, which is pretty welk for nineteen ten. Yeah, 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.760 I mean, yeah, I just I don't know. I know 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.480 what this show is, yea, And what you said earlier, 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.720 and now I'm might like now I'm starting to see 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.760 the chess moves. Yeah you what what what what do 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.359 you what do you mean by that? Well? You said 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:43.520 you were alluding to some kind of abuse, And I 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.359 just feel like in any sort of predatory situation, like 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.240 a predator is looking for the most target rich environment, 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:58.840 and and advocating for integration means many children of both genders. 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:01.719 And I just I don't know, I'm just I just 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.080 know there's a turn. I've done this showing up with you, 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.800 and then I'm gonna start dry heaving and being disgusted 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.159 because humanity is just a gigantic waste pile. Uh. But 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.159 go on, I'm waiting with you. Put a put a 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.920 pin in that target rich environment. Than we'll come back 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:21.199 to that later. Uh. Yeah. So Paul, Paul's a reformer, uh, 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:22.800 and he thinks that this is going to act as 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.159 like a laboratory to help figure out the way schools 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.080 in Germany should work in the future. And you know 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.919 it's it's it's on paper. It seems like a noble 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.720 pursuit here, like you can't really say, you know, objectively, 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.680 I understand what this person is going for. Yeah. Now, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.480 Paul School was as successful as it was revolutionary. Over 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:43.560 its first years. It would educate men who came to 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.639 be some of the finest artistic and philosophical minds in Germany. Klaussman, 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.160 Thomas Man's son went to the Odenwald School. So did 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.240 Hans Beth, winner of the nineteen sixty seven Nobel Prize 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.399 for Physics. I could go on, but most of the 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.000 famous alumni are German famous, so their names are not 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.480 particularly well known to most listeners. Were trying a lot 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.480 of famous German thinkers who came from here. I only 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.200 wrote down the two, but there's a whole list of them, 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.639 and they're all very German sounding. Um. Now. By the 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.320 time the late nineteen twenties rolled around, the Odenwald School 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.000 had developed an international reputation as one of the finest 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:23.480 centers of learning and all of your bad yeah yeah, yeah, 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.359 pretty cool. Now. Paul wrote and spoke eloquently on the 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.679 rights of children, and his speeches are filled with quotes 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.920 like this. There is no greater miracle among the inexhaustible 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.640 miracles of creation, which in the strictest sense is unlimited 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:37.600 in its richness, than the miraculous fact that nature dispenses 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.320 its seed every day with generous amplitude, and that not 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.520 one of its fruits is exactly the equal of the other. 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.240 The younger the child, the more we enjoy it because 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:51.080 we rejoice in the wealth of individuality and originality. What. Yeah, 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.240 that could go a couple of ways, couldn't it. Wait, 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.960 I don't know what's the richness part. That's a great question, Miles. 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.320 I mean, you know, the charitable undertaking of the is 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.280 that you know, younger children haven't had their individuality beaten 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.399 out of them as much by this this harsh German 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.840 system that we that we live in designed to produce 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.960 you know, soldiers and factory workers. And so it's a 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:13.480 joy to spend time with with young children because you 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.600 can really just cultivate their individuality and all that stuff. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:18.160 So that that's one way you could take. It's weird 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.399 because ones like yeah, before they're completely indoctrinated with like 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.440 societal expectations, they still have that purity, that innocence. And 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.320 also you can mold them too, like they're more pliable 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.160 at this age, like they're they're they're malleable in terms 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:36.280 of how they're looking at the world and things like that. 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.640 I Mean, it's funny because the first part I get 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:40.560 because a lot of people like, if you're into any 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.679 kind of spiritual texts and things like that always refer to. 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:46.440 You know, when you're a child, you're sort of at 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.680 this level of consciousness where you can observe many things 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.320