Comparison of the Impact of Schools in Germany and America During Wwi

To what extent did schools EITHER prepare communities for war leading up to 1914 OR help maintain community morale during the Great War? (Choose one option and use examples from two different countries in your answer).

In many ways schools were an aid to the Government in maintaining community morale during the Great War. However, the extent to which they could fulfill this role was limited by the lack of teachers and teacher support for the war, as well as the need for children to take over jobs that were left vacant by men who enlisted. This essay will use specific examples from America and Germany to show the different ways schools approached their role as promoters of the war with the aim of questioning how effective they were able to be.

German children’s initial idea of the war was shaped by the war pedagogy in their schools. Teaching changed significantly from a practice which aimed to create hard-working young people to one which emphasized patriotism and the war itself.^[1] Once the war had begun children were told to study maps and keep reading the newspaper reports. They were also highly encouraged to do volunteer work to help support their community and their country.^[2] In the context of the classroom, the environment children learned in also changed – propaganda posters, maps, photos and drawings related to the war covered the walls and made school a far more exciting place.^[3] 

The war was at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but on the home front its pressures were especially felt by the older boys who knew that in a few years they would have to join the military. Secondary schools drilled this idea into their students by making military training part of the boys’ curriculum.^[4] German schools implemented elements of the war into every aspect of their schooling, for example, in 1916 new mathematics books were printed called ‘Kriegsrechenaufgaben’^[5] [War Calculation Tasks] which contained calculations relating to the strength of soldiers, how many supplies they would need, etc. This constant exposure to the war excited children in Germany and caused them to become patriotic and happy to help with the war effort. This emotion can be seen in the short essay ‘Des Kriegers Abschied’ written by a German schoolchild during the war, who believed that Germany would emerge victorious purely because they were surrounded by propaganda that said they would be.^[6]

As well as adaptions to the school curriculum, schools kept up morale by freeing up space for others in their community. Schools became key locations from which food stamps were given out and over half of German classrooms were reserved for military use for the duration of the war.^[7] However, having such little available space to teach in also had adverse effects on the ability of schools to boost the morale of the children in their community.

By the end of the war, school-aged children were spending 12 hours a week in school.^[8] A number of factors lead to this decrease, including the previously mentioned lack of space. The loss of farmers to the military meant that children were needed to work on farms rather than go to school during the summer months and the lack of coal meant that during the coldest parts of winter children stayed home by the fire.^[9] Full time employment was another factor keeping children out of school; by 12 or 13 a lot of children had jobs.  Some of the older boys were employed by reserve officers to collect money and other objects that were useful for the military or the poor.^[10] This lack of consistent schooling also lead to an increase in children skipping class; in Cologne this number increased by 33% from 1914-1918.^[11] All of these factors limited the influence that schools had over the morale of children in their community.