Mr. Gademann, you head the institute on the Rosenberg in St. Gallen. Your institute has been around for quite a while. What is left of this time?
We have been around since 1889. Of course, a few things have changed, but what has remained the same is the internationality. Children, young people from all over the world come together here to live in a community. My great-grandfather was a pioneer of individual education. We think there is no one concept that fits everyone. But every person is unique and every person has different strengths and weaknesses. The absolute majority of our parents are entrepreneurs and they want an entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial creation, creative activity.
Most parents are self-employed and very successful. The Rosenberg is a very elite boarding school. What does elite mean to you?
For us, elite means that someone who has the knowledge, ability and experience to take on responsibility is also willing to take on this responsibility for others. In this context we have no problem with the word. We have a problem with the word “elite” because it divides society and it says, “Elite, they’re the ones up there and they’re completely disconnected from reality.” That’s not our approach. We are often asked whether the children who come to us are spoiled. No, they’re not, because they’re in an environment where they can’t set themselves apart through bragging or their parents.
After all, the price of the training already sorts out many students. A year on the Rosenberg costs around 140,000 francs.
Our students are certainly privileged. But every student at a German state school is also privileged compared to a child who goes to a village school in a developing country, for example. Privilege is not a problem as long as one is aware of the privilege. Privilege becomes a problem when you’re not aware of it, and I think that’s how it is in traditional public schools. People there are dissatisfied and not aware that they are actually extremely privileged compared to large parts of the world population.
Unlike when it was founded in 1889, there are now international schools in every major city. And yet you claim to be something special.
There are many international boarding schools, but very few are truly international. We consciously ensure that individual nationalities do not dominate. When selecting the students, we make sure that we have a good mix. Later on, the students go back to their home countries, maybe after their studies, but they have learned that there are different approaches to solving a problem, that there are different cultures, that you belong to one culture and that you can go to other cultures must invest.
All these children come to you in Switzerland. The boarding school always has the reputation that the children are a nuisance at home and are pushed away.
These prejudices exist, but mainly in continental Europe. In other countries, a boarding school is the norm. And as you pointed out, it’s not a cheap education. Someone who wants to deport their children does not have to spend 140,000 francs a year. Our parents send their children to us out of conviction, because they want the kind of education we offer and because they can’t get this education for their children anywhere else. We would also notice something like this in the selection process. We do not accept children who are unhappy with this decision.
Boarding school is always a loss of family…
And a step into a life of your own. Children not only perceive this change as a separation, they also see opportunities. You will find a community and new friends. Children also appreciate this independence. When you give a young person the chance to take responsibility for themselves, they really enjoy it. Our students are happy that we respect them and that we take them seriously. Your ideas, your thoughts, your concepts.
What distinguishes the Rosenberg from the state schools?
State schools have moved away from their original ideals. At the moment it’s just a matter of conveying a ready-made concept to as large a group as possible. You work towards exams, but that also means that the content of the exam is the actual curriculum. We don’t want to convey anything from a dusty course book. The world is evolving so fast these days, we want our education to be relevant, that’s why we write our own learning content. If you have an idea for a great course with us, we can get that course into the classroom within a few days. In the traditional education system, you present your idea to a committee, then it is fine-tuned, then there are political considerations, then a course book is written, and then it is communicated. Then you need to invite the faculty to train them for that course. This means that 10 years have passed before the great idea reaches the pupil in the classroom.
It’s easy to say our course is great, the state school is dusty. What does that actually look like?
Our main point: We are moving away from simulation. In traditional schools, 99.9 percent of teaching is an abstract simulation of reality.
Do you mean tasks that allude to reality but remain in the world of course books and classrooms? So the learning as a 12-year practice in dry swimming?
Exactly, nothing ever happens in real life. If you write an essay, it will be corrected and then it will be filed. We want the school to come into a real-life context. We can do this with partnerships. We work with Boston Dynamics with ETH Zurich. We work with different startups, we have a new project with a school in Soweto, South Africa. Our students work on projects that are relevant. Then the lessons automatically become exciting and teach skills that are needed today. An example: We are working with YASAI, a spin-off from the Technical University (ETH) Zurich, on concepts for vertical gardens. It’s about sustainable food production. Our students in grades 6-8 met with the designers, became familiar with the concept of these gardens and then created their own vertical garden model. The design was made using 3D printers and then installed. Artificial intelligence measures whether the water has the right nutrient content. So many aspects from mathematics to art, design to biology and the natural sciences flow together in one project. This allows our students to work on small problems that concern the whole world on a large scale. It also shows them that the world is not divided into school subjects. Students learn on their own how to work in teams if they want to make a difference. They learn that it’s okay to ask questions. But also that you can make mistakes and then have to take a step back.
And that doesn’t happen enough in traditional schools?
We also see ourselves as an incubator for ideas and concepts and we believe that the majority of these can actually be implemented in any school. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in Frankfurt am Main or in Peru. It’s a matter of attitude. You have to be willing to take risks and we know the classical teacher and classical schools don’t like to take risks. Officials are seldom “risk takers” and the project I have just described involves a great deal of risk. In the beginning nobody knows, not even the teacher, what exactly the final product will be and how to get there. That’s why it’s an exciting process.
Such processes accompany your teachers. They also call them artisans – i.e. artists of education. Who becomes a teacher at the Rosenberg?
We read our teachers by hand. Selecting the right specialists is a very intensive process, it’s not just about expertise, it’s mainly about recruitment. The teacher in the classroom is also essentially an entrepreneur. He must be able to act with the students in every situation. You can’t stick to a plan or a book with us. An example: you are discussing the DNA, i.e. genetics, then a student says, I know the beat and rhythm of the individual sequences from music lessons. At that moment, when a student is interested, producing an important transfer performance, you have to be able to pause and respond to it. A teacher is a master of life, he must have the intuition, the specialist knowledge, the self-confidence to be able to go into something like this in this moment and to support this connection of the concepts. You can’t give up responsibility on the Rosenberg. If something doesn’t work, you can’t blame the curriculum or unmotivated students. All these excuses, that’s something we don’t accept here. Being a good teacher is a calling and our teachers excel in every way. Our teachers enjoy their job because it is what they always wanted when they chose the profession. Those who work for us don’t want to work in an encrusted system, they want to make a difference.
Her teaching is therefore more holistic, practical and seeks solutions to real problems. Where do you see the difference between the state schools and your facility within the framework of the institution?
When there is monopoly there is no innovation and I think that is the problem with public schools. The content diverges more and more from reality because it is no longer up to date. This is a major crisis, but there is never enough fundamental discussion. No one asks, “Why are we even here?” I’m afraid the traditional schools are now there for their own sake. The aim of an apprenticeship should be to support healthy, cheerful, knowledge-thirsty, creative people in their development so that they can later be successful and content. And in my opinion, this goal has been completely lost sight of. How much is it about benchmarks these days, about tests where the result of the tasks is certain from the outset? Writing an exam is a skill that is much less needed in life today than ever before. Schools would have to accept that what is being taught today is irrelevant, that it doesn’t work. The teachers are dissatisfied, the parents are dissatisfied, the students anyway. Nobody is actually satisfied and yet it goes on like this every day. That’s crazy.
Are you saying that an institute like yours cannot exist if parents and students are dissatisfied and the teachers are frustrated?
We on the Rosenberg have to constantly think about where the opportunities are, how we can develop further, what the parents want, what the students want, on which part of the bank they want to get on our boat and where they want to get off again. Only a monopoly-like administrative structure can afford to ignore such requests and say, we get so many students a year and then they somehow just flow through.
The cult of exams and comparable test results is very important today. There are benchmarks that put every school in a global competition. This makes “education” measurable and comparable. But you say that’s of no use to the students?
We’re getting strong feedback from colleges and from employers saying that what’s being taught in traditional schools isn’t enough and it takes years to “unlearn” it. What you teach students, these patterns of behavior that are conditioned in schools are counterproductive. You have to start all over again to value people. Ask what is your opinion? Or show them how important it is to take a risk. But exams in which the keywords of an expectation horizon have to be ticked off are complete nonsense. You have to consider how much human strength and self-confidence is lost along the way. No wonder there are so many unhappy people. One of our approaches is to give the students the chance to create something with their own abilities. To be happy, to realize I’m human, I can do something. This happens when students realize that a project can be implemented in real life.
But you can’t do without a test and grades either. Your students also want to study and they need the points in these tests.
Despite our approach and philosophy, we know that our students need top marks in external exams. We know that we have to achieve both, because without the top grades everything that is important to us doesn’t help much. It may be different in a few decades, but this standardized testing will be with us for a while. However, it is a wrong way. These are all tasks that computers can already solve today. Which any computer can answer ten times better. That cannot be the approach of education. There is a great risk that we will continue to provide education in traditional schools that is now completely obsolete. And it will only get worse in the future as machines take on more and more tasks.
Isn’t problem-solving thinking promoted in schools instead of learning by heart? This will probably not convince you, because this is also queried with a standard test with ready-made answers.
If you paint black stripes on a gray horse, it still isn’t a zebra. That’s a template, here are eight points that supposedly lead to problem solving. Nobody asks if this really prepares students better for life and if they can solve real problems. For teaching based on the results of standardized tests, there are already teaching programs with artificial intelligence. They do a better job than your average teacher. The artificial intelligence focuses on each student and quickly notices who needs more support in which area. A teacher cannot do that with 25 students. I dare say that the more a school prepares for standardized tests, the sooner this technique will replace the traditional teacher. There are already examples of this from the South American jungle, where no teachers are available for remote villages. There, students learn exclusively with computer programs and they achieve better test results than their peers in cities who attend classes. That’s why we say our teachers must bring something into education that a computer program cannot.
If AI programs lead to better results in standardized tests, shouldn’t that also lead to a reversal in the state school system?
I fear the opposite will happen. Human labor is expensive. The temptation is great to employ fewer teachers and more programs. In Germany, the costs of attending school are financed through tax revenues, internationally it is different. The parents will say that the children don’t really have to come to class anymore. We are now doing this at home with AI, because the top universities also accept these standards. If parents are more satisfied with the service provided by the AI than with a teacher, and the results prove they are right, it is difficult to discuss. There will be fundamental changes coming to schools and those that are not adaptable enough, which is probably most traditional schools, will have an existential problem. In a highly cost-oriented education system, your current task of “exam preparation” will be moved to the cloud. This is a shock rolling towards the state education system, even if they don’t want to admit it yet.
