Time machine: 125th birth anniversary of Martin Wagenschein

Martin Wagenschein was born on 3 December 1896 in Giessen, where he graduated from high school in 1914. During the First World War he served in the Red Cross and studied mathematics, physics and geography at Giessen University. In 1918 he continued his studies at the University of Freiburg and passed the Staatsexamen in February 1920. As early as July 1920, Wagenschein completed his doctorate: An experimental investigation of the resonance of a sphere in a vibrating mass of liquid and gas. In 1920/21 he held an assistant position at the Physics Institute of the University of Giessen. From 1921 to 1923 he trained as a teacher in Darmstadt, Worms, Friedberg, Gießen and Bad Nauheim, and in 1923 he passed the second Staatsexamen for higher education. Between 1924 and 1933 Wagenschein was on leave from the civil service and taught at the Odenwald School founded by Paul Geheeb – a time that had a lasting impact on his pedagogy.

From 1933 to 1957 Wagenschein worked in the school service in the Darmstadt area. Although he had been a member of the NS People's Welfare Association and the NS Teachers' Association since 1933, and a member of the NSDAP since 1938, he was classified as “exonerated” by the Denazification board of October 28, 1947. “By practice he empowered his students to judge and thus favored their independent thinking in every respect. …His pedagogic papers prove that he resisted by consequence and prudence.”

In 1957 Wagenschein was given early retirement from teaching so that he could devote himself entirely to teacher training. Between 1949 and 1963 he taught “Psychology of Natural Scientific Knowledge” at the Pedagogical Institute in Jugenheim and between 1963 and 1972 “Didactics of the Exact Sciences” at the Frankfurt University of Education and Goethe University. In 1956 he received an honorary professorship at the University of Tübingen.

Wagenschein had a particularly long and close relationship with the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt: for 35 years, from 1952 to 1987, he held a lectureship in “Practical Pedagogy” and taught many generations of students from all disciplines. The TH honoured his work in 1978 by awarding him an honorary doctorate. Wagenschein died on 3 April 1988 in Trautheim.

Reformed and interdisciplinary pedagogical methods

Martin Wagenschein defended himself against a one-sided instruction of pupils that ultimately only produced an illusory science. In his view, school teaching oriented towards understanding the (natural) sciences can only succeed if it uses concrete examples typical of science in the form of Socratic conversation and, starting from natural phenomena, allows knowledge to emerge and become knowledge – he calls it “genetic-Socratic-exemplary teaching and learning”. He tested his method as a teacher in various types of schools and taught it to prospective teachers. A special concern of his was always thinking beyond subject boundaries, which made him a pioneer of interdisciplinarity.

Wagenschein had stipulated in his will that his extensive scientific estate should be kept at the Ecole d'Humanité in Switzerland, founded by Geheeb and his wife in 1934, where the Wagenschein couple were frequent guests. Like the Geheeb estate, the Wagenschein archive could be partially indexed there. After the school no longer felt able to adequately care for the bequests, the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt received the Geheeb bequest as a donation (fonds: HStAD O 37). In spring 2021, and thus in the year of his 125th birthday, the TU Darmstadt received the Wagenschein estate as a donation. Wagenschein's lecture notes, offprints, correspondence, photos, photo albums and books have been catalogued in the University Archives since November 2021 and will be available to researchers and teachers at TU Darmstadt as well as the interested public.