The Pea newspaper The Bergtheim elementary school in the Würzburg district is a little different than many school newspapers: Instead of an entire school, the editorial team consisted of “only” one class, the 4d. Sandra Wild supervised the unusual project. She is training to become a teacher and has completed a practical module at the Erbshausen branch in order to collect material for her approval work – and to take the fear out of writing.
SZ: Ms. Wild, you created a school newspaper for and with a class. How did that happen?
Sandra Wild: Writing can be fun! But conveying this in class is sometimes difficult. So I wanted to create a positive experience.
The idea of trying to create a school newspaper can be considered unusual in the best sense of the word.
That’s true, but the class teacher, the school management and the parents reacted very positively to the suggestion. Then I thought about how I could approach the whole thing. During my research I came across the leaf making competition – and thought to myself: That’s great! That gave the whole thing a special framework. From then on, we spent several hours reading the newspaper every Friday for six weeks.
What was the first hour like?
I like reading newspapers, but some children don’t even know the print anymore, there’s so much available digitally now. So I brought different newspapers with me. Students should also bring their favorite items. When I said that we would also make a newspaper, the children were thrilled. Before that, not everyone necessarily responded positively when it came to writing. But then they realized: Oh, writing doesn’t always have to mean dictation. Through writing I can also communicate myself to the world.
The first article in the Pea newspaper is an interview with a former editor-in-chief of Main post. In it he explains what is important when making a newspaper. Was the whole thing also intended to help your students?
Yes, that’s why we all did the interview together. The children were allowed to think about the questions. The requirement was that only our interview partner could answer them. If you can easily google the answer, the question is eliminated. That worked well. In the next step, we collected article ideas, which were then implemented in groups.
How can you even imagine working with elementary school students on a newspaper? How much does the teacher do – and how much do the children do?
As a teacher, there is always a balancing act between instructing and taking a step back. Of course I corrected the spelling afterwards. But it is important that the children still recognize the texts as their own. You have to talk to each other a lot. In discussions I always remembered: What about the text you are currently writing is interesting to others? Maintaining the child’s perspective is very important.
With its cover topic “Cohesion”, the Erbsenzeitung won second place in the primary school category.
(Photo: Florian Peljak/Florian Peljak)
What else was challenging?
Among other things, the technology. We wrote a lot by hand – also because the level of knowledge about how to use a tablet varies greatly at different ages. Some people can do this naturally because they know the device from home, others have never held it in their hands. We sought outside help for the layout.
The effort was obviously worth it. The jury of last leaf making competition praised the newspaper’s motto, “cohesion” – and that the editorial team had achieved extraordinary things in exactly this way.
Oh yeah! The students not only learned that writing can be fun. They have also acquired social skills: how to vote, how to be considerate, how to give feedback. With a school newspaper there is no such thing as right or wrong; instead, you have to be creative and sort things out together. What the children gain from this cannot be measured in terms of grades.
But in prices: The Pea newspaper took second place in the competition.
Of course that made things even more special. I can only recommend that all colleagues apply to Blattmacher. I will definitely do a school newspaper project again.
What did you learn from the whole thing?
That there is so much more to children than you might see at first glance; that they achieve remarkable things when they enjoy it. You will be amazed at what a great product you end up with.