sOs – school WITHOUT school („Schule OHNE Schule“) means for us learning in society. That implies leaving the school building: Out of the classroom, on streets, in parks and on squares. Instead of curriculum and authority figures, we dealt with self-organised discussions, decisions and actions. Learning in and as society also means cooperation in heterogeneous (learning) groups. Together with students* from the 5th to 9th grade of the Gemeinschaftsschule West and Uhland-Gymnasium we explored Tübingen in March and April 2018.
The sOs project consisted of an action research process in three parts: planning, research and action phase. In the planning phase we got to know each other and tools for self-organisation. The research phase consisted of surveys in public space, subjective mappings of learning places in Tübingen, and exploring the perspectives of different social groups: We discussed over coffee and cake in a old people’s home, we talked over a barbecue in the asylum centre, we had a group meeting in an autonomous centre and exchanged ideas over breakfast in the unemployment office. We used the collected experiences for a reflection about possibilities of extracurricular (self-)education. During the action phase, we transferred these findings as slogans to banners and to the mural “Dancing out of line” at the Schlossberg tunnel entrance, on the axis between the Gemeinschaftsschule-West and the Uhland-Gymnasium. There we organized a festival in public space on the last day of the project to share the results of the project, to get into conversation with passers-by and to free the classes of the participating schools.
