BLL, the spice of the central Abitur?

Hesse 2009, the Ministry of Education is under criticism in terms of school policy, errors in the central Abitur, teacher shortages, etc. are controversially discussed in public. At this point, the author is allowed to report on what he believes to be a positive aspect of the central Abitur, the BLL mentioned in the headline.

What is that? Even when written out as Special learning achievement, this term is meaningless. According to the education server of the Ministry of Education, the BLL is a special component of the Hessian central high school diploma that can alternatively replace an oral examination subject, if the student in question wishes. In this type of examination, the student works on a special topic over a period of about a year, specifying the method of preparation himself, agreeing it with his trusted teacher and documenting it in a portfolio. Ultimately, the written work, the portfolio in question and an oral colloquium lasting (about) 30 minutes are what are relevant for the examination. In the current trial phase, the detailed implementation regulations are determined by the respective school. A small special feature: participants in recognized youth competitions can submit their work as a BLL under certain conditions.

That’s the theory, but in practice it looks a little different. Due to the good placement in the Hessian Youth Research competition, the author was able to submit his contribution “Do musicians really hear worse” as a BLL in the high school diploma assessment. The fourfold number of points was to be included as the fourth examination subject in the final assessment. What initially seemed temptingly simple turned out to be tricky. The special, prescribed form of the Jufo paper did not fit into the BLL scheme at all, initial attempts at direct adaptation were not very promising, and further investigations with new findings made the process even more difficult. So the author decided to redesign the concept. This resulted in a version tailored specifically to the BLL, which required an additional workload of around 300 hours. Great importance was attached to the portfolio mentioned above in order to document the workload in detail. Some well-known experts familiar with the subject matter kindly proofread it and did not hold back on constructive criticism regarding the formal requirements of a term paper. The paper was handed over to the guidance counselor on time, who in turn proofread it and suggested some improvements to various formulations. The paper was certainly a challenge for the three examiners. The measurements and their evaluation were carried out using strict legal standards and methods that are outside the scope of experience of high school teachers. Based on the detailed questions following the exam presentation, it was clear that they had worked deeply into the subject matter, which is certainly a great achievement in the stressful time of the final exam. The author sees this as a special recognition for which he is very grateful, as any triviality was avoided and the grade - significantly better than average - was not given, but honestly earned.

For the author, his BLL was a profound experience that he will not soon forget. In terms of self-assessment, discipline and organization, just to mention a few points, it was a tough, good school, and it was particularly wonderful to work with recognized experts, even if it showed that there is a world of difference between academic and professional research.

Anhang

 
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