Audience Award for Teaching with Humour
11/18/2025Two students from the University of Würzburg have won the audience award in a competition organised by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. They were honoured for their short film about types of teachers.
An audience award was presented for the first time at this year's F+X Award organised by the Karl Schlecht Foundation. The winners come from Würzburg: the student team impressed the more than 200 guests at the KSG FORUM 2025 with their short film "Teaching with humour" and beat ten other entries by a clear majority.
Humorous Typology of Teachers
Lena Kostales and Lidia Znidar showed how creatively and reflectively future teachers think about leadership with their humorous short film project. The award-winning film portrays different types of teachers in the classroom with subtle comedy and acting skills.
With a tongue-in-cheek look at everyday school life, the Würzburg team shows how humour can act as a leadership quality - connecting, relaxing and inspiring. The audience particularly appreciated the creative realisation and the pointed portrayal of pedagogical situations.
Cooperative Seminar
The short film was created as part of the block seminar "Designing teaching and leadership creatively - short film production for student teachers". A special feature of the seminar is the cooperation between the Professional School of Education (PSE) with its project "Teachers as Changemakers" (TaC) and its "Competence Centre for Digital Teaching and Learning" (digiLLabs) with the Karl Schlecht Foundation (KSG).
PSE provides the impetus for social entrepreneurship education and teaching with media, which frames the content of the creative work and combines it with future skills. The Karl Schlecht Foundation supported the students with the entire film and technical realisation, from storyboarding and camera work to editing and project management.
The teaching format is an example of how future-oriented teacher training works at the University of Würzburg: practical, creative and value-orientated.
Award Ceremony at the KSG FORUM
The award ceremony took place on 28 October 2025 as part of the KSG FORUM in Filderstadt. In addition to the audience award, three jury awards were presented: to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Ludwigsburg University of Education. The Würzburg contribution was celebrated as the "audience's favourite" and received much applause for its original perspective on leadership in the education sector.
The Karl Schlecht Foundation (KSG) has been supporting projects in the fields of education, ethics and personal development since 1998. With the FÜHRUNG+X initiative, it creates creative spaces for dealing with leadership issues - particularly in the school and university context. The F+X Award annually honours student commitment and the combination of professionalism and attitude.
Outlook: R+X attitude as the New Annual Theme
For the coming year 2026, the foundation has announced the new topic of R+X Attitude. The focus will be on the question of how personal attitude shapes leadership - with values such as responsibility, integrity and empathy. The next F+X Award will also be based on this theme and will once again recognise creative contributions from the university landscape.
The Professional School of Education is once again taking part as part of the "Teachers as Changemakers" project. This time it is co-operating with the Didactics of Politics and Society. Sabine Kehr (Politics and Society) and Dr Angelika Füting-Lippert (PSE) are offering two seminars in the 2026 summer semester on "Haltung zeigen (in der Schule)! A filmic examination".
In addition to the alleged neutrality requirement of teachers, which is much discussed in social media, the content will focus on action concepts and core practices for attitudes in the classroom. Co-operation with integration classes is also planned for implementation, as well as with associations that support dropouts or have developed concepts for teaching values relating to fundamental rights (constitutional quarter-hour).
Anyone interested in the seminar can register here: pse@uni-wuerzburg.de.
Links
Information on the competition
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