Am 3. Dezember 2020 besuchte uns RTL Hessen. Nach Veröffentlichung des Podcasts bei HR-iNFO hatte auch der Fernsehsender großes Interesse, unsere StoneApp kennenzulernen und vorzustellen.
Entstanden ist ein wirklich sehr schöner Beitrag. Herzlichen Dank an die Reporter Pascal Wede und Tim Ellrich – und großes Kompliment an Aaron, Jan, Eberhard Wieth und Bernd Holly für den perfekten Auftritt!
Steinmühle Marburg e.V. (Steinmühle) and the German Institute for the Blind (blista) are expanding and strengthening their collaboration in the area of sports programs for blind, visually impaired, and sighted students.
“With the partnership we entered into today, we are laying the groundwork to expand competitive sports programs at both schools and to demonstrate that children and young people with and without disabilities can compete on equal footing, even in competitive sports,” explains Egon Vaupel, chairman of Steinmühle.
“The children and teenagers at our two schools have been participating in joint sports classes and activities for many years. The experiences have been consistently positive,” explains blista Director Claus Duncker. “It’s not pity or forced friendliness that makes the difference, but the desire to train together and work hard together—with everyone and all the human emotions that go along with it: hopes, joy, disappointments, encounters, and friendships.”
The new alliance for inclusive competitive sports is built on a strong conceptual foundation. According to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, children and adolescents have the right to an education that is geared toward the development of their whole personality. Both schools attach particular importance to the potential of sports for the personal development of their students. For many years, Steinmühle has been known for its excellent training conditions, particularly for high-performance rowing; blista serves as the state training center for judo and blind soccer, as well as the Paralympic training center for goalball. Starting this year, blista has also implemented a program that enables ambitious young athletes to pursue a successful individual academic path as part of a “dual career” while simultaneously supporting their development in competitive sports.
Based on the experiences at both schools, sports bring young people together in an inclusive way and thus also shape the cultural life of our society.
Photo: Signing of the contract: Egon Vaupel, Chairman of Steinmühle, and Claus Duncker, Chairman of blista.
School, boarding school, and strong networks enable new activities in inclusive sports
Plenty of exercise in the fresh air and lots of fun for young people with and without disabilities—that’s what the new soccer golf course on the Steinmühle grounds has to offer. The 12-station course is designed for use in inclusive sports. That’s why the soccer team from the Kerstin-Heim and soccer-loving families from fib—the association for promoting the inclusion of people with disabilities—attended the opening ceremony. Together with members of the Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb and Steinmühle, they immediately set out to explore the individual challenges.
“Hesse has never seen such diversity before,” said Anne Effe enthusiastically. The Special Olympics regional coordinator for Hesse had traveled there specifically for the opening ceremony. Egon Vaupel expressed his gratitude to her in his brief speech. The chairman of the Steinmühle Marburg School Association also thanked Marc Mercurio and the Hessian State Sports Federation for their financial support. He emphasized the collaboration among individual institutions on this project, noting that the partnership formed a year ago between Steinmühle and the Blau-Gelb Marburg Sports Club was a key component of it.
Vaupel explained that, under normal circumstances, the course would be completed in groups of five made up of participants from all participating institutions. “Unfortunately, due to pandemic-related regulations, this is not possible at the moment, so the groups of five will remain separate,” he explained to the guests, among whom was Verena Gottmann from the Culture and Sports Department of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district.
There are still too few Unified teams, Vaupel said. That makes it all the more wonderful to launch this initiative in Marburg. “But this can only work as a team,” emphasized the school association president, whose networking skills once again came into their own in this matter.
The focus is on social skills
The idea for the soccer-golf course came from Bernd Holly, one of the two principals at Steinmühlen School: “Our goal was to promote sportsmanship and teamwork, free from the pressure to perform.” In inclusive sports, he explained, teaching and results take a back seat. The focus is instead on acquiring and applying social skills within a team where young people with and without disabilities participate together. The plan is for one or two Steinmühlen students to always be on hand to assist those who need support due to their disabilities as they navigate the course.
“It’s wonderful that we can present this facility today,” said Michael Neirich, the school’s athletic director at Steinmühle, with delight. “We’re inaugurating 12 stations today; eventually, there will be 18.” A unique feature of the facility is that it was designed by students at Steinmühle. The future advanced sports class from 11th grade and their teacher, Mirko Radatz, invested many hours in developing and designing the course. The course elements are weather-resistant; some can be set up and taken down within ten minutes; they can also be used individually for recess sports and, for example, at the Steinmühle Bilingual Elementary School. The high school students provided a description of all the course stations and a “score card” on which all participants’ results can be recorded. The course details alone would provide enough material for another report.
Sascha Huhn had the hardest shot
“If everyone is having fun, diving right into the activities, and the facility can be used in a variety of ways, then we’ve done something right,” Dirk Konnertz concluded. As a former active soccer player and coach, the managing director of the Schulverein Steinmühle Marburg e.V. couldn’t resist taking a shot at the goal wall. The best performance at this station—where shot speed can be measured electronically—was achieved on the day of the inauguration by 23-year-old Sascha Huhn, with a shot speed of 118 kilometers per hour. The student is a winger for Blau-Gelb and a former Steinmühle student.
In collaboration with the organization “Hilfe für Sibiu/Hermannstadt,” the last chalkboards left the Steinmühle during the summer break on a fully loaded 40-metric-ton truck headed for Sibiu—as part of an aid shipment for our Romanian sister city.
The next shipment to Sibiu will include 37 school backpacks in good condition for our new fifth-graders. Principal Bernd Holly has been actively supporting the school backpack drive organized by the Marburg Children’s and Youth Parliament (KiJuPa) for years. The campaign provides school backpacks to children who cannot afford them, while also taking a stand against waste and promoting greater sustainability.
During a visit to the Steinmühle campus, Hans-Jürgen Schneider, chairman of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Tennis Association, found ideal conditions for tennis: The boarding school maintains the courts and thus the necessary infrastructure. Schneider’s suggestion to get young Steinmühlen students excited about tennis was well received by Principal Björn Gemmer. The school then surveyed interest in the “white sport” among elementary school students and those in grades 5 and 6.
The call for participants generated such a strong response that, since the beginning of September, 16 elementary school students have been training on Wednesdays from 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m., followed by 19 fifth- and sixth-graders from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Three coaches are available to work with the children: Patrick Voyé is provided by the tennis association, and former Steinmühlen students Nina and Tom Horn assist him.
The opportunity to use the tennis courts for school clubs is yet another sign of the successful collaboration between the school and the Steinmühle boarding school. The administrators at Steinmühle—and, of course, Hans-Jürgen Schneider as the initiator—hope that the students will enjoy tennis so much that they will join a tennis club in the local tennis district and make the sport a lifelong hobby.
During the summer break, the last classrooms and special-purpose rooms at Steinmühle were also equipped with interactive multi-touch displays. These have replaced (almost) all of the remaining chalkboards, which were donated by Steinmühle and shipped to Marburg’s sister city, Sibiu, in Romania.
Following the decision by the school administration and management to replace all remaining chalkboards with modern interactive whiteboards offering a wider range of features, Principal Bernd Holly contacted Carola von Winterfeldt, the chairwoman of the “Hilfe für Sibiu” association. She was delighted by Steinmühle’s offer and arranged for the blackboards, which had been temporarily stored in the schoolyard, to be loaded onto the impressive 40-metric-ton truck for the summer transport to Sibiu.
Hanna Schmidt-Dege (8a) and Teresa Dinges (7b), students at Steinmühle School, also helped load the eleven well-preserved chalkboards and seven projectors; they have been involved with the Sibiu Aid project for several years and have already accompanied a trip to Sibiu once before. As a result, they know Marburg’s sister city firsthand.
The last two chalkboards from the Steinmühle are still located in the specialized learning room and in the third-grade classroom at the Bilingual Elementary School in the log cabin by the sports field, mainly for nostalgic reasons. The third-grade class is temporarily housed there until the planned completion of the Learning Center’s expansion at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the Steinmühle continues to support Sibiu. Bernd Holly is currently collecting the used elementary school backpacks from the new fifth-grade students. The backpacks will be sent to Sibiu on the next shipment this winter.
Every three years, secondary schools can apply to the Chemical Industry Fund for financial support for experimental science instruction. Steinmühle regularly applies for these grants. In the spring, another €2,500 was approved. With these funds, the school has since been able to purchase new molecular building sets and magnetic applications for modeling chemical processes and concepts, as well as additional specialized literature. With an attachment for carbon dioxide cylinders designed to compress dry ice tablets, small amounts of dry ice can now be produced right at the school. Experiments with dry ice are among the most popular activities among the students. Additional experimental materials for student experiments have also been purchased and will be gradually added in the coming weeks.
Experiments with dry ice are fascinating
Models make it easier to understand chemical structures and reactions
Smart sensors, when used in conjunction with a tablet or smartphone, enable the measurement of various parameters over time
Conductivity can be measured very easily using LEDs
For the past 25 years, bands from Marburg and the surrounding area, as well as from the sister cities of Northampton, Poitiers, Maribor, Sfax, Eisenach, and Sibiu, have been invited to Marburg for a weekend in March to play their music at the MaNo Festival in pubs and clubs. All guest bands introduce themselves to the Marburg audience with a few songs on Thursday evening.
For the first time, one of the co-organizers, Antje Schmidt, came up with the idea of announcing the bands during the concert using posters instead of a host to mark the anniversary year. A collaboration with a high school class at Steinmühle was established to design the posters.
In the art class, the “assignment” of the eleven bands was conducted just like on popular talent shows: the bands’ songs were played, and the students who were the first to press the fictional buzzer got to design the poster for that band. Decisions regarding color contrasts, brushstrokes, composition, and typography were incorporated into the concept and sketches before the art room was transformed into a painting studio.
“It’s especially the way each poster is individually tailored to the sounds and rhythms of each band that makes these student posters so appealing,” comments art teacher Ines Vielhaben. “We’re really curious to see if the musicians like our designs.”
The posters for the guest bands at the MaNo Festival will be unveiled to the bands and the audience at the Waggonhalle on Thursday.
The partnership has been in place for some time, and now the collaboration between Steinmühle and Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb has been formalized. The school and boarding school on one side, and Marburg’s largest sports club on the other, signed an agreement to that effect.
It had recently become clear that something was in the works. A large new sign at the Blau-Gelb sports field on Marburg’s Zwetschenweg highlights the partnership between Steinmühle and Blau-Gelb. “It hasn’t been up for very long,” Egon Vaupel revealed. “But we managed to get it ready in time for the press event.”
When you realize that Egon Vaupel is not only the chairman of the Steinmühle School Association but also of the Blau-Gelb soccer division, a lot of things become clearer. It explains how the approximately 1,350 club members and the 745 Steinmühle students could have overlapped. The fact that Blau-Gelb chairman Dr. Anton Schmölz is also the legal advisor to the Steinmühle School Association ties everything together. Both sides recognized areas in need of improvement that could be resolved together: more space for sports, more rooms for training, and greater variety in the sports programs offered.
A Shared Worldview
The existing common ground of openness to the world, mutual respect, and tolerance made it relatively easy to decide to collaborate, explained Principal Bernd Holly. He, Dirk Konnertz, executive director of the school association; Michael Neirich, head of school sports; and Georg Ritter, executive director of the boarding school, are pleased with the very concrete benefits and expanded offerings that come with the partnership:
Sharing Resources
In return, Steinmühle makes its sports facilities available to the BG youth soccer players during set training times, as well as its training rooms for continuing education courses for youth coaches. The beach volleyball and basketball courts may also be used. Steinmühle promotes Blau-Gelb’s summer camps, and in return, Steinmühle students can attend the camps. Joint sports festivals are also to be held on the Steinmühle grounds. Steinmühle and the sports club unanimously agreed that they want to arrange practice games between the school teams and Blau-Gelb’s youth teams in the near future. At the signing of the agreement, all parties agreed that this cooperation marks the beginning of a successful partnership.
To formally launch the cooperation agreement, the following individuals met: Egon Vaupel (Chairman of the Steinmühle Marburg School Association), Michael Neirich (School Sports Director), Bernd Holly (Principal of Steinmühle), Dr. Anton Schmölz (Chairman of Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb Marburg), Georg Ritter (Managing Director of the Steinmühle Boarding School), Dirk Konnertz (Managing Director of the Steinmühle Marburg School Association), Thomas Koch (Youth Director of Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb Marburg), and Daniel Goy (Head of the Women’s Soccer Department at Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb Marburg). Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb Marburg is the largest soccer club in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district.
Signing of the cooperation agreement between SF/BG Marburg and Steinmühle. Photo: Thorsten Richter (thr)
Signing of the cooperation agreement between SF/BG Marburg and Steinmühle. Photo: Thorsten Richter (thr)
Since 2010, Nadine Weigel, an editor at the Oberhessische Presse, has been supporting a children’s home in a suburb of Mombasa, Kenya. While conducting research for a feature story on various social projects, she came across the completely dilapidated orphanage during her trip to Africa. The journalist was confronted with dramatic scenes. Without hesitation, she decided to help right there on the spot.
What began as a spontaneous act of support that immediately saved a child’s life turned into long-term assistance. Together with several fellow activists, Nadine Weigel founded the nonprofit organization “Help for MiRO e.V.” in 2014, which she now leads as president.
Two groups of students from Steinmühle School found Nadine Weigel’s project so worthy of support that they decided to donate the proceeds from their fall festival activities to “Help for MiRO.”
Class 13d sold old geography maps that were laid out on the sports field. The maps are no longer needed, as map data is available online and displayed on screens.
The Interact Club, a Rotary-sponsored service club for children and young people, sold fruit cocktails to guests at the fall festival.
Total proceeds amounted to 625 euros, which Nadine Weigel gratefully accepted. The photo shows representatives from both groups, who were supervised by Principal Björn Gemmer. The “Interactors” can be recognized by their white polo shirts.
If you’re interested in learning more about the association’s work and its project, it’s worth taking a closer look at the website www.help-for-miro.de.
Sie haben Fragen zur Schule?
Schulleitung & Geschäftsführung
Björn Gemmer & Dirk Konnertz
Telefon: 06421 408-20
Sie haben Fragen zum Internat?
Internatsleitung & Geschäftsführung
Anke Muszynski & Dirk Konnertz
Telefon: 06421 408-0
Sie haben Fragen zur Schule?
Schulleitung & Geschäftsführung
Björn Gemmer & Dirk Konnertz
Telefon: 06421 408-20
Sie haben Fragen zum Internat?
Internatsleitung & Geschäftsführung
Anke Muszynski & Dirk Konnertz
Telefon: 06421 408-0
