{"id":45796,"date":"2024-02-23T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2024\/02\/23\/minister-of-culture-armin-schwarz-visited-the-steinmuehle\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:37:47","slug":"minister-of-culture-armin-schwarz-visited-the-steinmuehle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2024\/02\/23\/minister-of-culture-armin-schwarz-visited-the-steinmuehle\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister of Culture Armin Schwarz visited the Steinm\u00fchle"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tour of the campus with several “highlights”<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has been in office for just one month\u2014and the new Hessian Minister of Education has already visited Steinm\u00fchle\u2014the first school in Marburg he has visited. \u201cIndependent schools, or so-called alternative schools, are a fundamental part of our educational landscape,\u201d explained Armin Schwarz as he observed various classes. <\/p>\n

In conversation with students and teachers, it was immediately apparent that the CDU politician was on familiar ground. Born in Arolsen, the minister\u2014born in 1968\u2014studied English, politics, and education in Marburg and Wolverhampton and worked as a teacher for many years before entering politics. <\/p>\n

The guest, who had not only skimmed through the information provided about the Steinm\u00fchle but had also taken it to heart, demonstrated a good understanding of the circumstances at our school. He clearly enjoyed learning in the 11th-grade profile preparation course how the school helps students make their course selections in high school. <\/p>\n

In the course led by Principal Bj\u00f6rn Gemmer, Mathilda Lambach explained the concept of the specialized upper secondary program, and Jingyi Li presented her plus-MINT research project on organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).<\/p>\n

A student reported on the option he had learned about at Steinm\u00fchle to earn his high school diploma in eight years instead of nine. This so-called \u201coption model,\u201d known as G8 or G9, is offered only at Steinm\u00fchle in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district. <\/p>\n

That’s when the English teacher walked in<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the next stop at the Bremerhaus\u2014with the 6th-grade class of the International High School track\u2014the political guest seemed to be in his element. The trained English teacher listened to a student presentation in English on \u201cAncient Rome,\u201d the Roman Empire, asked specific questions, and encouraged further contributions. The class taught by Aylin Y\u00fczg\u00fclen-Bienek focused on \u201cGlobal Perspectives,\u201d a subject that has become established in the International High School Track. Minister Armin Schwarz would certainly have spent more time in this class had a glance at his watch not reminded him of his other appointments for the day. <\/p>\n

A brief stop at the Flex B elementary school class, a quick peek inside the large new gym\u2014and then it was off to the atrium, where Anna Prokop, the 8c class, and the project-based lesson were waiting. The lesson focused on a newspaper project. Equipped with tablets and the app from the local \u201cOberhessische Presse,\u201d the students were getting an overview of what it\u2019s like to work in a newsroom. How do you edit texts? How do you assign content to specific sections? How do you manage your time when under pressure? \u201cWho among you would like to become a journalist?\u201d asked the Minister of Education, and the response was rather subdued. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the eighth graders were eager to show the visitors from Wiesbaden their project work on their mobile devices and then enthusiastically talked about their favorite projects from past school years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Took advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was finally time to catch our breath at the end of the morning\u2019s visit. In the spacious Room 615 of the Atrium, the Minister of Education, the accompanying local state parliament representative Dirk Bamberger, the leadership team\u2014Bj\u00f6rn Gemmer, Dirk Konnertz (Executive Director), and Anke Muszynski (Head of the Boarding School), as well as the entire school administration team\u2014consisting of Frank Wemme (Head of Lower Secondary School), Constanze Oestreicher-Gold (Head of Upper Secondary School), Tobias Karlein (Head of School Organization), and Dirk Lange (Head of Quality Management) gathered for canap\u00e9s, cake, and refreshments. Also present was Bianca Zenker from the executive board of the parents\u2019 association. The minister and those in attendance \u201cexchanged\u201d documents: While Armin Schwarz presented a donation to the Steinm\u00fchle Friends Association, Executive Director Dirk Konnertz took advantage of the minister\u2019s personal presence to draw attention, in a written statement, to the economic challenges facing the Steinm\u00fchle educational institution in light of high inflation and collective bargaining agreements. Bianca Zenker presented an envelope containing \u201creading material for your continued journey.\u201d The School Parents\u2019 Council had documented in writing the issues currently viewed as challenges by the parent body. The focus here was on the topic of academic assessments in the upper school. <\/p>\n

The Minister of Education\u2019s discussion partners in this larger group also included the student council team, consisting of Joela Schwing and Lennart Holly. Naturally, rowing came up in the conversation\u2014not only because the boathouse was in plain sight, but also because Lennart, an active competitive rower, was present. Of course, it shouldn\u2019t seem as though rowing at Steinm\u00fchle is limited to just the athletic aspect. The minister was told just as much about the successful girls\u2019 soccer program as about the numerous sports in which Steinm\u00fchle has been actively involved in recent years, even participating in the \u201cYouth Training for the Olympics\u201d competitions. \u201cNot to mention our partnership with Marburg\u2019s largest soccer club, Sportfreunde Blau-Gelb Marburg,\u201d added Managing Director Dirk Konnertz in closing, mentioning the joint Unified Team\u2014a project close to the heart of School Association Chairman Egon Vaupel, whose greetings he conveyed. <\/p>\n

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A tour of the campus with several “highlights” He has been in office for just one month\u2014and the new Hessian Minister of Education has already visited Steinm\u00fchle\u2014the first school in Marburg he has visited. \u201cIndependent schools, or so-called alternative schools, are a fundamental part of our educational landscape,\u201d explained Armin Schwarz as he observed various […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaborations-partnerships","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49484,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45796\/revisions\/49484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}