From the beginning of February onwards, five university students aiming to take up teaching after finishing their studies spent their four weeks of compulsory internship at FSG. Between themselves, the three female and two male students represented the subjects German, English, Latin, History, Music, the Arts, Religious Education for Catholics and Chemistry. At the end of their internships, all the five students had to write a detailed report of their individual experiences. Those experiences do not only include regularly sitting in on lessons of experienced FSG teachers but also teaching parts of lessons – rarely whole lessons – themselves, albeit under the tutelage of the regular teacher of the class.

Maboul à zéro by Jean-Paul Nozière is the novel that on February 3, 2005, 28 FSG twelfth-formers, after several votes, chose to present in a statewide selection contest that in March will take the winner to the Leipzig Book Fair, where the NRW finalists will have to convince all the other participants of their choice.

In its second round, the contest – which was devised by the cultural department at the French embassy after the example of the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens – will next see two FSG girls defending their choice of Maboul à zéro statewide at the »Institut français« in Düsseldorf.

Parents in Luenen will be able to register their (elementary-school) children at secondary schools between February 28 and March 4, 2005. However, on Thursday, January 20, between 5 and 7 p.m., those parents who wanted to get an early impression of their son’s or daughter’s future school got an opportunity to do so:

• In FSG’s school hall, service stalls offered information on methodical learning at FSG, on extra-curricular activities, on our programme of field trips and study tours, on the »FSG Friends’ and Sponsors’ Club«, on our »Steinis« alumni club and on the structure of our last three years of school before »Abitur«, the German final exams qualifying for university study
• »School Pilots« – higher-form students who will look after new pupils once their FSG school life has begun in September 2005 – guided parents of newcomers through the school building, stopping at twelve points of interest, such as our special science lab rooms and our »EinStein« project centre
• Parents of present fifth-formers had prepared snacks and refreshments
• Our »FSG Choir« welcomed new parents ond pupils with a selection from its repertoire.

Religious Education teacher Ms Klinger reports:

33 boys and girls of FSG’s fifth-grade Protestant Religious Education groups were given an idea how much their classroom work was appreciated by »real« grown-ups when, on January 22, representatives of the joint Dortmund and Luenen church parishes handed over to them the first and third prize in a contest entitled »Creative Bible Work – Taking Steps Towards Each Other«.

Religious Education teacher Ms Pleitner’s group were given EUR 200 in prize money, and Ms Klinger’s group were awarded EUR 100.

Read more here.

FSG’s »Comenius« Convener Herr Engel reports:

Now in its third and final year, our »Comenius« project with Salford, England, and Slagelse, Denmark, is gearing up for its last round: Between January 12 and 16, 2005, the penultimate meeting of teachers and students involved took part in Slagelse. Several projects started by the previous meeting were presented, new projects for the last round were agreed upon.

Read more here.

Number 1 of STEINmail, our new newsletter, went out to subscribers on December 22, 2004. If you want to receive a copy, click on the logo.

In the autumn of every year since 1992, a team of teachers has played soccer against a team students belonging to our »Class of 1985«. The students formerly were members of a soccer course taught by Sports and Geography teacher Herr Goder, who has always played in the teachers’ team. On December 3, 2004, highly motivated alumni faced a teachers’ team decimated by infirmity and illness – and managed to take home the »Generations Cup« again. Read the report about this noteworthy event.

After 12 years, the tournament can rightly be called a tradition. 14 teams had signed up, the oldest team going back to Final Exams 1978. Read the report by our Physics and Sports teacher Hans Stemmerich, who organized the event.

Not quite. But there is a Year 11 Chemistry course at FSG that studied the making of jelly bears in the context of a teaching project about »Food – its production, analysis, structure and breakdown in the human body«. Read the report by students Sarina Krell, Catalin Berkenheger, Carolin Däumer and Kathrin Roy!

Still more chemical experiences: Dominik Wied and four of his fellow students in Year 13 took part in a competition organized by Schering Chemical Plant at Bergkamen. Read Dominik’s report and find out how well the fivesome did.

And finally: Romy Siegert and Christina Holthoff, both in Year 13, spent a week in a chemistry project for girls only at Bochum’s Ruhr University and came to the result: »Chemistry is cool!«

Student body activist and school newspaper editor Juliane Arndt (Year 11) writes, »Again, FSG Student Body members spent the weekend between November 12 and 14 at ›Neuland House‹ Conference Centre near Bielefeld to make plans for the 2005 Activities Week.« Read Juliane’s full report.

This year, there are just not enough students at »Institution Jeanne d’Arc« in Etampes, near Paris, that want to take part in our traditional pupils’exchange. That unfortunate news has just been forwarded to the organizers of the exchange at FSG – a mere four weeks before the French visitors were to arrive. Their stay has now officially been cancelled. It has not been ascertained yet if the cancellation will also affect the visit of FSG students in Etampes in the spring of 2005.

On the first of their two annual field trips, forms 5a and 5b went to nearby Dortmund to see the Dog Show there. Both in German and Biology lessons, the boys and girls had prepared the visit by speaking and writing about pets in general and about dogs in detail. Read the report written by Denny Gatto and Alexander Muschak, Form 5b.

Vanessa Schawaller and Luisa Schöttler of Form 5b made a collage presenting newspaper articles about the dog show  to their class mates.

Coline Zolenski, Romina Schwierzina und Olivia Dombeck of Form 5d report:

»It was a whole trailerful of clothes and toys that FSG pupils collected for ›Oberhausen Peace Village‹, and at the end of the Parents’ Consultation Day on Wednesday, October 13, a group of fifth-graders accompanied teachers Herr Graas and Herr Loer there to deliver the donations. The operatives at the collecting point in Oberhausen thanked them and all FSG donators greatly for their practical help.«

Yacov Levi was a 14 year-old pupil of FSG when in 1937 he was forced out of FSG and of Luenen and was made to emigrate to Israel. He trained to become a carpenter and, at the beginning of the seventies, started to teach woodwork at secondary schools. His experiences with specially-abled children led him to write (in English) an essay on »Image Manipulating Capabilities by Students of Secondary Schools«, which he kindly let us publish in our website.

At the beginning of this school year, FSG and nine other schools are competing for prizes in a contest organized by the French government: They are to choose the best book for young readers among the titles above, and to explain their choice in a written testimonial. Two twelfth-grade French courses are participating. Read more here.

At the end of the last scholastic year, ninth-graders at FSG experienced their first two-week internships in social and ecological facilities and institutions. The internships were introduced by the school’s representative bodies after long and intense discussions. Three months later, organizers Ms Frauke Jahn and Ms Monika Pesch invited pupils, parents and teachers involved to review the internships. By and large, the evaluation turned out to be positive. Read the report here.

Five former students who are also members of our alumni club »Steinis e.V.« appeared at FSG on the morning of Wednesday, September 29, in order to start taking photographs of forms and courses.

Because of the unstable weather conditions, photos had to be taken inside as well as outside.

Teachers observing the scene were a bit surprised to see how briskly the fivesome directed the pupils before the cameras…

There will be no exchange with our link school in St Petersburg, Russia, in the coming year: In the eyes of the teachers responsible both in Luenen and St Petersburg, the civil war in Chechnia has made the situation in Russia too precarious. Ms Hanna Scholle, the organizer of the exchange of more than ten years, has just informed parents and teachers at FSG of the sad news.

Australia, Finland, the USA, New Zealand, Brasil and Japan: Those were the countries in which FSG students Jakob Kuhs, Sarah Lottermoser, Heike Schneider and Romy Siegert an Annette Marek und Kora Stycz of neighbouring »Gymnasium Altlünen« spent their exchange years. On the evening of September 22, the returnees spoke about their experiences and offered their information on exchange programmes to students and parents considering a year abroad.

The six were helped by Frau Vollmer, FSG’s Foreign Exchange Advisor, and by Frau Lottermoser, who volunteers as local contact for »Youth for Understanding« exchange organization and who – as the mother of an exchangee and a multiple host mother to foreign exchange students – was able to contribute first-hand information.

Students and parents interested in a year abroad asked about the selection procedure, the cost of an exchange year and about personal experiences, highlights and pitfalls.

… since our »Class of 2003« graduated, and already some of the now 20 year-olds have changed beyond recognition. Well, not quite.

It was on Saturday, September 18, that last year’s graduates gathered for their first reunion party at »Avanti« Youth Club in southern Luenen. It began at 8 p.m., and in spite of the early hour (the reporter left the party at a quarter past nine p.m.), two dozens of the alumni had already shown up.

They also displayed newspaper articles about the attack and its backgrounds on a board in our entrance hall.