Press release

Published with the kind permission of the bell

A place to learn and live well   
Gütersloh (bit). The children's bus drums announce it, and principal Gerhard Dickers is pleased: The Hundertwasser School with the special focus on emotional and social development in the primary sector has "found a real home" at the location of the former Volkening School on Holzstraße in Gütersloh. A "learning and living place where you have to feel at home.
After reconstruction and architecturally striking expansion, Mayor Maria Unger spoke of a great day for students and the city. The Hundertwasser School, founded five years ago under the auspices of the Gütersloh district at the Edith Stein School, later moved to the neighborhood of the Anne Frank Comprehensive School and has been municipal since 2006. Unger elaborated on the richness of color of the artist who gave the school its name. He said he appeals to students looking for creativity. In his "raindrop falling into the city," children would find parallels of their desires, the mayor said.
NRW Minister of Education Barbara Sommer, as a guest, emphasized the bond with the city and district of Gütersloh, where she served as a school councilor. She wanted to have a dialogue with children, but they were already on the school bus. Then she wanted to talk about Hundertwasser. Unger beat her to it. Nevertheless, the minister stayed with the artist, who stimulated the fantasies of boys and girls with his boat. Life has sides of darkness and brightness. Sommer felt gratitude for Hundertwasser, who had always railed against the straight line, and his colorful paintings.
"One principal, one colleague and five boys," Dickers described the beginning in a dialogue with this first colleague Kerstin Richter. "We weren't even a dwarf school and were laughed at a bit," the principal recalled. He thanked the school department head Siegfried Lieske in Detmold and school board member Hartmut Stieghorst in the district administration for their support. He called the transition to the sponsorship of the city of Gütersloh in 2006 a fortunate time, because the city was just thinking about comprehensive open all-day schools. Dockers considered the current form of the Hundertwasser School as an all-day facility with a focus on social pedagogy in cooperation with the city's school and youth departments to be a model case.
Guests included Ursula Doppmeier MdL and District President Marianne Thomann-Stahl. A very special guest was Lisa Weber (92). She had lived for 80 years in the teacher's apartment at the Volkening School, where her father was once principal and she herself taught for 30 years.
(Published on 15.09.2007 in Die Glocke)

Published with the kind permission of the Westfalen Blatt

Named after multi-talent
Hundertwasser school is inaugurated today
It is named after the artist, multi-talent and environmentalist Hundertwasser and is called the "Förderschule der Stadt Gütersloh" (special school of the city of Gütersloh). After changing locations, the dedicated school has now found its new home at Holzstraße 30.
The school has belonged to the city since August 1, 2006. In 2002, it had been founded as a school for educational assistance of the district of Gütersloh with a class of five students and a teacher for special education and is now located at Holzstraße.
Today, Friday, at 2:30 p.m., the new school building will be officially inaugurated. The school minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Barbara Sommer, is also expected to attend. In a presentation entitled "Five Years of the Hundertwasser School", Headmaster Gerhard Dickers will take stock of the school's development and outline its prospects. Siegfried Lieske, head of the school department in Detmold, will give an overview of the Hundertwasser School with regard to the changing school landscape. The official program will end with a tour of the school.
The new location draws a line under the provisional arrangements: From 2002 to 2004, the special school was housed in the Edith Stein School, and from 2004 to 2007 in a provisional location at the Anne Frank School. Nevertheless, the team of teachers has constantly worked on the development of this school. With the beginning of the school year 2007/2008, the special school will be run as an open all-day school. In this way, the Hundertwasser School wants to support the emotional and social development of its approximately 50 students. A corresponding agreement with the Social Pedagogical and Psychomotor Institute Gütersloh (SPI) and the city of Gütersloh was signed by those responsible. With the SPI, a provider with whom the Youth Department has been working for many years in the fields of rehabilitation and educational support is taking over the all-day care. The city has invested three million euros in the expansion of the former Volkening School. No straight lines: The facade at the rear of the former Volkening School was designed entirely in the spirit of the artist Hundertwasser for the school named after him.
(Published on 14.09.2007 in the Westfalen-Blatt)

Published with the kind permission of the Westfalen Blatt 

World of children is not always colorful
Hundertwasser school officially inaugurated
By Michael Delker

Principal Gerhard Dicker was presented with a Hundertwasser house in miniature by Mayor Maria Unger. School Minister Barbara Sommer spoke a word of greeting at the inauguration.

Gütersloh (WB). The time of provisional arrangements is over. After the former Volkening School was extended by an annex+, the Hundertwasser School could officially inaugurate its new domicile on Friday afternoon. After years in the Edith-Stein-Schule and in a provisional building at the Anne-Frank-Schule, the special school has finally found a home. The importance of this step for children, parents and teachers was made clear by Mayor Maria Unger with her gift: she presented principal Gerhard Dickers with a Hundertwasser house in miniature - it can be used as a bird house.

A welcoming speech was given by the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Education Barbara Sommer, who used to work as a school councilor in the district of Gütersloh ("This is where I experienced my best professional time"). She told the invited guests that the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser had given himself the name "Dunkelbunt" during his lifetime. "This name fits well with the children who go to school here. Their world is not always colorful," said Barbara Sommer. The Hundertwasser School aims to promote the emotional and social development of children who cannot cope in a conventional type of school.

In conversation with his colleague Kerstin Richter, Gerhard Dickers recalled the founding of the school five years ago. Back then, there were only five students, "and we were probably the smallest school in North Rhine-Westphalia." The school has developed slowly since then, and that is a good thing.

(Published on 15.09.2007 in the Westfalen-Blatt)

Published with kind permission of NW - Neue Westfälische 

Finally found a home
Gütersloh has a new school / Inauguration with Minister Sommer 
BY ROLF BIRKHOLZ
Gütersloh. "We are children of this world, and we drum as we please". Drumming, singing, whistling, children of the Hundertwasser School yesterday welcomed School Minister Barbara Sommer, District President Marianne Thomann-Stahl and the other guests at the inauguration ceremony of their school. Music and singing, the results of an African drumming project, made it seem as if the students had already taken possession of the building named after the artist and environmentalist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the former Volkening School on Oststraße/Holzstraße, which has been extended by an annex.
Principal Gerhard Dickers was pleased that the special school with a focus on emotional and social development, which was founded in 2002 and was initially owned by the district but has since become a municipal school, has now found "a real home" at its new location after two moves and has become a place of schooling and living. It was a stroke of luck that the designs of the municipal architect Karl-Heinz Rempe "were able to create happy spaces in the spirit of Hundertwasser". Dickers saw another stroke of luck in the fact that the Sozialpädagogisches und Psychomotorisches Institut Gütersloh (SPI), with which the company cooperates in day care, support measures and parental care, has a support center and a sports hall right next door on Holzstraße, which can also be used. Mayor Maria Unger had first thought of combining both facilities on one site, thus enabling the synergy effect.

Looking to the future, Dickers could imagine a socio-educational competence center here. This was also echoed by Siegfried Lieske, head of the school department of the district government, and Hartmut Stieghorst, a school board member from Gütersloh, who had come up with a role-playing dialog. In response to Stieghorst's assertion that the Hundertwasser School had, after all, achieved a lot in five years, Lieske said, "All young people, highly motivated: What else would you expect?"

Dickers and Kerstin Richter, his first employee at the time, had already suggested this assessment in retrospect. With two teachers and five students, the school "felt like the smallest school in North Rhine-Westphalia" and was somewhat ridiculed. Then they described the constant upward development, including participation in the independent school and open all-day projects, in which they sometimes "reached the limits of their capacity.

School Minister Barbara Sommer spoke refreshingly freely without a manuscript. She told how Friedrich Stowasser had once found his artist name Friedensreich Hundertwasser. By trying to put herself in the children's souls, by also pointing out the artist's term "dunkelbunt" ("dark-colored") for all the artist's bright colors, she warmly appealed to the children instead of just reading off a submitted text, as is not unusual in such cases with politicians.

From Volkening to Hundertwasser
With the former Volkschule at Holzstraße 30 (access actually Oststraße), once named after the revivalist preacher Johann Heinrich Volkening and built in 1903, the Hundertwasser School has found its location after two temporary arrangements. As a school for educational assistance of the district, it was initially housed at the Edith Stein School, later at the Anne Frank School. In 2006, the city took over the sponsorship. Started in 2002 with a two-person staff and five students, today, including the all-day area, 20 specialists take care of 50 students at the location as well as 20 additional children who are directly supported in their elementary schools. The renovation and extension, designed by architect Karl-Heinz Rempe, cost three million euros. Rempe remained true to the principle of the right angle in the extension. However, the color scheme, especially on the rear wall, and the colorful turrets are clearly based on the expression of the artist and fantasy awakener Hundertwasser.
(Published on 15.09.2007 in the NW- Neue Westfälische)