Six teachers from North Rhine-Westphalia have been awarded the nationwide German Teachers’ Prize 2022. Rolf Wohlgemuth from the Erich Gutenberg Vocational College in Cologne received first prize in the “Exemplary School Management” category. The headmaster, who has meanwhile retired, was also honored for his “unrestricted enabling culture”, as the German Philologists’ Association and the Heraeus Educational Foundation announced on Monday in Berlin. The second prize went to Andrea Kocks, headmistress of the elementary school on Steigerweg in Mülheim/Ruhr. The winners were suggested by the teaching staff.
In the “Excellent teachers” category, students had the right to make nominations. Three of the ten award winners nationwide come from NRW: Dirk Erkelenz, teacher of history and Latin at the Queen Luise School in Cologne, Georg Kussel, teacher of mathematics at the Einstein-Gymnasium Rheda-Wiedenbrück, and Dennis Münstermann, teacher of German at the Bertha Krupp Realschule Essen. Among other things, the students praised her as follows: “We have not only grown academically, but have learned for life”, “extremely competent, if not overqualified” and “he designs the lessons in a very diverse way, so that it is fun for everyone “.
Paul Daniel Heiming from the secondary school in Warstein received third prize in the category “Innovative Lessons” for the project “Robotics – Phenomenon-based Learning from Scandinavia”. It was also about connections between robotics and other subjects such as religion and social studies.
The prizes were awarded on Monday in Berlin. A total of ten teachers, four head teachers and four teams of teachers from eleven federal states were honored for their outstanding achievements. The prize is intended to increase appreciation of the teaching profession and help to improve teaching. The sponsors are the Heraeus Educational Foundation and the Association of Philologists. According to her, 8,500 students and teachers had taken part in the current competition.
Information from the NRW Ministry of Education
