There must be thousands of students who have already walked through the brick-red tiled corridors, up the many steps, to their classrooms with the blue, yellow and white doors. They studied there and chatted with their neighbors, they were quizzed and they wrote exams, they got good and bad grades, they also received reprimands, experienced community and certainly suffered at times. The Otfried-Preußler-Gymnasium (OPG) in Pullach is 50 years old and the spirit and patina of so many generations of students hang in the air here. On Wednesday, March 1st, the grammar school, which opened in 1973, will be celebrating its anniversary with a ceremony. On Thursday, the students then embark on a journey through the decades.
When the celebrities of the Bavarian education system arrive at the ceremony on Wednesday alongside the school management and teachers, next to District Administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) and Mayor Susanna Millennium (Greens) – Minister of Education Michael Piazolo (CSU) and representatives of the ministry are expected – then they all convert the threshold of a grammar school that almost passes as a monument. Built in the style of brutalism, the Otfried-Preußler-Gymnasium lies like a heavy old steamer in a semicircle on Hans-Keis-Strasse.
The school is a testament to how much learning has changed. In the past, each class was supposed to have its own classroom, and all students were taught together. The building is designed in exactly the same way: large rooms for large classes, with narrow, rather dark corridors in front of them. “Today, teaching is much more differentiated,” says Gabriele Guter, who has been deputy headmistress since 2020. A more flexible space is required, corridors are integrated as learning space, classes often work in small groups. There have long been plans to rebuild the high school, and a feasibility study is currently in progress.
Benno Fischbach has been the director of the Otfried-Preußler-Gymnasium since 2017.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Even if the building structure does not always meet modern learning requirements, the change of times has taken place inside. The classic chalkboards have been phased out, digitization has moved in instead. Learning is done on whiteboards and interactive multi-touch displays, the WiFi network has been upgraded – the core of the Otfried-Preussler-Gymnasium is a very contemporary study. About 770 students attend the school, about 60 percent of them come from Munich, the rest are from Pullach and the catchment area up to Baierbrunn. Headmaster since 2017 is Benno Fischbach.
In 50 years, the school steamer has survived many storms and waves. There was a change from the nine-year high school to the eight-year school and now the nine-year school is being established again. The naming of the school made waves. The school was founded as the Pullach State Gymnasium and was officially renamed the Otfried-Preußler-Gymnasium in 2014. The name of the famous children’s book author should be understood as an appeal to the imagination. There was a lot of criticism, including in the Pullach municipal council, but also among students. Most critics failed to see the author’s connection to the community he had never been to. Almost ten years later, the short form OPG has established itself. Unforgotten is also the Zoff in the same year as a result of a Abistreich, in which the school management believed that the students had gone too far. At that time, the official graduation ceremony was canceled at short notice, which led to a storm of indignation among parents and students alike.
A new school banner was designed for the anniversary
Whether these memories will find a place in the journey through time that the students have designed for the anniversary will be seen on Thursday, March 2nd. From 12:00 p.m. there is an internal celebration, followed by the open house day at 3:00 p.m., to which future fifth graders are also invited. The students have been working on the anniversary program since last school year, and a special P seminar was offered for the 11th grade. Under the direction of history teacher Ludwig Bader, projects were developed in which pupils of all grades could participate across classes. Everything revolves around five decades in and around the OPG: One project deals with the development of the town of Pullach, another with the Olympic Games, in yet another, school fashion from the last 50 years was examined under the magnifying glass. Some students dedicated themselves to the Marienstern, a school annex that existed from 1975 to 1995. There were also creative workshops: a new school banner and graffiti were designed for the anniversary. A professional sprayer has already sprayed it on the wall in front of the school. The projects will be presented for the anniversary in the form of exhibitions and demonstrations.
While the students look back on the anniversary, the school officials are already looking ahead. A possible new building will be one of the great challenges of the next few years, says Guter. In cooperation with the student councils, we are already thinking about which rooms would be necessary and that there should be a “common center”, a kind of marketplace as a learning meeting place. According to Guter, the “ideal school” is already being built in our minds.