Emmy Walser

Emmy Walser (* 1899 in Bühler AR ; † 1992 ) was a Swiss kindergarten teacher and reform pedagogue .

Life

childhood

Emmy Walser was born in Bühler AR in 1899 as the second youngest of four children. She was able to read at the age of four and found the Greek sagas particularly exciting. In general, she was able to learn with ease, which was also reflected in her piano playing. Emmy Walser wanted to go to high school in order to study later, but her father was against it. So she registered at the "Seminar Sonneck" for kindergarten teachers in Münsingen . In 1919 she graduated with top marks.

pedagogue

After training and a diploma were required for kindergarten teachers in kindergartens in 1912 , two new training centers were set up in Bern between 1917 and 1948. From 1928 to 1948 Emmy Walser took over the management of the municipal kindergarten seminar in Marzili. At the same time, Marie von Greyerz led the private «Sonneck Seminar». Between 1926 and 1952 she was widely active as a journalist, mostly published in the Swiss Kindergarten , a monthly for pre-school education. In 1935 she was the first woman president of the Kindergarten Association of the Canton of Bern, founded in 1912, and of the Swiss Kindergarten Association from 1941 to 1946.

Walser was a woman who made a lasting contribution to education. She worked with a lot of autonomy, was “responsible for everything” and was able to “rule freely”, as her successor reported later.

Emmy Walser was an important figure in the didactics of kindergarten. She had a lasting impact on this by stubbornly enforcing the free working method against the Froebel kindergarten management. She did not see this concept as a method or a system, but as an "expression of a basic pedagogical attitude". The free way of working can still be found in kindergarten lessons today; it was, so to speak, the basis of today's free play . When Walser withdrew from kindergarten work, her concept had already established itself all over German-speaking Switzerland.

She met many educationalists , but she probably had most in common with John Dewey . She also influenced the concepts of Marie von Greyerz and Friedrich Froebel, although she did not mention it herself.

Aftermath

At the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland , University of Education, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland is, since 2013, the Emmy Walser prize awarded at the Institute preschool and lower school of the College of Education for outstanding undergraduate work.

literature

• Marlis Nattiel-Soltermann: Portrait of a Dynasty. Leaders of the kindergarten seminars in the canton of Bern between female power and state legitimation 1917–2015 . LIT Verlag , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-80050-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 28f.
2. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 19.
3. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 29.
4. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 31.
5. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 29.
6. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 35f.
7. ↑ Nattiel-Soltermann 2010, p. 32.
8. ↑ Emmy Walser Prize ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), accessed on March 23, 2017.