Mathilde Vaerting

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Maria Johanna Mathilde Vaerting (born January 10, 1884 in Messingen , † May 6, 1977 in Schönau in the Black Forest ) was a German educator and sociologist . In 1923 she became the first professor of education at the University of Jena.

Life

Mathilde Vaerting was born in Messingen as the fifth of ten children of wealthy Catholic farmers. After training at home, she attended a secondary school for girls in Cologne for three years and passed the teacher examination in Münster in 1903 . From April 1, 1903, she worked as a teacher and in 1907, as an external student, took her matriculation examination in Wetzlar .

From 1907 to 1911 she studied mathematics , physics , chemistry and philosophy at the universities of Bonn (there together with her older sister Marie), Munich , Marburg and Gießen . In 1910, the senior teacher examination in mathematics, physics and chemistry took place in Münster. She received her doctorate on March 1, 1911 in Bonn. The title of her dissertation with Professor Adolf Dyroff was "Otto Willmann and Benno Erdmann's concept of apperception compared to that of Herbart" . In her academic work, the doctoral candidate compared the various expressions of the concept of apperception and tested its suitability for explaining psychological processes in learning.

From 1913 she taught mathematics, physics and chemistry as a senior teacher in Berlin-Neukölln at the municipal high school for girls, today's Albert Schweitzer grammar school .

In the same year her provocative pedagogical work "The Destruction of Intelligence through Memory Work " was published. In it, she accused the school of preventing the productivity and independence of the students through compulsive memory. In her publications she repeatedly questioned the traditional teaching and learning methods and called for the dismantling of dominance in school relations and equality between the groups involved in the learning process.

Another focus of her research was learning and talent . In this regard, she rejected a static concept of talent as well as the assertion of gender-specific talent. She took the view: Any consideration of gender means shortening the individual. Mathilde Vaerting also dealt intensively with questions about gender relations . She attributed the visible differences between women and men to their historical social position. Accordingly, the socially mediated gender hierarchy defines the behavior of men and women and not an innate difference between the sexes.

In addition to teaching and educational research, she continued her medical education by studying medicine for a few semesters.

In 1929, Vaerting pleaded in the renowned Vossische Zeitung to award the pacifist Helene Stöcker the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mathilde Vaerting, whose post- doctoral thesis "New founding of the comparative psychology of the sexes", submitted to Berlin University in 1919 , had been rejected, was appointed to Jena on October 1, 1923 as a non-habilitated academic as a "full professor of education". After Margarete von Wrangell , she was the second woman in Germany to receive a chair.

Mathilde Vaertings appeal by the Social Democratic Thuringian National Education Minister Max Greil , contrary to the academic freedom of the university and against the will of the respective faculties, meant that they have all the time to teaching in Jena as a "forced Professor" was considered that by all means was fought. One of their fiercest opponents was Ludwig Plate , who in 1930 published a diatribe against Vaerting with the title "Feminism under the guise of science" .

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists and immediately after the law on the restoration of civil servants was passed on April 7, 1933, the first "cleansing of the teaching staff" took place in Jena by the Thuringian Ministry of Education, which was now occupied by the National Socialists. Mathilde Vaerting was one of 18 politically and racially disliked Jenenser professors, lecturers and assistants who were excluded from university service, forced to retire or were subject to other restrictions.

Afterwards, the first Ordinaria for Education at the University of Jena withdrew into private life during the Nazi dictatorship. In order to ensure that she could not continue her research and to prevent the dissemination of her ideas in Germany, the government issued a publication and travel ban so that she could not accept a call to the Netherlands or the USA. She was also not granted permission to practice medicine. She lived in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and moved to Darmstadt-Eberstadt after it was bombed towards the end of the war .

Mathilde-Vaerting-Strasse in Jena

When pedagogy was reorganized after 1945, it was not remembered. Your applications at various universities were not considered. Vaerting then turned to state sociology . Together with the educator Edwin Elmerich she founded the International Institute for Politics and State Sociology , which did not last long. She was also an editor of the Zeitschrift für Staatssoziologie (1953–1971). At the time, your institute and specialist journal were a platform from which current political, social and economic events were critically commented on and analyzed. Her last place of residence was Freiburg i. Br. She died on May 6, 1977 in Schönau in the Black Forest .

The extensive estate is in the Bielefeld University Archives .

In Berlin, Jena and Lingen streets were later named after her.

On March 1, 2019, the Women's Council of Lower Saxony opened the FrauenORT Mathilde Vaerting in Messingen .

Fonts (selection)

  • Otto Williams and Benno Erdmann's concept of apperception compared to that of Herbart , Bonn 1911
  • The destruction of intelligence through memory work , Munich 1913
  • New ways in mathematical teaching, at the same time a guide for the promotion and selection of mathematical and technical talents (= Die Lebensschule - series of publications of the Federal Decision-making School Reformer, Volume 6), Berlin 1921
  • The re-establishment of the psychology of men and women . Volume 1: The female character in the male state and the male character in the female state . Volume 2: Truth and Error in Gender Psychology , Karlsruhe 1921 a. 1923. Volume 1 at archive.org , English translation of Volume 1 (Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting): The Dominant Sex , online at archive.org
  • The power of the masses , Berlin 1928
  • The power of the masses in education , Berlin 1929
  • Teacher and student. Their mutual behavior as the basis of character education , Leipzig 1931

literature

  • Hanna Meuter : Education for fellow human beings. Mathilde Vaerting's educational work . Berlin 1932
  • Theresa Wobbe : A dispute about academic scholarship: Mathilde Vaerting's appointment in the political conflict area of ​​the Weimar Republic. Berlin 1991
  • Theresa Wobbe: Mathilde Vaerting (1884-1977). An intellectual in the coordinate system of this century , in: Carsten Klingemann , Michael Neumann and Karl-Siegbert Rehberg (eds.), Yearbook for the History of Sociology 1991 , Leske & Budrich, Opladen 1997, pp. 27–68
  • Imbke Behnken & Theodor Schulze : Tatort: ​​Biography. Traces. Accesses. Places. Events. Leske & Budrich , Opladen 1997 ISBN 3810009504
  • Theresa Wobbe: Mathilde Vaerting (1884-1977), The Power of Difference , In: Theresa Wobbe & Claudia Honegger Ed .: Women in Sociology. Nine portraits. , CH Beck, Volume 1198, pp. 178-202 Munich 1998 ISBN 3406392989

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Renate Tobies: “All male culture in spite of”: Women in mathematics and natural sciences , Frankfurt / M. 1997, ISBN 978-3-593-35749-2 , p. 131 in the Google book search
  2. ^ Mathilde Vaerting: New ways in mathematical teaching, at the same time a guide to the promotion and selection of mathematical and technical talents , Berlin 1921, p. 38
  3. ^ "Helene Stöcker on her 60th birthday", by Mathilde Vaerting, in: Vossische Zeitung, November 13, 1929, p. 18.
  4. ↑ Renate Tobies: “All male culture in spite of”: Women in mathematics and natural sciences , Frankfurt / M. 1997, ISBN 978-3-593-35749-2 , p. 48 in the Google book search
  5. ↑ Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Ed.): History of the University of Unter den Linden , Volume 6, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-05-004671-6 , p. 313 in the Google book search
  6. ↑ Tom Bräuer, Christian Faludi: The University of Jena in the Weimar Republic 1918-1933 . Steiner, Stuttgart 2013, p. 375-382 .
  7. ^ Uwe Hoßfeld: Racial Studies and Racial Hygiene in the "Mustergau", 1930-1945. in Blätter zur Landeskunde - No. 41, 2004, Thuringian State Center for Political Education Erfurt, p. 2f
  8. ↑ FrauenORTE Lower Saxony , accessed on March 2, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Vaerting, Mathilde
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychologist and teacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 10, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Brass
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1977
Place of death Schönau in the Black Forest