Netti Christensen

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Nett (y) i Christensen (born February 21, 1914 in Hamburg as Netti Davidsohn; † March 1, 2006 in Berlin ) was a German resistance fighter against National Socialism and a preschool teacher .

Live and act

Netti Davidsohn was the daughter of a metalworker who was extremely active in union activities. After attending the Jewish girls' school , she completed the nanny training . Then she attended the Froebel seminar in her hometown. Netti Davidsohn was unable to complete her kindergarten teacher training because she was expelled from school because of her Jewish descent.

At the age of 17 she had joined the Communist Youth Association. Davidsohn was arrested several times. She suffered lifelong as a result of the abuse by the Gestapo . In 1935 Netti Davidsohn was able to flee to Sweden . Soon she was sent to Denmark by the Communist Party . From there she fought within the Danish resistance movement against the Nazis and campaigned for the rescue of the Jewish population of Denmark to Sweden. In the capital of Denmark she lived with the communists and emigrant Wilhelm Wittkowski . The aforementioned was extradited to the Gestapo by the Danish police in January 1941. In 1936 Netti Davidsohn entered into a marriage of convenience in order to obtain Danish citizenship . The marriage ended in divorce just a year later. In Copenhagen she learned the profession of occupational therapist . As such, she worked at the Orthopedic Hospital in Stockholm from 1943 to 1945 .

In 1946 Netti Christensen returned to Germany in the Soviet-occupied part . She initially worked as a handicraft teacher at the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus and in the Hauptschulamt in Berlin, where she was responsible for the training of kindergarten teachers. She later reported on the training situation for kindergarten teachers in the Soviet occupation zone / GDR :

"In the first few years in particular, we had to deal with representatives of bourgeois preschool pedagogy, who exerted a not insignificant influence on the training of kindergarten teachers, and with reform pedagogues and depth psychological views ... and suppress their influence"

- Christensen 1979, p. 1.

Two years later she got a job as a scientific aspirant at the Pedagogical Faculty of the Humboldt University in Berlin . She was also employed as a senior consultant at the German Central Pedagogical Institute . In 1962 she was appointed research associate and on the occasion of her 50th birthday, she was appointed a student councilor.

Netti Christensen influenced pre-school education in the GDR through lectures and publications and was involved in the development and expansion of a “socialist-oriented kindergarten education”. In 1951 she described the task of the kindergarten:

“Our kindergarten is a facility with a predominantly educational character, and therefore part of the general educational system. In cooperation with other social institutions, such as the family, school, young pioneers, etc., he has the task that results from the construction of our anti-fascist-democratic order: to educate our children to be progressive democrats, to be conscious and active builders of a bright and happier future of our people "

In their main work About the Play of Preschool Children (1979), Irmgard Launer and she tried to establish the essence of play as a special form of human activity in the sense of historical materialism . She criticized the bourgeois scientists , such as Erika Hoffmann and Karl Groos , who took the view that the work developed out of the game.

“The game is only necessary and possible where the perfection of the work equipment has reached such a level that the children are no longer directly involved in securing their livelihood. The division of work according to gender and age, between men, women and children, which has developed at a certain level of social conditions, is a prerequisite for the children's play to develop, since they are not used for a living during this period needed to contribute and had the necessary prerequisites for this ... Play as a special form of human activity became a necessity for children after the perfection of the means of work had reached such a level that they could be used at a certain stage in the development of the productive forces was no longer possible without further ado, without preparation. "

- p. 14 f.

However, while toddler education since Johann Georg Wirth and Friedrich Fröbel had seen play as the child's independent appropriation of the environment, Christensen seemed to believe that play was of educational value primarily because play is the child's way of integrating into its environment.

Netti Christensen worked for several years as an employee and member of the editorial board of the specialist magazine Die Kindergärtnerin , which was founded in 1948 and was distributed in the GDR , from 1951 New Education in Kindergarten and Home , finally from 1955 New Education in Kindergarten , for which she wrote essays in particular about the nature of play and about The nature and function of the kindergarten in the German Democratic Republic .

Memberships

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Comments on the question of planning. In: New education in kindergarten and home. 1951 / H. 1, pp. 2-5.
  • The kindergarten in the village. Practical experience . People and knowledge, Berlin 1959, DNB 452406412 .
  • The child's role play. Berlin 1962.
  • About the essence of the game. A contribution to the theory of the game. Berlin 1962, DNB 450781488 .
  • We knew what we wanted. Memories of the first years of socialist pre-school education in the GDR. In: New Education. 1979 / H. 11, pp. 1-2.
  • About the game of preschoolers. 6th edition. Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-06-262636-4 .

literature

  • Monika Müller-Rieger (Ed.): "When mom goes to work early ...". On the history of the kindergarten in the GDR. Argon, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87024-396-1 .
  • Dieter Höltershinken, Hilmar Hoffmann, Gudrun Prüfer: Kindergarten and kindergarten teacher in the GDR. Volume I and Volume II, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1997, ISBN 3-472-02770-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christensen 1951, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland , October 6, 1966, p. 5
personal data
SURNAME Christensen, Netti
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Christensen, Netty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German resistance fighter and preschool teacher
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2006
Place of death Berlin