Showing posts with label great women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great women. Show all posts

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Schools : Teaching Great Women in Humanities & Science





Maria Moliner
Ilustración de Pol Serra

“Con un lápiz y una cuartilla empecé a esbozar el diccionario….”. Con la sencillez y humildad de quien describe una tarea rutinaria y nimia, María Moliner relata el origen de su diccionario. Con las palabras escogidas, optó por no mencionar su inteligencia, sus conocimientos, su capacidad de trabajo y de entrega, su amor por los vocablos, su valía. Porque un lápiz y una cuartilla no crean un almacén de significados, un semillero de libros."

PikaraMagazine




María Moliner
credits: unknown
via Ilustracion Crítica
This week marks the birth dates of three great women of of the XX century: the philologist and lexicographer Maria Molíner, the pioneering physicist Hedwig Kohn and the prolific author of stories for children and young readers Sofia Mogilevskaya. 
These three women have made a big impact on our scientific and cultural life and are remembered for their work in Humanities and Science.


Google Doodle Hedwig Kohn's 132nd birthday
guest artist Carolin Löbbert
https://www.google.com/doodles/
And Google celebrates all three. Hedwig Kohn's 132nd birthday tomorrow, 5 April, Maria Molíner's 119th birthday on 30 March and Sofia Mogilevskaya's 116th birthday yesterday, on 3 April 2019.
From my desk in Portugal, I opened Google searching window and could read about the three great women.
  • Some biographical notes: 


Hedwig Kohn in her laboratory, 1912
https://en.wikipedia.org/

  • Hedwig Kohn
Hedwig Kohn born on this day, April 5, 1887, was a pioneer in physics and one of only three women who obtained Habilitation the qualification for university teaching in Germany) in Physics before World War II. She and the other two physicists, Lise Meitner and Hertha Sponer, were forced to leave Germany during the Nazi regime.
Hedwig Kohn earned her doctor of Physics in 1913 under Otto Lummer and continued to work as his assistant until 1933, when she was dismissed because she was Jewish. 


Google Doodle Hedwig Kohn's 132nd birthday
draft of the Doodle
guest artist Carolin Löbbert
https://www.google.com/doodles/
As a Jewish woman living in Nazi Germany, Kohn was barred from her teaching position in 1933. She spent the next several years fulfilling research contracts in industrial physics before fleeing to the US in 1940. 
She survived and came very close to being a victim of the Holocaust like Hannah Arendt, one of the most important philosopher and political writer of her time.
Both escaped  from the Holocaust and obtained a visa to the United States of America. Kohn left Germany in July 1940.


Hedwig Kohn in her office at Wellesly College, 1950
at about the time she received a research award 
courtesy: Brenda Winnewisser
https://jwa.org-/media/

Her research centered around light, and her work helped further information about the intensity of light and emission line shapes.
Over the years, Kohn’s work resulted in more than 20 publications, one patent, and hundreds of textbook pages that were used to introduce students to the field of radiometry (a set of techniques meant to measure electromagnetic radiation, including visible light) well into the 1960s. She died in 1964.




María Moliner at her desk
credits:  Musgo Dumio_Momio / Flickr
via el diario.es
  • María Moliner:

María Moliner was born on 30 March 1900. She was a Spanish librarian and lexicographer. She is perhaps best known for her Diccionario de uso del español, first published in 1966–1967, when she completed the work started in 1952. She devoted her whole life to working with words, and making their power accessible to all. 



Maria Molíner's 119th Birthday

The Spanish librarian, philologist, and lexicographer labored single-handedly to create a new kind of reference book, which was hailed as “the most complete, most useful, most accurate, and funniest dictionary of the Spanish language” by novelist Gabriel García Márquez.

“Escribió sola, en su casa, con su propia mano, el diccionario más completo, más útil, más acucioso y más divertido de la lengua castellana”. 

Gabriel García Márquez, María Moliner, la mujer que escribió un diccionario

María Moliner empleó 15 años de su vida en escribir un diccionario, sola y a lápiz, dos veces más largo que el de la RAE. 190.000 definiciones claras y sin pretensiones que pasaron a la historia hace medio siglo.
En plena posguerra, la filóloga y lexicógrafa aragonesa comenzó a trabajar en su diccionario. Ya se han cumplido 50 años de su primera edición.



María Moliner
credits: Jorge García Izquierdo
https://www.revistatransas.com/

Moliner pursued her Bachillerato at the Instituto General y Técnico Cardenal Cisneros, and obtained a degree in History in 1921 from the University of Zaragoza.

In 1946, Moliner was put in charge of the library at the Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineers in Madrid, until her retirement in 1970. 

In the early 1950s, she started work on her Diccionario de uso del español, getting up at about five in the morning, working a little, watering her flowers, going to work, having a small siesta before returning to her dictionary work. Her method was to look up words, read newspapers and note words she had heard in the street. 

When she began the project she estimated it would take two years, but the first edition of the two-volume dictionary was not published until 1966—a total of 15 years later!


Diccionario  de uso del español 
María Moliner
1ª edicíon 1966
https://www.todocoleccion.net/

Instead of alphabetical organization, Moliner’s dictionary was grouped in families of words, offering not only detailed definitions, but also synonyms, and guidance on usage. 

She devoted her whole life to working with words, and making their power accessible to all. 

On November 7, 1972, the writer Daniel Sueiro interviewed María Moliner in the Heraldo de Aragón. The headline was a question: 

"Will María Moliner be the first woman to join the Academy?". 




Dámaso Alonso, Rafael Lapesa and Pedro Laín Entralgo had recommended her. But the linguist and philologist Emilio Alarcos Llorach was elected instead. Moliner observed:

"Yes, my biography is very short, since my only achievement is my dictionary. I mean, I don't have a long list of works to justify me being admitted [...] My work is clearly the dictionary. Of course, the fact is that a philologist has been admitted to the Academy and not me; but if the dictionary had been written by a man, people would say, "Why is this man not a member of the Academy?"

She was nominated again in 1979 but this time she lost out to the female poet and academic, Carmen Conde.

Moliner received the "Lorenzo Nieto López" prize in 1973, awarded by the Academy. She died in 1981.

  • Sofia Mogilevskaya:


Sofia Mogilevskaya
https://upload.wikimedia.org/

Sofia Mogilevskaya, a prolific Russian author of stories for children and young readers. On April 2, we celebrated Intl Children's Book Day, so nothing better to honor Sofia Mogilevskaya.

I could not find any information about this author, only this picture and some of her children's books. So, I follow Google Doodle informations.




Google Doodle Sofia Mogilevskaya's 116th birtday

Born in Moscow on this day in 1903, Mogilevskaya was raised in a musical household. Her father was an accomplished cellist and music teacher who taught her to play piano. 

Childhood memories of him performing for Leo Tolstoy made a deep impression on her, especially when the young musician changed her focus to journalism and eventually literature. 




Malenkaja khozjajushka

Sofia Mogilevskaya

After ending her studies at the Moscow Conservatory, Mogilevskaya began contributing articles and essays to magazines, translating fairy tales, and writing fiction. Once she settled on becoming a writer, her writing habits remained a daily practice for more than 40 years. 

In 1941, her first children’s book Mark of the Country Gondelupy was published. Later, her experience working in an orphanage during World War II inspired her 1949 book House in Tsybiknur.




Maxim
Sofia Mogilevskaya
illustration: Vassily Shulzhenko

Whether she was writing a fairy tale, a historical work like her books on important figures from Russian music and theater, or educational works like Girls, This Book is for You!, Mogilevskaya’s writing always showed a deep respect for children. 



Crafting Immersive Experiences in Humanities, Social Sciences, & STEM

credits: unknown
via Digital Bodies

Education:

The discussion of new discoveries and a better understanding of the role of women in many different areas of study such as Humanities or Science, and how their ideas and findings can lead to new markets for humanities and science knowledge are important aims. 

I'm happy to know that Portugal is the European country with a greater number of women in science and research.

Constantly evolving education at all ages and levels in our ever-changing world is crucial.

Girls and women are more and more proving in different situations at school and in business that they are equal to men in intelligence and capacity.

The aim is to encourage creativity in the field of humanities, science and STEM and highlight the importance of developing innovative skills at an early age.

"Through the work of humanities scholars, we learn about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made. Their efforts preserve the great accomplishments of the past, help us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future."

Stanford University


“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!” 

Maya Angelou

G-Souto

04.04.2019

Copyright © 2019G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®
Creative Commons License
Schools : Teaching Great Women in Humanities & Science by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Schools : Great women breaking the limit on the sky : Jean Batten !





Jean Batten
credits: Archives New Zealand 





Jean Batten & Buddy


Another woman is honored by Google for breaking the sky after Doodle of Amelia Earhart. Google celebrates today, 15 September, what would have being this pioneering pilot’s 107th birthday Jean Batten with a reminder "to fly fiercely towards our boldest dreams."

doodler: Sophie Diao


In the 1930s, Jean Batten took the skies by storm and brought the winds of change with her. After two failed attempts to fly from England to Australia, Jean made her comeback with a record-breaking return journey in 1934.



Google Doodle Jean Batten's 107th birthday
doodler: Sophie Diao

Her success elevated in 1935 when she became the first woman to ever fly solo across the south Atlantic, and then it soared in 1936 when Jean and her lucky black cat, Buddy, made the first-ever direct flight from England to New Zealand. 

She described the moment the wheels hit the turf as "the very greatest moment of my life," proving to the world that the sky’s only the limit if you let it.






  • Biography:

Jean Batten was New Zealand's greatest aviator, celebrated around the world for her heroic solo flights during the 1930s. Following her success she faded in and out of public view. She died in obscurity in Majorca, Spain, in 1982.


Jane Gardner Batten was born on 15 September 1909 in Rotorua. She soon became known as Jean. In 1913 she moved to Auckland with her parents and two older brothers.

In 1917 her father, Frederick, a dentist, volunteered to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and was sent to the Western Front. The loss of his earnings caused financial hardship for the family; during this period Batten moved from Melmerley Ladies School in Parnell to a state school.





Jean Batten, 1934
via New Zealand History


Batten's ambition to learn to fly developed in the late 1920s as the first flights of ‘an era of hugely publicized long-distance record-breaking flights’ began. Her mother, with whom she maintained a close relationship throughout her life, encouraged this new ambition. In 1929 she took Batten on a holiday to Sydney and arranged for her to fly with Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith.

A year later Batten sailed to England with her mother, and began to learn to fly at the London Aeroplane Club. By December she had gained her ‘A’ license and had her eye on breaking the women's record for a flight from England to Australia. 




Jean Batten, 1934


The mid 1930s were the heyday of Batten's flying career. After two failed attempts to fly from England to Australia in 1933 she successfully completed a return journey in May 1934. Although the route had been flown in one direction or another over 30 times, Batten's gender and her beauty captured huge media attention. 

In keeping with the direction of her ‘patron saint', oil magnate Lord Wakefield (of Castrol Oil), she carefully kept herself in front of the public eye, embarking on extensive tours of Australia and New Zealand. During both tours Batten was accompanied by a mascot, a black kitten she had named Buddy.





Jean Batten

Her attention-grabbing flights continued. In November 1935 she became the first woman to fly herself across the South Atlantic. In October 1936 she went one step further and made the first ever direct flight from England to New Zealand. But she was physically and mentally exhausted by the journey. 

Her tour of New Zealand was eventually called off in Christchurch and she spent much of November resting at Franz Josef Glacier at the government's expense. 





Jean Batten


In February 1937 she returned to Australia. A few months later she completed her last long distance flight, from Australia to England. For the rest of her life Batten drifted in and out of the public view. 

The Second World War brought an end to her flight adventures. Although her aircraft was put to active use, she was not allowed to fly it. She eventually got associated with different campaigns in England to raise funds for guns and aircraft.




Jean Batten stamp

Post war she almost detached herself from public life barring a few appearances.

In a letter dated 8 November 1982 Batten advised her publisher of her new address. This was the last anyone heard from her. 

Her whereabouts remained unknown until September 1987 when it was revealed that she had died in Majorca on 22 November 1982. On 22 January 1983 she was buried in an unknown grave on the Majorca island on January 22, 1983.





Jean Batten infographics

Education:

"Despite numerous improvements in women’s educational and employment outcomes, many countries have not achieved gender equality in economic opportunities and outcomes."

OECD

Often, I write about gender equality. Girls are proving more and more in different situations in school and business that they are equal to men in their intelligence and capacity.

This begins early in school where girls must be encouraged to access to science and technology.

The aim is to encourage creativity in the field of science, technologies and highlight the importance of developing innovative skills at an early age. 

"The empowerment of girls and women starts on the benches of school, with quality education and access to culture and information. Gender equality means literacy. It means access to science. It means genuine possibilities for girls to become everything they wish for. And to make their own informed choices."

Irina Bokova, former Director-General UNESCO





Jean Batten Autograph Signed Display


Resources for Teachers:

  • Video:



  • Documents:


Jean Batten - The Garbo
of the Skies, 1988


Jean Batten: The Garbo of the Skies

Useful links: 

Jean Batten: New Zealand History


Jean Batten: Wikipedia

Jean Batten: The Famous People
Jean Batten The Garbo of the Skies by Ian Mackersey



Jean Batten The Garbo of the Skies, 2014
by Ian Mackersey


  • TV Film:

Jean by Robert Sarkies, 2016





Jean/ TV Film, 2016
Kate Elliott as Jean Batten for TV One Sunday Theatre film 'Jean'

Google with today’s Doodle has sent out a strong message to all of us, “the sky’s the limit only if you let it."

G-Souto
16.09.2016
Copyright © 2016G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Creative Commons License
Schools : Great women breaking the limit of sky : Jean Batten ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License