"Math, that's not for girls"
Created: 04/29/2022, 09:00
By: Michaele Heske
Intended to break up rigid career profiles: Girls' Day at the Gymnasium Dorfen with (from left) Miriam Wendorf, Bernhard Laux (physics teacher), Emma Seisenberger, Laura Westphal, Uxia Garcia, Anna Maria Herrmann, Stefan Bosehne and the project managers Alina Kerschbaumer and Susanne Bley.
High school graduates in the fast lane © Michaele Heske
Dorfen - At Girls' Day at the high school in Dorfen, 17 schoolgirls experimented with scientists from the Technical University of Munich.
Breaking up rigid job descriptions and getting a taste of gender-atypical jobs, that's the task of the annual Girls' Day.
17 schoolgirls from the Dorfen grammar school experimented for a day with employees from the Technical University of Munich and learned to overcome role clichés.
"That's not for girls," is a typical sentence that made senior teacher Christiane Drexler shake her head.
"Even with an A in physics or math, girls often feel like they can't do enough," believes the 46-year-old teacher who teaches physics and math.
When Drexler began her studies more than 20 years ago, she was the only woman in the lecture hall, and later during her main studies at the Technical University of Munich there were hardly any women either.
Men still dominate in technical and scientific courses, she regrets.
Society is changing, but by no means as quickly as desired, says headmaster Markus Höß.
If you look at the degrees of the past few years, the high school graduates tend to be in the fast lane.
And yet they often still fall into traditional, typically female professions.
That's why the Girls' Day is so important, a day on which the high school students can get a taste of professional fields in order to "open their eyes", said the director.
This year, young scientists and students from the Technical University of Munich came to experiment together with 9th and 10th graders.
"The students and researchers can exchange ideas and ask questions," says Höß.
For example, how the compatibility of job and career actually works in practice.
Physics teacher Bernhard Laux, who is part of the school management, organized the Girls' Day.
Two experiments were planned.
Once it was about separating substances in contaminated drinking water with magnets.
Another series of experiments revolved around ellipses.
"Hands-on mathematics," explained Alina Kerschbaumer (24), who did a master's degree in energy technology.
Together, the scientists built and calculated and built a small elliptical pool table with the high school students.
The scientific introductory offers are predestined for girls in the 10th grade in particular: "A good time before choosing the upper school courses."
High school student Emma Seisenberger confirmed that day when she was choosing her future course: "I want to study mathematics later, because math is cool." The 15-year-old from St. Wolfgang says it's very exciting what you can calculate with numbers.
Classmate Miriam Wendorf (15) wants to study astrophysics later.
But she also finds it very exciting to derive formulas.
No question: girls are in no way inferior to boys.
For the Equal Opportunities Officer of the Dorfen Gymnasium, Sonja Schweiger, the problem is largely due to outdated images in people's minds, which persist and are sometimes still fueled - above all the typical "nothing for girls".
The appeal of the German and physical education teacher: Encourage instead of doubting.
Parents, grandparents, but also schools and careers advice centers should pay much more attention to the fact that women and technology are a matter of course (see interview below left).
Schweiger, who is also part of the school board, wants to be a role model.
"Only from us can schoolgirls learn that career and family are compatible." She herself has two children and works part-time.
Physics teacher Laux was also on parental leave.
“It is the job of us men to support our partners.
The classic role models should increasingly recede into the background.”
High school graduates in the fast lane