MATHEMATICIAN, EDUCATOR

Elementary Education Leader.

An acknowledged leader in the education of kindergarten children, Catherine Brieger Stern immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1938. Stern's innovations in the teaching of elementary mathematics and reading anticipated many of the curricular innovations of the 1960s and 1970s? and her work had a lasting impact on elementary schools.

Background.

Born Kathe Brieger, Stern was the only daughter of a medical and academic family in Breslau, Germany. Much influenced by her mother, Hedwig, Stern was educated by a private tutor and at the Madchen Gymnasium in Breslau. Following in the footsteps of her father, she took a degree in physics at the University of Breslau, where she was awarded a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics in 1918. She met her husband, Rudolf Stern, through a shared interest in literature and the theater; they were married in 1919 and...