Marta Mata

Marta Ángela Mata Garriga (22 June 1926 – 27 June 2006) was a Spanish politician and pedagogue who promoted the renovation of public schools during Spain's transition to democracy in 1978, and defended secular schools. She was the founder of the and wrote numerous books and articles on reading and writing didactics, pedagogy, educational policy, and children's stories.

Biography Marta Mata's connection with the world of education originated with her mother, Àngels Garriga, who was a pedagogue, teacher, and writer trained in the Summer Schools before the Civil War, and in the Commonwealth of Catalonia, with Pompeu Fabra, , , Rosa Sensat, , and . Her father was Josep Mata Virgili (1886–1934), an industrial technician, who died in a work accident in Madrid when Marta was 8 years old.

She went to kindergarten and elementary schools of the Barcelona City School Board, where her mother worked. In 1937 she began high school at the . In 1939 her teachers and professors were dismissed or dispersed because of the Civil War. She finished high school in 1943 at the Verdaguer Institute, and began her studies in Natural Sciences at the University of Barcelona, but before finishing the first year she was forced to interrupt her studies due to tuberculosis.

Pedagogical renovation In Saifores, Mata also began her collaboration with the first groups of teachers involved in the pedagogical renovation movement that promoted Spanish education during the Second Republic, and with the resurgence of schools that proposed a renewal of education in Catalan. She also contacted the pedagogues Alexandre Galí, Artur Martorell, and Jordi Rubió, of whom she considered herself a disciple.

In 1959 she traveled to Geneva for the first time and contacted the International Bureau of Education, where she met the pedagogue . She also began working as a pedagogical consultant for the Catalan publishers Nova Terra and La Galera, and the recently created children's magazine Cavall Fort. She worked on some publications of the National Institute of Spanish Books and publishers Teide and Vicens Vives. In the summer of 1964 she lived for a month on Israel's Dvir kibbutz, where she learned its educational system.

In 1965 she moved her residence to Barcelona. Facing the impossibility of freely creating professorship training centers during the Francoist regime, together with a team of teachers of diverse schools and the support of parents of the alumni of these schools, she clandestinely created the with the objectives of training teachers and building a democratic, active, public, and quality school. The project extended into the so-called Summer Schools, with an important footprint inside and outside of Catalonia.

From 1965 to 1975 Mata strengthened her relationship with groups of teachers working on pedagogical renovation in Spain and Portugal, and established contacts with university professors and institutions in France, England, the USSR, Chile, and Italy, while specializing in teaching in language contact situations, and in the didactics of written language and Catalan and Spanish phonology.

From the Rosa Sensat school she promoted the creation of the magazine Perspectiva Escolar in 1974, and in 1975 promoted the declaration of the 10th Summer School: Por una nueva Escuela Pública (For a New Public School).

During 1982 and 1983 she participated in the organization and realization of the 1st Congress of Pedagogical Renovation Movements, sponsored by the Ministry of Education.

In 1984 she created the Àngels Garriga de Mata Foundation, now called the Marta Mata Garriga Foundation, an entity whose objective is the development of a dynamic conception of the school and the establishment of relations between the worlds of culture, work, entertainment, and civics. The Foundation has a library specialized in education, and archives of Mata's documents.

Political career The death of Francisco Franco opened the door to greater political involvement for Marta Mata, who joined Socialist Convergence of Catalonia (CSC) in 1976, directed by Joan Reventós, which became part of the Socialist Party of Catalonia–Congress and, two years later, the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC).

From 1984 to 1988 she returned to the Parliament of Catalonia for the constituency of Barcelona. From 1987 to 1995 she was Councilor for Education of the City Council of Barcelona, where she promoted the Educating Cities movement.

Named Illustrious Daughter of Banyeres del Penedès, Saifores municipality, 10 March 1995 Gold Medal of Scientific Merit from the City Council of Barcelona, 2 September 1997 Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (posthumous) from Juan Carlos I of Spain, 30 June 2006 Honorable Mention of the 12th Mestres Award (posthumous), September 2006 Lola Soler Blánquez Award (posthumous) from the Lola Soler Blánquez Foundation, 10 October 2006 The Maritime Safety and Rescue Society named the tugboat in her honor, July 2009 (posthumous), March 2015