'Friedrich Froebel, Founder of Kindergarten Essay\r'

'Friedrich Froebel was a German educator of the nineteenth century who verit able an Idealist philosophy of earlier churlishness tuition. He pretended kindergarten and tuition for quartet and five- family- old(a) children. Kindergarten is now a wear of erudition worldwide. Friedrich Froebel was born in the sm altogether t featureshipship of Oberwiessbach, Germany in 1782. His m opposite died when he was a baby. His father remarried, but Froebel never desire his stepmother. His feeling of rejection and isolation remained with him for life. This had a hard effect on his theory of ahead of time puerility reading.\r\nHe believed the kindergarten t distributivelyer should be loving, kind and motherly. Froebel also had an unsatisfactory kind with his father which, along with his shyness, ca apply him to be â€Å" introspective and companionablely inept” (Gutek, 2005, p. 261). Therefore, he observed his kindergarten to â€Å"foster a sentiency of turned on(p) security and self-esteem in children” (Gutek, 2005, p. 261). At the get along of ten, Froebel went to live with his uncle. As a unseas integrityd child, Froebel spent a potful of fourth dimension instituteing in the garden close to his home. This led to his love of spirit and had a profound effect on his commandal philosophy.\r\nWhen he was fifteen age old, Froebel apprenticed with a forester and surveyor and acquire forestry, geometry and surveying in train. He briefly attended the University of Jena from 1800-1802. Then he examine architecture at capital of Kentucky University. Although he ended his studies without receiving a degree, Froebel gained a sense of artistic perspective and symmetry he later ingestiond to design his kindergarten â€Å"gifts” and â€Å"occupations. ” plot of land in Frankfurt Froebel was hired as a teacher at the Frankfurt Model take, which was a Pestalozzian indoctrinate. He examine the Pestalozzi governance of instruction which emphasized exploitation objects to teach.\r\nHis method rejected the exercise of corporal punishment and emphasized respecting the dignity of children. This method of teaching very much appealed to Froebel. Froebel cute to incorporate Pestalozzi’s method and basis of a loving and gear up surroundings for children in his own teaching methods. subsequently(prenominal) teaching at the Model School for common chord years, Froebel studied with Pestalozzi for two to a groovyer extent years Froebel also decided to study languages and science at the University of G? ttingen. He wanted to identify linguistic structures that could be used in language instruction.\r\nDuring this time he became very interested in geology and mineralogy, and also pursued this in his studies. Froebel believed that the action of cryst wholeization (moving from the simple to the complex) emulated a â€Å" world-wide cosmic law that also governed tender-hearted growth and gro wth” (Net Industries, 2008, Biography section, ¶ 3). He would later incorporate the geometric shapes and formations in crystals to pee-pee his kindergarten â€Å"gifts. ” In 1816, Froebel started a prepare in Griesheim called the Universal German educational Institute. He enrolled students who were 7 years old or older.\r\nThe school in the end locomote to Keilhau. The school remained undefendable until 1829 when it struggled and was forced to close. However, Froebel was able to test and develop some of his educational ideas in his school. In 1818 Froebel married Henrietta Hoffmeister. She dual-lane Froebel’s love of children and assisted in his educational work until her death. Froebel formal an educational institute at Wartenese in 1831. Later, he was invited to establish an orphanage at Burgdorf. present he conducted a school for the town children and a boarding school for those who lived away.\r\nHe trained teachers and established a nursery school for 3 and 4 year olds. He developed songs, rhymes, games, physical exercises and other activities for the nursery school. He experimented with the objects and other materials that eventually became his kindergarten gifts. He also stressed fetch and its role in education. In 1837, at the age of 55, Froebel relocated to Blankenburg and established a newborn type of school for early puerility education. He called it â€Å"kindergarten,” or â€Å"the children’s garden” (Smith, 1999, ¶ 5).\r\nThis word ex wished Froebel’s vision for early childhood education: â€Å"Children argon like tiny flowers; they are varied and need care, but each is beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers” (Smith, 1999, ¶ 6). He used play, songs, stories, and activities to establish an educational surroundings in which children, by their own act, could learn and develop. According to Froebel, this meant that children, in their development, wou ld learn to follow the â€Å"divinely established laws of human growth by their own activity” (Net Industries, 2008, Biography section, ¶ 5).\r\nThis is where he used his kindergarten gifts and occupations. â€Å"Gifts were objects Froebel believed had special symbolic potential. Occupations were the raw materials children could use in drawing and building activities that allowed them to peg down their ideas” (Gutek, 2005, p. 265). Froebel became famous as an early childhood educator in Germany and by 1848, cardinal kindergartens were operating in Germany. Froebel began training young women as kindergarten teachers. Kindergarten achieved its greatest influence in the United States.\r\nIt was brought to America by the Germans after the European Revolution of 1848. Kindergartens appeared wherever on that point was a volumed concentration of German immigrants. Henry Barnard, the initiatory United States Commissioner of grooming, introduced Froebel’s kinde rgarten into educational literature in the 1850’s by including it in the American ledger of Education, of which he was the editor. He also recommended to congress that a general school system be established for the District of capital of South Carolina that would include kindergartens. In 1873, William Torrey Harris established a kindergarten at a school in St.\r\nLouis, Missouri and incorporated it into the public school system. This event led to more public schools incorporating kindergartens into their systems. level offtually, Harris became the U. S. Commissioner of Education and he continued to press for the incorporation of kindergartens into public school systems end-to-end the United States. Before Froebel started his kindergarten, children under the age of seven did not attend school as it was believed that these young children did not book the ability to develop the cognitive and stirred skills needed to learn in a school environment.\r\nHowever, Froebel beli eved in early childhood education: â€Å"because learning begins when consciousness erupts, education must also” (Pioneers, 2000, ¶ 7). In his book, Education of Man, Froebel states the idealist themes of his philosophy: â€Å"(1) all humanity originates in and with theology; (2) humans experience an inherent spiritual essence that is the snappyise life force that causes development; (3) all beings and ideas are interconnected parts of a grand, ordered, and systematic universe” (Net Industries, 2008, Froebel’s Kindergarten ism section, ¶ 1).\r\nThis is what Froebel based his work on, claiming that each child had an â€Å"internal spiritual essence †a life force” (Net Industries, 2008, Froebel’s Kindergarten doctrine section, ¶ 1). This life force seeks to be manifested through self-activity. He also believed that â€Å"child development follows the doctrine of preformation, the unfolding of that which was present latently in th e individual” (Net Industries, 2008, Froebel’s Kindergarten Philosophy section, ¶ 1).\r\nFroebel’s kindergarten created a special educational environment in which this self-activity and development occurred. Froebel used his kindergarten gifts, occupations, tender and cultural activities, and especially play to labor this self-activity. Froebel also believed that children were to learn that they were members of â€Å"a great universal, spiritual community” (Gutek, 2005, p. 266). Thus the use of games and social activities. According to Froebel, play was native to educating the young child.\r\nHe believed that through sweet with the world, understanding would develop. That is why play was so critical †it is a creative activity through which children become aware of their commit in the world and the world around them. Education was to be based on each child’s interests and spontaneous activity. The kindergarten teacher’s job was t o create an environment that would stimulate the child’s development. She was also to create a safe, secure environment that prevented anything from disturbing this process.\r\nIt was essential to the kindergarten children’s progress that the teacher did not incapacitate the child’s free play and individuality. Each child would learn what he was realize to learn when he was ready to learn it. As Froebel states: â€Å"Education in instruction and training, originally and in its first principles, should necessarily be passive, following (only guarding and protecting), not prescriptive, categorical, interfering” (Sniegoski, 1994, p. 8). Froebel believed the kindergarten should have a beautiful physical environment.\r\nHe recommended the use of an next garden or a bright painted room with plants, animals and pictures. This should also be a prepared environment which would get out the teacher with the proper tools which the teacher felt would be most be neficial to the learning environment. And instead of traditional books, the kindergarten should teach employ geometrical play objects of different shapes, sizes and colors (â€Å"gifts”). He also believed in symbol and that if a child played with the â€Å"gifts,” they would helper the child to understand fundamental truths. Froebel’s gifts consisted of:\r\n half-dozen soft colored balls; a wooden sphere, cube, and cylinder; a sizeable cube carve up into eight littler cubes; a adult cube divided into eight oblong blocks; a large cube divided into twenty-one substantial, six half, and twelve quarter cubes; a large cube divided into eighteen whole oblongs with three divided lengthwise and three divided breadthwise; quadrangular and angulate tablets used for arranging figures; sticks for outlining figures; wire go for outlining figures; various materials for drawing, perforating, embroidering, paper cutting, weaving or braiding, paper folding, modeling, an d interlacing.\r\n(Net Industries, 2008, The Kindergarten Curriculum section, ¶ 1). Also, Froebel designed â€Å"occupations” to be used in the kindergarten. These allowed more immunity and were things that children could shape and manipulate. Examples of â€Å"occupations” are string, sand, clay, and beads. As always, on that point was an underlying meaning in all that was done in Froebel’s kindergarten. â€Å"Even clean up time was seen as a reminder to the child of God’s plan for moral and social order” (Nichols, n.\r\nd. , Occupations section, ¶ 1). Froebel’s careful study of the nature of children and their part in the world continues to be of great importance, as it opened a door to a new world in childhood education. Froebel given up importance to what â€Å"originated in children, not and what adults gave them to do or learn” (Sniegoski, 1994, p. 15). He also discovered the educational value of play and the use of ne w non-book, active materials in teaching children.\r\nFroebel provided a â€Å"theoretic basis for early childhood education that recognized stages of intellectual growth” (Sniegoski, 1994, p. 15). The one aspect of Froebel’s theories that has disappeared for the most part is the mysterious symbolism that overcastted his educational philosophy. However, his ideals of dismissal children to develop according to their own interests and postulate and giving them a bright, playful, nurturing environment in which to learn remains an important and vital part of early childhood education today.\r\nReferences Gutek, Gerald Lee. (2005). Friedrich Froebel: Founder of the kindergarten. In Historical and philosophic foundations of education: a biographical foot (4th ed. ) (pp. 256-273). Upper Sadle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Lucas, Bill. (2005, October 24). Studying the origination of kindergarten. In Boxes and Arrows: The Design Behind the Design, July, 2008. Retrieve d July 12, 2008, from http://www. boxesandarrows. com/ depend/studying_the_creation_of_kindergarten. Net Industries. (2008).\r\nFriedrich Froebel (1782-1852): Biography, Froebel’s kindergarten philosophy, the kindergarten curriculum, diffusion of the kindergarten. In Education Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from http://education. stateuniversity. com/pages/1999/ Froebel-Friedrich-1782-1852. html. Nichols, Rachel. (n. d. ). Friedrich Froebel: Founder of the first kindergarten. Retrieved July 11, 2008 from http://hubpages. com/hub/ Friedrich-Froebel-Founder-of-the-First-Kindergarten. Pioneers in our field: Friedrich Froebel: Founder of the first kindergarten [Electronic version].\r\n(2000). bookworm: Early Childhood Today, August, 2000. Retrieved July 11, 2008 from http://www2. scholastic. com/browse/article. jsp? id=3442. Smith, condition K. (1997). Friedrich Froebel. Retrieved July 12, 2008 from http://www. infed. org/thinkers/et-froeb. htm. Sniegoski, Stephen. (1994 ). Froebel and early childhood education in America. Retrieved July 12, 2008 from the Educational Resources Information Center meshing site: http://www. eric. ed. gov/ERICDOCS/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/ 00000196/80/14/19/02. pdf.\r\n'