Kindergarten – Page 3 – Froebel Decade

Why Grow Up?

Thinking for oneself is a difficult and lifelong undertaking.

In her new book, Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age the philosopher Susan Neiman takes on the predicament of maturity, that dates back to the 18th century.

Source: ‘Why Grow Up?’ by Susan Neiman

An American born philosopher who lives in Berlin, Neiman wants you to think for yourself.

The “infantile age” she has in mind goes back to the 18th century, and its most important figures are Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. “Coming of age is an Enlightenment problem,” she writes, “and nothing shows so clearly that we are the Enlightenment’s heirs” than that we understand it as a topic for argument and analysis, as opposed to something that happens to everyone in more or less the same way. Before Kant and Rousseau, Neiman suggests, Western philosophy had little to say about the life cycle of individuals. As traditional religious and political modes of authority weakened, “the right form of human development became a philosophical problem, incorporating both psychological and political questions and giving them a normative thrust.”

How are we supposed to become free, happy and decent people?

Rousseau’s “Emile” supplies Neiman with some plausible answers, and also with some cautionary lessons. A wonderfully problematic book — among other things a work of Utopian political thought, a manual for child-rearing, a foundational text of Romanticism and a sentimental novel — it serves here as a repository of ideas about the moral progress from infancy to adulthood. And also, more important, as a precursor and foil for Kant’s more systematic inquiries into human development.

The Geneva born Rousseau traveled across Europe on foot, fathering and abandoning at least five children. Kant rarely left his native Königsberg and never married. Between them, they mapped out what Neiman takes to be the essential predicament of maturity, namely the endless navigation of the gulf between the world as we encounter it and the way we believe it should be.

In infancy, we have no choice but to accept the world as it is.

In adolescence, we rebel against the discrepancy between the “is” and the “ought.”

Adulthood, for Kant and for Neiman, “requires facing squarely the fact that you will never get the world you want, while refusing to talk yourself out of wanting it.” It is a state of neither easy cynicism nor naïve idealism, but of engaged reasonableness.

Empathy

Empathy isn’t just taking another perspective. Con men can do that. In order to be empathic, children need to know how to value, respect and understand another person’s points of view, even when they don’t agree.

Source: Teaching Children Empathy

A classroom full of empathic children runs more smoothly than one filled with even the happiest group of self serving children.

Family life is more harmonious when siblings are able feel for each other and put the needs of others ahead of individual happiness.

If a classroom or a family full of caring children makes for a more peaceful and cooperative learning environment, just imagine what we could accomplish in a world populated by such children.

When Harvard University released the report, “The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Messages Adults Are Sending About Values,” many parents and educators were surprised to learn that despite all our talk about empathy, kids may value individual happiness over caring for others.

Empathy is a combination of both compassion and of seeing from another person’s perspective. It is the key to preventing bullying and other forms of cruelty.

Five suggestions for developing empathy in children:

1. Empathize with your child and model how to feel compassion for others.

A child develops these qualities by watching us and experiencing our empathy for them. When we show that we truly know our children by understanding and reacting to their emotional needs, exhibiting interest and involvement in their lives, and respecting their personalities, they feel valued. Children who feel valued are more likely to value others and demonstrate respect for their needs. When we treat other people like they matter, our child notices, and is more likely to emulate our acts of caring and compassion.

2. Make caring for others a priority and set high ethical expectations.

A child needs to know that we are not simply paying lip service to empathy, that we show caring and compassion in our everyday lives. Rather than say, “The most important thing is that you are happy,” try: “The most important thing is that you’re kind and that you are happy.” Prioritize caring when you talk about others, and help your child understand that the world does not revolve around them or their needs.

3. Provide opportunities for a child to practice.

Empathy, like other emotional skills, requires repitition to become second nature. Hold family meetings and involve each child by challenging them to listen to and respect others’ perspectives. Ask children about conflicts at school and help them reflect on their classmates’ experiences. If another child is unpopular or having social problems, talk about how that child may be feeling about the situation, and ask your child how he or she may be able help.

4. Expand your child’s circle of concern.

It’s not hard for a child to empathize with their immediate family and close friends, but it can be a real challenge to understand and feel for people outside of that circle. You can help your child expand their circle by “zooming in and zooming out”; listening carefully to a particular person and then pulling back to take in multiple perspectives. Encourage your child to talk about and speculate on the feelings of people who are particularly vulnerable or in need. Talk about how those people could be helped and comforted.

5. Help a child develop self control and manage feelings effectively.

Even when a child feels empathy for others, societal pressures and prejudices can block their ability to express their concern. Angry over a perceived slight can be a real challenge for a child to engage their sense of empathy. Encourage children to name those stereotypes and prejudices, and to talk about their anger, envy, shame and other negative emotions. Model conflict resolution and anger management in your own actions, and let your child see you work through challenging feelings in your own life.

The old view that we are essentially self interested creatures is being nudged firmly to one side by evidence that we are wired for empathy, social cooperation, and mutual aid. Over the last decade, neuroscientists have identified an “empathy circuit” in our brain.

Prince George

The Duchess of Cambridge shared her photos of Prince George’s first day at Westacre Montessori School near Anmer Hall, the Norfolk home of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

The two year old Prince is expected to attend, when Prince William and Catherine are staying at their Norfolk home, but not when they reside at Kensington Palace in London.

Montessori came to realise that children placed in an environment, where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves.

“I did not invent a method of education, I simply gave some little children a chance to live”.

An illustrated guide to enhance understanding of these tried and true methods and the systematic order, which is important to achieve success. Over stimulating the imagination of a child can hinder natural development.

The first child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, became Princess Royal of Britain, and then patroness of the Froebel Educational Institute in London, when it commenced in 1892 with plans for a free kindergarten.

Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) founded ‘Kindergarten’ for young children and pioneered the idea, that women should be highly educated and trained to support each child to develop abstract imaginative, symbolic and creative thinking through play. Froebel valued close partnership with parents and open community schools.

Joe Frost

rg241-1 — “In Celebration of Children’s Play” was given to UIW in 2004 by Dr. Joe L. Frost, professor emeritus at UT Austin.

The Frost Play Research Collection was dedicated in the spring of 2004, with the goal of becoming the largest children’s play and play environments research collection in the United States. A board composed of UIW faculty and other advisors oversees the direction and development of the collection.

The collection of teacher, researcher, and author, Dr. Joe L. Frost included materials from his extensive research library, Dr. Frost’s correspondence, manuscripts and other items related to his research and work in the field of play, and hundreds of photographs dealing with children’s play gathered by Dr. Frost.

Dr. Frost has authored or co-authored 18 books, several having been translated into other languages, as well as six volumes of original papers, reports and articles. Dr. Frost has also served as editor for many texts. He is known all over the world for his more than 30 years of work on early childhood and children’s play environments. He has also served as a consultant for playgrounds worldwide and is a past president of both the Association for Childhood Education International and International Play Association/USA.

Frost’s culminating work, A History of Children’s Play and Play, was published in New York and London by Routledge Publishers in 2010.

Children’s play throughout history has been free, spontaneous, and intertwined with work, set in the playgrounds of the fields, streams, and barnyards. Children in cities enjoyed similar forms of play but their playgrounds were the vacant lands and parks. Today, children have become increasingly inactive, abandoning traditional outdoor play for sedentary, indoor cyber play and poor diets. The consequences of play deprivation, the elimination and diminution of recess, and the abandonment of outdoor play are fundamental issues in a growing crisis that threatens the health, development, and welfare of children.

Transition

Karaoke democracy focuses on collectively redistributing benefits with many intervening institutions whereas kabuki democracy focuses on striking an emotional chord with direct conversations between leaders and citizens.

This book provides an unconventional and provocative look at how a globally transition from representative democracy to monitoring democracy is unfolding in Japan.

Seven prime ministers have been appointed in Japan during a decade.

Joy and freedom

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are welcomed at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, the seat of the first German parliament, with joyous and free singing by children of the Frankfurt Cathedral school choir, aged between 10 and 18.

After singing in German Die Gedanken sind frei, the choir sang an English verse written for this event.

I think as I choose, my life’s open ended,
But always I choose, so no one’s offended.

“Zwei Strophen des schlesischen Volkslieds, dessen Text im 18. Jahrhundert zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht wird, erklingen zur Begrüßung; mit zwei weiteren Strophen wird die Queen verabschiedet. Eine der Strophen singen die Kinder dem hohen Staatsgast zu Ehren auf Englisch”
Frankfurter Domsingschule singt für die Queen

Printed in Bern, Switzerland, between 1810 and 1820, the original lyricist and the composer are unknown. The text first occurred on leaflets about 1780.

The Cube

A box containing eight cubes is the first building gift designed by Friedrich Froebel.

A child is given a cube, whose parts can be easily separated, and put together again with pleasure to restore the original form, a perfect cube.

By moving one cube at a time, a child can also construct of a variety of other forms and patterns.

source: Taking Apart and Putting Together Cubes AIMS

Buy maple cubes online with PayPal, free shipping to continental USA.

Buy cubes in boxes online with PayPal, free shipping worldwide. Made in Germany from beech wood since 1835 to the original designs of Friedrich Froebel.

Paradise of Childhood

This practical guide to playing with the cubes and other play gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel has many illustrations can be read online

A free digitised version of Paradise of Childhood by Edward Wiebe, Edited by Milton Bradley London: George Phillip & Son Ltd., 1896 is available as a single PDF (74MB) at the Froebel Digital Collection.

Second Gift

The cube was added to the sphere in the second play gift described by Friedrich Froebel in Sonntagsblatt (1838-1840).

Froebel selected the cylinder as an intermediary form between the sphere and the cube.

“It is well to call the attention of each child to one great law, which dominates in nature and thought. Between two things or two ideas relatively different there always exists a third which unites the two others in itself, and is found between them with a certain equilibrium.”

Fundamental law of the connection of contrasts formulated in the Education of Man (1826). Continue reading “Second Gift”

Perseverance

fox-grapes-aesop

Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked ‘Oh, you aren’t even ripe yet! I don’t need any sour grapes.’

People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.

The Fox and the Grapes is one of the Aesop’s fables. The expression “sour grapes” originated from this fable.

Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable tension, which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.

Friedrich Froebel encouraged each child to persevere in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

Aesop’s fables

A man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”

Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor Donkey of yours, you and your hulking son?”

The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the Donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the Donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:

“Please all, and you will please none.”

Aesop lived from about 620 to 560 BCE and is famous for fables including: “The Goose With the Golden Eggs”, “The Fisher”, “The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey” and “The Sick Lion”.