Kindergarten – Page 5 – Froebel Decade

Play gifts

The value of play gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel is their simplicity.

The logic of their unit form and interaction enables free and creative activity as the self expression of each child.

Their logical structure provides constantly emerging forms for each child to discover new conditions, relationships and relations.

speilgaben

Parents and educators can watch how each child can develop their own creative powers by free activity.

The intellectual roots of the play gifts are in Friedrich Froebel’s life as a student and teacher. His scientific studies and experience at the Mineralogical Museum in Berlin (1812-1816) and the subsequent work in Keilhau / Thür. (1817-1831) provided the basis for shaped his ideas about how each child could be free and develop creative powers through activity.

Source: Spielgaben

175 years of Kindergarten

Kindergarten was named by Friedrich Froebel on June 28, 1840 at Bad Blankenburg during the Gutenberg Festival to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing by movable type.

The first kindergarten at Bad Blankenburg was a new cultural form, which combined work, family, child care and education.

Froebel recognized in particular how each child acquires knowledge about himself or herself and the world through activities, that correspond to the nature of each child.

via http://www.froebeldekade.de/froebeldekade/froebel-tagung2015/

Although much has changed since 1840,

many of Froebel’s principles continue to guide high quality early childhood education around the world today.

Read more about the history of the kindergarten and of early childhood education along Froebelian lines at the International Froebel Society

GERMANY :: THEME: 175 years of Kindergarten :: NOMINAL VALUE: 2.15€ :: ISSUE DATE: 11 June 2015 :: STAMP DESIGN: Lisa Röper — GERMANY
:: THEME: 175 years of Kindergarten
:: NOMINAL VALUE: 2.15€
:: ISSUE DATE: 11 June 2015
:: STAMP DESIGN: Lisa Röper

International Froebel Society

Experts agree that high-quality early childhood education promotes the healthy cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of young children.

Decades’ worth of evidence shows that the highest quality early education is child-centred and play-based. And yet, in many places, early childhood education today is dominated by skills-based, academically-oriented, test-focused teaching.

We seek to change that.

Source: IFS: The International Froebel Society | Promoting Child-Centred Kindergarten & Early Education Worldwide

As an organisation of educators, university-based researchers, and early years providers, the IFS provides an international forum for the development of the principles of child-centred and play-based educational theory and practice, especially but not exclusively those associated with the inventor of the Kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852).

The Paradox of Generosity

Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose

Generosity appears to coincide with happiness, good health, avoidance of depression, a sense of purpose in life.

The paradox of generosity is that it is good for those who practice it: The more you give, the better off you are.

This book documents the benefits of living a generous life and more generous life practices.

via The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose by Christian Smith & Hilary Davidson | How Giving Keeps on Giving | Stanford Social Innovation Review.

What’s Your Endgame?

The development of universal kindergarten in the United States at the turn of the 20th century provides a good case study in how the government adoption model works:

Private charities, orphanages, and parochial schools ran the first kindergartens in the country.
After boards of education started recognizing the developmental benefits of early education, they began to fold kindergarten classes into existing public school systems.
By World War I, all of the largest American urban school systems included kindergarten, and kindergarten students in public schools outnumbered those in private schools by almost 19 to 1

In the government adoption endgame, a nonprofit proves its concept and demonstrates that its intervention can be delivered at a significant scale.

Then it mounts an advocacy effort to influence policy and budget decisions.
Once government adoption occurs, the nonprofit can continue to serve as an advisor or service provider to government agencies.

The scale of delivery required to confront many social problems is high enough that government involvement often becomes indispensable.

via What’s Your Endgame? | Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Kindergarten in Australia

The groundswell for the kindergarten movement in Australia began at a time of great concern for many young children living with their families, who had no access to appropriate education.

In August of 1895, a meeting of kindergarten enthusiasts was held and those present formed themselves into a provisional committee of The Kindergarten Union. They were led by the well known feminist and educator Maybanke Anderson.

The stated objectives of this committee were to:

set forth kindergarten principles,
endeavour to introduce those principles into every school,
open Free Kindergartens wherever possible.

In the first ten years, the Kindergarten Union founded a training college and trained over 200 students.

via KU Children’s Services – About – History.

The First Kindergarten

The story of the founding of Kindergarten by Friedrich Froebel and the tireless work of his friend and advocate, Baroness von Marenholtz-Buelow.

Opening the doors of cultural luminaries and European nobility to Froebel’s ideas, the noblewoman from the ancient von Buelow family is often dubbed "the mother of Kindergarten" just as Froebel is referred to as "the father of Kindergarten."

In this picture book for children, the author joins through literature the lives and contributions of two of the world’s greatest proponents of children’s education, which are still relevant today.

via The First Kindergarten – J (Johannes) Froebel-Parker : AuthorHouse.

UAlbany Magazine

Johannes Froebel-Parker, B.A. ’79, M.A. ’82, M.S. ’85, is the author of The First Kindergarten, the third novel in his Ahnentafel series. In this historical novel, which includes a great deal of biographical information, Froebel-Parker joins through literature the lives and contributions of two of the world’s greatest proponents of children’s education.

via UAlbany Magazine – Fall 2013 – University at Albany – SUNY.

Emily Sheriff

“We must call the little children from the very earliest years, and prepare them for useful and honorable citizenship.”

“I have tried to outline the plan. Let me briefly summarize. Take the very little child into the kindergarten and there begin the work of physical, mental, and moral training. Put the child in possession of his powers; develop his faculties; unfold his moral nature; cultivate mechanical skill in the use of the hands; give him a sense of symmetry and harmony, a quick judgment of number, measure, and size; stimulate his inventive faculties; make him familiar with the customs and usages of well-ordered lives; teach him to be kind, courteous, helpful, and unselfish; inspire him to love whatsoever things are true, and right, and kind, and noble; and thus equipped, physically, mentally, and morally, send him forth to the wider range of study.”

“This training should put the boy or girl into the possession of the tools for employment, or for the cultivation of the arts of drawing.”

As one of the most noted among the disciples of the great Froebel, Miss Emily Sheriff, of London, said: “The poor man suffers wrong when his education is so defective that he can not use his faculties aright, when his senses are blunted, his observation and judgment insecure.”

via p.116-7. The World’s Progress.

Maria Grey

Maria Grey and her sister Emily Sherriff shared an interest in the Frobelian movement.

Maria Grey, nee Shirreff, was born in 1815 and in 1841 married William Grey, nephew of Earl Grey Prime Minister from 1830-34 and champion of the Reform Act. She took up the twin causes of the professional education of teachers, particularly of women teachers, and the establishment of Education as a field of study. She was the creator of the National Union for Improving the Education of Women of all classes, known as the Women’s Education Union (WEU), a pressure group formed to state a case for women’s rights to professional recognition as teachers. The WEU was sponsored by the Society of Arts and had as its president Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.

via Maria Grey & Borough Road – Brunel Alumni.