Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Presented By:
Cael, Jesjomary A.
Cargullo, Lesly P.
Guerra, Jeamer T.
Marquez, Maylene N.
Patongao, Gueralden G.
Trangia, Beverly C.
Presented to:
Prof. Jannet I. Calica, MA.Ed
Faculty
Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel
Born : 21 April 1782
Died : 21 June 1852
Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, born April 21 1782 was the youngest of five sons of
Johann Jacob Froebel, a Lutheran pastor at Oberweissbach in the German principality
of Schwarzburg-Rudolfstadt.
The political weakness and disunity of the various German states had an impact on
Froebel as well as on many young people who believed that Germans should be united
in one nation.
Although Froebel was an educational rather than a political theorist, his philosophy of
education, stressing themes of interrelationship and interconnection, reflected his wish
for German unification.
In 1806, Napoleon defeated Prussia and its kindred German allies. Froebel, then age 24,
served with the German army that was soundly defeated at the battles of Jena and
Auerstadt. After the 1806 defeat, the Prussian set to work rebuilding their military forces
and recouping their fortunes. These military events shaped the context in which Froebel
developed his educational ideas.
Just as Froebel was influenced by philosophical idealism, so were his ideas shaped by
the dominant trends in science.
Such a universal design had no room for change or accident. Everything had a place
and everything was to be in its place.
Froebel’s philosophy of early childhood education was filled with religious language,
symbolism, and meaning.
It was this combination of political, philosophical, scientific, and religious events and
movements that formed the historical context in which Froebel lived and that influenced
his formation of a philosophy of early childhood education.
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL:
PIONEER OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR
AUTHOBIOGRAPHY:
Humble Beginnings
Influences on Froebel
Finding His Calling
Teaching Career
The Founder of Kindergarten
Works of Froebel
Death
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, born April 21 1782 was the youngest of five sons of
Johann Jacob Froebel, a Lutheran pastor at Oberweissbach in the German principality
of Schwarzburg-Rudolfstadt. Froebel's mother died when he was nine months old. When
Friedrich was four years old, his father remarried. Feeling neglected by his stepmother
and father, Froebel experienced a profoundly unhappy childhood. At his father's
insistence, he attended the girls' primary school at Oberweissbach.
From 1793 to 1798 he lived with his maternal uncle, Herr Hoffman, at Stadt-Ilm, where
he attended the local town school. From the years 1798 to 1800 he was as an
apprentice to a forester and surveyor in Neuhaus. From 1800 to 1802 Froebel attended
the University of Jena.
In 1805 Froebel briefly studied architecture in Frankfurt. His studies provided him with a
sense of artistic perspective and symmetry he later transferred to his design of the
kindergarten's gifts and occupations.
From 1810 to 1812 Froebel studied languages and science at the University of
Göttingen. He hoped to identify linguistic structures that could be applied to language
instruction. He became particularly interested in geology and mineralogy.
From 1812 to 1816 Froebel studied mineralogy with Professor Christian Samuel Weiss
(1780–1856) at the University of Berlin. Froebel believed the process of crystallization,
moving from simple to complex, reflected a universal cosmic law that also governed
human growth and development.
INFLUENCES ON FROEBEL
Froebel was an innovator, who was influenced by the key pioneers of education John
Amos Comenius and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Gruner was a follower of Pestalozzi and, seeing Friedrich’s potential, suggested that he
become a teacher.
TEACHING CAREER
In 1805 Friedrich Froebel became a teacher at a Pestalozzian school. In order to
prepare for the position, he studied under Pestalozzi at Yverdon. Froebel later went back to
school to study language, science, and mineralogy. He used many of the ideas from these
studies to develop his theories on human development.
The purpose of this school was to prepare young children (3 - 5 years old) for learning.
The children were provided with an educational environment and direction for proper
development.
They learned through play with educational toys, activities, songs, and stories.
WORKS OF FROBEL
Froebel is author of many books. The following works are mentioned because they are
mainly devoted to education.
1. Autobiography
2. Education of Development
3. Education of Man
4. Mother Play
5. Pedagogies of Kindergarten
DEATH
In August 1851, Karl von Raumer, the Prussian Minister of Education, accused Froebel
of undermining traditional values by spreading atheism and socialism. Despite Froebel's
denial of these accusations, von Raumer banned kindergartens in Prussia.
He died on June 21, 1852 in the Marienthal. His final resting place is in Schweina near
Bad Liebenstein. His grave stone was based on the ‘gifts’ of the sphere, cylinder and
cube.
The Kindergarten Ban in Prussia was lifted in 1860, eight years after his death.
Friedrich’s work lives on, however, in many places around the world.
Philosophical Foundations
Froebel’s Influence on Early Childhood Education
Froebel’s Kindergarten Philosophy
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS
Froebel was greatly influenced by the work of German Romantic philosophers
Rousseau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, Fichte, as well as ancient Greek thinkers, and had
been exposed to Taoist and Buddhist teachings.
He avoided the use of scripture in his schools but encouraged children to observe their
world ... to recognize and respect the orderly and endless creation we all live within.
A naturalist, philosopher and researcher (Froebel helped develop the budding science of
crystallography), he approached the universe scientifically and developed his materials
to demonstrate the geometry and patterns of the physical world.
Froebel was a spiritual idealist. For him all things of the world have originated from God.
Hence, all the objects , though appear different, are essentially the same. This Law of
Unity is operating in the whole Universe.
Froebel was the first to recognize that significant brain development occurs between
birth and age 3. His method combines an awareness of human physiology and the
recognition that we, at our essence, are creative beings.
All creatures great and small have the same spiritual source. Human beings are
endowed by their creator with a divine or spiritual essence and, at the same time, have a
body that makes them part of the natural and physical order.
Each child at birth has within her or him a spiritual essence, a life force, that seeks to be
externalized.
The kindergarten’s gifts, occupations, and activities, especially play, are designed to
ensure that children’s development follows the correct pathway, which is both God’s and
nature’s plan.
He construed ultimate reality to be spiritual rather than physical. All ideas were related to
and interconnected with each other and culminated in the great all-encompassing idea
that was God. All existence was united and related in a great chain of being, a universal
unity.
In the kindergarten, children were to learn that they were members of a great, universal,
spiritual community.
Each individual child was active and autonomous but also associated spiritually with
every other person and thing.
The kindergarten teacher was to be an agent who cooperated with God and nature in
facilitating children’s growth and development.
Kindergarten teachers were also to be observers of child life, games, play, and activities.
He strongly advised teachers to have a strong philosophical foundation fro their
instruction.
The activities of teaching and learning were not separate and disconnected episodes,
but part of a whole that reflected the divine plan.
As they prepared the kindergarten as a special environment for children’s growth and
development, teachers had to pay special attention to the elements of space and time.
In structuring the kindergarten, Froebel was convinced that its primary focus should be
directed toward play. Play was the means that stimulated children to express their
innermost thoughts, needs, and desires in external factors.
Play was a natural part of living. Its nonserious mode permitted children to act on their
thoughts without that consequences that work entailed.
- each individual human being repeated the general epoch in his or her
own growth and development.
In the kindergarten, children’s play provided the means of living through and
experiencing cultural recapitulation. The recapitulation process was aided in the
kindergarten by the introduction of certain songs and stories with cultural significance.
His kindergarten was designed to encourage children to play and interact with each
other under the guidance of a loving teacher
and that which he needed most as a child: A teacher who took on the role of
loving, supportive parent.
1. physical activity
3. creative expression
A CLASSROOM GARDEN
Children can discover Froebel's "gifts" with indoor garden experiences.
Plant window boxes with bulbs. Paper-white narcissus bulbs will grow and bloom quickly
indoors.
Create a classroom terrarium in a clear fish tank. Fill the tank with layers of gravel, sand,
and soil and plant with mosses and ferns. Caring for this mini-ecosystem lets children
observe life.
Plant seeds of fast growing vines such as beans and sweet peas.
ELEMENTS OF FROEBEL’S PEDAGOGY
1. The Principles
3. The Environment
Awareness that skilled and informed observation of children underpins effective teaching
and learning
Use of firsthand experience, play, talk and reflection as media for learning
Activities which have sense, purpose and meaning for the child, and involve joy, wonder,
concentration and satisfaction
A holistic approach to learning which recognises children as active, feeling and thinking
human beings, seeing patterns and making connections with their own lives
Encouragement rather than punishment
Development of all faculties and abilites of each child: imaginative, creative, linguistic,
mathematical, musical, aesthetic, scientific, physical, social, moral, cultural, and spiritual
Provide free access to a rich range of materials that promote open-ended opportunities
for play, representation and creativity
1. Free Self-Activity
2. Creativity
3. Social Participation
4. Motor Expression
1. Free Self-Activity
By allowing children to play in the way they wanted to play every day, Froebel
believed that each child could learn at their own pace. It would be up to the child
through their own self-activities to determine what they would learn for that day.
2. Creativity
Children are naturally creative, using their imagination to dream up brand new
worlds, characters, games, and activities. Froebel believed that any educational
system for young children should incorporate these elements, allowing children
to focus their creativity into the talents and skills that they naturally had.
3. Social Participation
4. Motor Expression
1. The Gifts
2. The Occupations
3. The “Play-Songs”
4. The “Play-Circle”
Such as a ball--which helped the child “to understand the concepts of shape, dimension,
size, and their relationships”.
Such as paints and clay which the children could use to make what they wished—which
helped the child “to externalize the concepts existing within their minds”
1. Forms of Life
The child can use the gifts to create something they find in their life – such as a
building, house, table, sofa or tree.
2. Forms of Knowledge
The child can use the gifts to explore mathematics, science and logical ideas.
This enables them to develop their sense of proportion, equivalence and order.
3. Forms of Beauty
The child can use the gifts to create beauty.
There were six kindergarten “gifts” in total produced by Froebel, designed to serve as
“an alphabet of form … by whose use the child may learn to read all material objects.”
They form an organically connected sequence, moving in logical order from an object
which contains all qualities, but directly emphasizes none, to objects more specialized in nature,
and therefore more definitely suggestive as to use.
The gifts, occupations, and recreative exercises of the kindergarten were devised by
Froebel to satisfy what he terms the six instinctive activities of the child:
1. for play
2. for producing
3. for shaping
4. for knowledge
5. for society
6. for cultivating the ground.
The “gifts” were objects that represented what Froebel defined as fundamental forms.
The gifts had two meanings:
b. A symbolic meaning
Symbolically, they are intended to stimulate children to bring the fundamental concept
they suggested into mental consciousness.
THE GIFTS
The term “gift” was more than just an encouragement for the child to play. The toys were
actually meant to be given to the students so they could use them at home and at school to
reinforce the learning process.
Froebel had only two rules when it came to playing with the gifts.
a. All parts of the gift had to be incorporated as part of the playing experience.
"Each successive gift in the series must not only be implicit in, but demanded by, its
predecessor, so the child is led to discover the Unity in all things'.”
- Friedrich Froebel
GIFT 1: SOLIDS
Yarn Balls
This first gift introduces three aspects which are central to all five gifts:
“ From the ball as a symbol of unity, we pass over in a consecutive manner to the
manifoldness of form in the cube.“
" The child has an intimation in the cube of the unity which lies at the foundation of all
manifoldness, and from which the latter proceeds."
-Friedrich Froebel.
The building gifts meet two very strongly marked tendencies in the child:
The first and second gifts consist of undivided units, each one of which stands in relation
to a larger whole, or to a class of objects.
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are divided units, and their significance lies in the
relationship of the parts to one another, and to the whole of which they are the parts.
GIFT 3: NUMBERS
Divided Cubes
Rectangular Prisms
GIFT 5: SYMMETRY
GIFT 6: PROPORTION
Classic Blocks
Parquetry Tablets
GIFT 9: POINTS
CURVILINEAR GIFT
Variation on Gift 5
THE OCCUPATIONS
OCCUPATION 1: PERFORATING
The combining of points into lines and hence into figures ; or the outlining of patterns, by
making rows of pin-holes on a penetrable surface.
OCCUPATION 2 : SEWING
The kindergarten sewing is closely connected with pricking, as all lines, forms, and
designs which the child sews must first Sewing be perforated.
Materials: A large worsted-needle with blunt point; split, single, and double
zephyr of the six colors, their tints and shades ; card,Bristol, or pasteboard of any
size and color, with the desired pattern perforated upon it.
OCCUPATION 3: DRAWING
Froebel's idea of drawing, and his plans for introducing it as one of the first occupations
for young children, are exceedingly ingenious. The touching or handling of the solid body are
now much less used than formerly.
Linear Drawing
Outline Drawing
Circular Drawing
Freehand Drawing
The thread game in the kindergarten is a very pleasing occupation, not only pleasing,
but possessing certain well-defined points of value. The thread used is of bright colored darning
cotton from twelve to eighteen inches long, the ends being knotted together.
There is much similarity between slat work and paper twisting, the aim of both being
paper interlacing two or more independent figures.
OCCUPATION 6: WEAVING
Weaving, perhaps the most ancient of the manufacturing arts, whose invention is lost in
the mists of antiquity, is that industry by which threads, or yarns of any substance, are interlaced
Materials: Square and oblong paper mats of various colors and sizes, cut
into strips from one eighth to one half inch wide, and surrounded by an
appropriate margin (these represent the warp); strips of similar widths and
harmonizing colors (the woof) ; a steel weaving needle (the shuttle).
OCCUPATION 7: PAPER CUTTING
The name Paper-cutting sufficiently explains this occupation. The papers are first folded
and then cut according to fancy, or in agreement with a certain geometrical progression, and the
pieces are subsequently arranged in a design by the child.
Paper folding is performed by means of paper squares, oblongs, triangles, and circles of
white or colored paper, which are made into a great variety of figures, dependent upon slight
changes in a few definite folding.
In Peas work, slender sticks or wires are united by points represented by peas or tiny
corks, demonstrating that it is union which produces lasting formation of matter.
Materials : Dried peas, which have been soaked before using, and slender
pointed sticks. Balls of wax and clay are also sometimes employed, as well as
tiny cork cubes, and wires.
It provides a universal language which all may understand, while it teaches the child skill
in controlling both hands, quickened observation, and a knowledge of many properties of
matter.
There are various occupations in common use in the kindergarten they seem to lie
somewhat outside of Froebel's scheme of geometric progression from point to solid.
Chain Making
Bead Stringing
Peg Tiles
Cardboard Modeling
c. The results obtained in gift work are transitory, in the occupations permanent.
d. The gifts ascend from solid through divided solid, plane, divided plane, and line, to the
point ; the occupations begin at the point and travel the same road in an opposite
direction, until they reach the solid.
“The occupations are one-sided; the gifts, many-sided, universal. The occupations
touch only certain phases of being; the gifts enlist the whole being of the child.“
Froebel's gifts were intended, above all, to unlock a child's inner powers by linking his inner
being with the fundamental forms around him...
The gifts and occupations were a series of twenty devices and activities, essentially a
hands-on curricular system, intended to introduce children to the physical forms and
relationships found in nature.
These tangible objects and activities assumed that there was a mathematical and natural
logic underlying all things in nature—one which Froebel ascribed to God’s handiwork.
THE “PLAY-SONGS”
The pictures, verses, rhymes and music should give the child an idea of an inner world,
that is from the outer to the inner.
One of the purposes of the book was to develop a child’s ‘body, limbs and senses’ in
various finger plays and games with its mother.
THE “PLAY-CIRCLE”
Froebel was struck by the fact that children spontaneously play games in which they join
hands to make a circle, and he adapted this procedure to his work.
The chairs in a kindergarten are almost always arranged in a circle. Froebel had a
complicated symbolic interpretation about the circle, most of which by now is forgotten, but the
arrangement has remained...
“Play is the real engine of learning”
- Friedrich Froebel -
He wrote:
“The destiny of nations lies far more in the hands of women, the mothers, than in
the possessors of power, or those of innovators who for the most part do not
understand themselves.”
“We must cultivate women, who are the educators of the human race, else the
new generation cannot accomplish its task.”
Froebel also believed that men, especially fathers, were a fundamental part of a child's
education. For Froebel, education was a family activity, hence his famous quote; "Come, let us
live for our children.”
HISTORY OF GIFTS AND OCCUPATIONS
Almost immediately after his death in 1852, his followers spread to other countries and begun to
teach kindergarten.
In the United States, The Milton Bradley Company published Edward Wrebie’s book
“The Paradise of Childhood” in 1869. This book listed 20 Gifts. Actually half of this
should have been called Occupations. The difference being that the gift can be return to
its original form while occupation craft activity cannot be undone.
It was good business to have more gifts, so Milton Bradley encourage many variations
on the gifts. He even place Alphabet letters on the blocks which is completely against
Froebel’s plans.
Friedrich founded the world’s first kindergarten here at “The House over the basement”
It is situated in the Esplanade in Bad Blankenburg, Thuringia.
He coined the term “Kindergarten” to emphasize the need to encourage children to grow.
He said:
“Children are like tiny flowers; they are varied and need care, but each is
beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers.”
Froebel’s ideas were backed by influential people, many of the strongest advocates
being women. Within a decade there were over 50 kindergartens established across the
country.
The ideas also began spreading abroad – more of which later. During this time Froebel
started a publishing firm for his books and educational materials.
During these years Friedrich established the first training institute for kindergarten
teachers at Marienthal.
- Friedrich Froebel
Success had its price, however, and the kindergarten movement was about to suffer
suppression.
Froebel’s approach to education was perceived as radical, but the Prussian authorities
confused his views with those of his cousin, a fiery socialist.
As a result, Prussia banned kindergartens from 1851, one year before Froebel’s death.
The ban remained in place until 1860.
Fortunately for the kindergarten movement, however, influential people carried the ideas
abroad. Many of these pioneers were women. Here are just a few who carried the torch:
1. Henriette Schrader-Breymann
4. Elizabeth Peabody
5. Susan Blow
Henriette Schrader-Breymann
Her efforts helped to lift the ban and she reached a wide
audience by publishing her book Reminiscences of Froebel.
Elizabeth Peabody
She ran the school for 8 years and then made a study
tour of Europe. Returning to the United States, she spread the
message through her writing.
Maria Kraus-Boelté
Henry Barnard
Buckminster Fuller
The Bauhaus
The Bauhaus artists used Gifts & Occupations,
creating the new language of modern art. Paul
Klee, Vassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, and
others were either educated in the Kindergarten
as children or were trained Froebel Kindergarten
teachers. They utilized these materials and
adapted the philosophy into their Bauhaus design
school. Even today children of the Kindergarten
receive a university-level 2D/3D design
curriculum, learning a sophisticated visual
language even before they develop their verbal
skills.
INFLUENCE ON THE TOY AND SCHOOL SUPPLY MARKETS
In the decades that following the spread of the Kindergarten, toys were marketed for
their educational content and displayed more potential for creative expression.
Milton Bradley
Froebel's ideas are still used all around the world; the kindergarten is now a part of many
public school systems. Many of the gifts, though they now go by different names, are in
use in schools throughout the United States.
Froebel advanced the ideas of learning through play, song, and interaction. Thousands
of kindergartens have been set-up around the world. His work also had a strong
influence on educational thinkers such as Thomas Dewey in America.
There are many strengths to the Froebel method. One of the main strengths for students
who attend a Froebel School is that they learn to see problems from many angles and to
solve them independently. As they work with materials, they gain perseverance as they
attempt to figure out how to manipulate them to create the output they want.
The Froebel method also works well to encourage independence in students. Since they
are used to solving problems that arise during their play, they feel confident in their
ability to handle issues as they arise.
Critics of the Froebel education believed that the structure of the program was too rigid.
More progressive educators modified the original program into the kindergarten that we
know today, which includes more free and imaginative play.
In addition to the Froebel gifts, other unstructured materials were added such as doll
houses and large blocks where children could experience more free-play and social
interaction. Reformers decided that children needed other ways to express themselves,
and also added music, art and movement activities to Froebel’s original ideas.
There are also those who believe that there is too much focus on fine motor skills, and
that more language, writing and reading would benefit students.
Many think that the focus on the gifts and occupations should be supplemented with
more academic types of activities, reading and writing specifically, so that children who
are develop mentally ready for these types of activities will have the opportunity
available to them.
CONCLUSION: AN ASSESSMENT
The Kindergarten provided a milieu in which children could develop freely and naturally.
The gifts were part of the system, including songs, games and occupations.
The gifts are not mystical, but rather simple tools to stimulate symbolic meaning.
The occupations were the raw materials children could use in drawing and building
activities that allow them too concretize their ideas.
Importantly, songs, stories, and games would introduce children to their culture and
socialize them.
Humans are creative beings who can visualize new ways of living.
“Instead of the reading, writing and arithmetic (three Rs), the three Hs are substituted,
heads, hands and hearts.”