It is amazing how, nowadays, few practitioners seem to know much about the pioneering work of Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), and yet he remains one of the greatest and most positive influences on the education and care of young children and their families. How could that be?
He was born on the same day as my husband, and on the Queen's official birthday, 21 April, in the Thuringian Forest of former East Germany. He was a year old when his mother died, leaving six children, of whom Froebel was the youngest. His father was a stern pastor. His stepmother rejected the toddler once her own child was born.
He spent lonely times in the parsonage garden, alone with nature until, when he was 11 years old, he went to live with his uncle, a pastor with a gentler approach. Froebel's love of nature and mathematics were nurtured, and he undertook some training in forestry, studied mathematics at the University of Jena, and became a curator of crystallography in Berlin. He created the kindergarten, and women's teacher training colleges.
WHY IS FROEBEL STILL AN IMPORTANT INFLUENCE TODAY?
It is remarkable how many of the things that we take for granted in working to educate and care for young children today are still influenced by the approach of Friedrich Froebel.
He pioneered the kindergarten for children aged from two to seven years, and from this the British nursery schools emerged, still emulated throughout the world.
Froebel believed that women were capable of becoming teachers (a view scorned by many at the time) and he believed that teachers of young children should be highly educated and well trained for working with the stage of life that he saw as foundational to later adulthood.
These are some of the most important principles of Froebel's pioneering work:
- Observation-based assessment of each child informs planning
- Play is an organising mechanism which integrates development and learning
- Finger rhymes and action songs, storytelling, music and dance are of central importance and contribute to the development of literacy
- Family (being loved and valued) is central to the development and learning of the child
- Freedom of movement and self activity is important, but within a framework of guidance in which the role of the adult is crucial.
- Wooden blocks (the Gifts) and workshop experiences (the Occupations) including all the arts contribute in deep ways to development and learning
- Learning about things which are opposite challenges and encourages problem-solving, creativity and imagination
- Making connections between what is already known and new, unfamiliar situations and experiences is a powerful part of learning
- Children are thought to be trying to lead good lives, and if their good intentions are the focus, adults can help them to develop self-discipline, and to self-manage their behaviour with increasing effect
- Understanding and working with nature in the garden is a central part of developing learning
- The symbolic life lifts the child to another level of functioning, so that they can feel they no longer exist only in the here and now, but can transform their experiences to link to the past, future and imaginative possibilities with creativity
- Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life, so that childhood is important in its own right and not simply a preparation for adulthood.
HOW IS FROEBEL'S PHILOSOPHY REFLECTED IN CURRENT PRACTICE?
Everywhere we look, we see the influence of Froebel's philosophy in early childhood practice today.
Play
Froebel was the first educator to realise that childhood play can contribute to development and learning physically, emotionally and intellectually.
Play transforms first-hand, direct sensory experiences and physical movement into rich symbolic experiences, which lift the child to a higher level of functioning, beyond the here and now, reaching into the past, future and imagination. Play is a resource for flexible, adaptive thinking, and it gives children opportunities for abstract thoughts which are made tangible in ways suitable for childhood.
Play makes a major contribution in helping children to manage their thoughts, ideas, feelings, relationships and physical selves. Play helps children to know themselves and also to relate to others and the universe. It is an organising mechanism.
Finger rhymes and action songs, song, dance and literacy
Froebel's last and deeply important piece of work, the 'Mother Songs', are the basis of finger rhymes and action songs, both those sung and danced on the spot and moving around. There is hardly an early years setting or home learning context where Froebel's impact on practice in this respect is not to be found.
Stories, songs and rhymes introduce the child to literature and through this, literacy. Froebel emphasised the whole because they hold the meaning for the child, and lead easily into understanding and mastery of the parts, the letters and sounds.
Freedom with guidance
Children are taught how to use and respect materials. There is great emphasis on being part of a learning community of adults and children together. Froebel used the phrase 'Let us live with and through our children'. He created community schools, making parents welcome.
Wooden blocks and workshop experiences
Froebel developed the 'Gifts and Occupations', which also demonstrate the concept of Freedom with Guidance. Although we do not use the terms freedom with guidance or gifts and occupations nowadays, they remain in practice in ways suitable for this day and age.
We now talk of autonomy of learning. This is about the child being confident enough to 'have a go' at learning and engaging independently, but also knowing when and how to ask for appropriate help from other children, adults, or by using books.
The first Gift is the soft ball, which is still given to babies nowadays. And it is still usually designed to hang and swing, for the baby to see and gradually to begin to grab and reach for.
The second Gift is a wooden ball, cylinder and cube, also hanging on strings. This demonstrates the law of opposites. These are all hard and opposite to the soft ball. There is rotation in the air and rolling that is different from the roundness of the wooden sphere.
The later Gifts are the sets (three to six) of different shaped wooden blocks resonant with those found in many settings today. They are in carefully thought-through mathematical relationships. They encourage what Froebel called the Forms of Knowledge, helping children to learn about the physics of balance, fulcrum, and so on, the mathematics of shape and pattern, the stories surrounding the constructions built, the architecture and engineering involved.
The aspect of learning that Froebel called the Forms of Beauty contribute to the emotional life of the child. Using the blocks helps children to deal with and manage their feelings and to be community-minded and socially developed, as well as satisfied as a unique person.
He thought of the physical learning of the child as the Forms of Life. Nowadays we would say that children develop physically, emotionally and intellectually through their blockplay, and other aspects of learning. Children learn from doing, which he called the 'self-activity' of the child.
Froebel was deeply concerned that what children were 'doing' was of educational value both now, during childhood, but also in contributing to their later learning. Children need to learn through worthwhile educational experiences, supported and helped by adults.
His 'occupations and movement games' show a wide range of possibilities. These included wooden pattern boards, pin boards, sewing, weaving, paper folding, stick laying, construction with sticks and peas (now construction kits), woodwork, drawing, painting and clay.
He moved away increasingly from giving children narrow, adult-set tasks and activities. No early years learning environment would be considered sufficiently or appropriately provisioned without the materials he called the Occupations.
Observation of the individual child informs planning
The Froebel approach begins with observation of children. This means the adult can tune in to the child, and support the child's learning, while also considering and planning how to support the child from the known and the 'can do' into the less known in ways that are right for the child.
Making connections (the concept of Unity)
The child uses what they know and understand to make connections with what is less known and understood. Making connections between things is a key aspect to the development of understanding, knowledge, making meaning, being creative and imaginative, and developing a rich symbolic life.
Although Froebel placed great emphasis on participation in the community life of the setting, he also believed each child is a unique individual and would make connections in their learning in their own way.
Helping children to develop self-discipline
Froebel believed that every child wants to do their best and to live a good life. He saw bad or unacceptable behaviour as the result of the way children are treated. He believed it important to talk things through with children when things go wrong and there has been a misdemeanour.
The reflection and analysis might not take place during the incident. It may be best when the child has calmed down enough to do so, but not too long after, or the moment will be lost. The crucial thing is for the child to see the cause-and-effect aspect, and to think how his or her behaviour and actions impact on others. Froebel believed that behind every bad act is a good intention, and that it is the job of the educator to find the good intention and to work with that.
Froebelians (together with those who follow Montessori or Steiner) work to develop the inner goodness of the child, and so they do not use extrinsic rewards which are external to the child. This means they do not use star charts or reward stickers. If a child helps another child, or manages to write their name for the first time, the reward is there. Seeing the joy on a friend's face is a reward when the last biscuit has been shared, or when Grandma is thrilled to receive a birthday card signed by her grandchild.
The importance of studying and understanding nature
The relationship of a tree to insects, birds, pollination of plants, purifying the air, and the seasonal differences across the world are part of the relationship with the universe as a whole.
The study of nature is central to the Froebelian approach. He placed great importance on the garden. Every child had a garden plot in the centre, and around the edges there was a communal garden, just as the child is symbolically placed at the heart of the community.
The symbolic life of the child
A symbol is something that stands for something else. As children begin to use language (one kind of symbol) they begin to pretend and imagine, going beyond the present to draw on the past as a resource and to transform experiences reaching into the future. For Froebel, the role of the adult in extending this aspect of learning was of the deepest importance.
Tina Bruce CBE is Visiting Professor of Early Childhood Studies at Roehampton University, a trustee of the Froebel Council and the National Froebel Foundation. She studied originally at the Froebel Educational Institute, now, as Froebel College, part of Roehampton University.
INFLUENCES
Froebel was influenced by the Enlightenment period in which he lived, and in particular, by philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and the educator Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827).
Froebel's work, in turn, influenced Margaret McMillan (1860-1931), the founder of British nursery schools and the school medical service, and Susan Isaacs (1885-1948), first director of the child development department at the University of London.
Froebel's influence can also be seen in Government reports (including Hadow, 1930, 1933), Plowden (1967) the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (2000), Birth to Three Matters (2002) and the Early Years Foundation Stage (2007).
CASE HISTORY
What the Froebel approach looks like in practice
In the garden, Tom, 12 months, is learning to walk. His mother and sister (who is three years ten months) are enjoying encouraging him to make wobbly walks to them. He giggles and laughs, and often falls on the grass. He falls and comes face to face with a large, wiggly worm. He looks at it and touches it.
The next day his sister, Hannah, tells her teacher about her brother's meeting with a worm. She draws the worm and her brother, looking at it face down on the ground. The teacher makes a wormery with the children, and a nature interest table with magnifying pots for them to find minibeasts, look at them and return them to their habitat.
An interest in minibeasts spreads, with books and opportunities to draw and make models in different media, to dance and to sing about minibeasts of all kinds, including 'Incy Wincy Spider' and 'Wiggly Wiggly Worm' rhymes.
The teacher links these experiences with her long-term plans to focus on the outdoor environment for the term, and her medium-term plan to develop knowledge and understanding of the world and caring for animals through nature study.
TRAINING AND CONFERENCES
- - The University of Edinburgh offers a Froebel Certificate course, one year part-time. For more information, contact s.cunningham@ed.ac.uk
- - 'A Froebelian exploration of outdoor play education and learning' will be held at Canterbury Christ Church University on Saturday 11 June. For more information, contact: yordanka.valkanova@canterbury.ac.uk
- - Roehampton University will also be holding a Froebel conference in autumn 2011; watch for details to be announced
MORE INFORMATION
- Froebel Educational Institute, www.froebel.org.uk
- International Froebel Society, www.intfroebelsoc.org
- Bruce, T (2010) 'Froebel Today', in Miller and Pound, Theories and Approaches to Learning in the Early Years. London: Sage
- Bruce, T (2011) Early Childhood Education, 4th edition. London: Hodder Education
- Bruce, T and Spratt, J (2011) Essentials of Literacy from 0-7 Years: A Whole Child Approach to Communication, Language and Literacy, 2nd edition. London: Sage
- Liebschner, J (1992) A Child's Work: Freedom and Guidance in Froebel's Educational Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press.
