Friedrich Fröbel
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Friedrich Fröbel | |
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Born | Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel 21 April 1782 |
Died | 21 June 1852 | (aged 70)
Era | Modern philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
Main interests | Pedagogy |
Notable ideas |
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Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel (German:
Biography
Friedrich Fröbel was born at
Shortly after Fröbel's birth, his mother's health began to fail. She died when he was nine months old, profoundly influencing his life. In 1792, Fröbel went to live in the small town of Stadt-Ilm with his uncle, a gentle and affectionate man. At the age of 15 Fröbel, who loved nature, became the apprentice to a forester. In 1799, he decided to leave his apprenticeship and study mathematics and botany in Jena. From 1802 to 1805, he worked as a land surveyor.[citation needed]
On 11 September 1818, Fröbel wed Wilhelmine Henriette Hoffmeister (b. 1780) in Berlin. The union was childless. Wilhelmine died in 1839, and Fröbel married again in 1851. His second wife was Louise Levin.
Career
Throughout his career, Fröbel would move between his interests in nature and in education.[2] He began as an educator in 1805 at the Musterschule (a secondary school) in Frankfurt, where he learned about Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's ideas. He later worked with Pestalozzi in Switzerland, where his ideas further developed. From 1806, Fröbel was the live-in teacher for a Frankfurt noble family's three sons. He lived with the three children from 1808 to 1810 at Pestalozzi's institute in Yverdon-les-Bains in Switzerland.
In 1811, Fröbel once again went back to school in Göttingen and Berlin, eventually leaving without earning a certificate. He became a teacher at the Plamannsche Schule in Berlin, a boarding school for boys, and at that time also a pedagogical and patriotic centre.
During his service in the Lützow Free Corps in 1813 and 1814 – when he was involved in two military campaigns against Napoleon – Fröbel befriended Wilhelm Middendorf, a theologian and fellow pedagogue, and Heinrich Langethal, also a pedagogue.
After Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna Fröbel found himself a civilian once again, and became an assistant at the Museum of Mineralogy under Christian Samuel Weiss during 1814–1816, studying and cataloging mineral crystals.[2] He became fascinated with their structure, and later would write: "I continually proved to be true what had long been a presentiment with me, namely, that even in these so-called lifeless stones and fragments of rock, torn from their original bed, there lay germs of transforming, developing energy and activity. Amidst the diversity of forms around me, I recognised under all kinds of various modifications one law of development...And thereafter, my rocks and crystals served me as a mirror wherein I might descry mankind, and man’s development and history...Geology and crystallography not only opened up for me a higher circle of knowledge and insight, but also showed me a higher goal for my inquiry, my speculation, and my endeavour. Nature and man now seemed to me mutually to explain each other, through all their numberless various stages of development."[2]
In 1816, he was offered a professorship in Stockholm, but he turned it down and instead founded the Allgemeine Deutsche Erziehungsanstalt (German General Education Institute) in Griesheim near Arnstadt in Thuringia. A year later, he moved the school to Keilhau near Rudolstadt. In 1831, work would be continued there by the other cofounders Wilhelm Middendorf and Heinrich Langethal.
In 1820, Fröbel published the first of his five Keilhau pamphlets, An unser deutsches Volk ("To Our German People"). The other four were published between then and 1823.
In 1826, he published his main written work, Die Menschenerziehung ("The Education of Man") and founded the weekly publication Die erziehenden Familien ("The Educating Families"). In 1828 and 1829, he pursued plans for a people's education institute (Volkserziehungsanstalt) in Helba (nowadays a constituent community of Meiningen), but they were never realized.
From 1831 to 1836, Fröbel once again lived in Switzerland. In 1831, he founded an educational institute in Wartensee. In 1833, he moved this to Willisau, and from 1835 to 1836, he headed the orphanage in Burgdorf, where he also published the magazine Grundzüge der Menschenerziehung (Features of Human Education). In 1836 appeared his work Erneuerung des Lebens erfordert das neue Jahr 1836 (The New Year 1836 Calls For the Renewal of Life).
He returned to Germany, dedicated himself almost exclusively to preschool child education and began manufacturing playing materials in Bad Blankenburg. In 1837, he founded a care, playing and activity institute for small children in Bad Blankenburg. From 1838 to 1840, he also published the magazine Ein Sonntagsblatt für Gleichgesinnte (A Sunday Paper for the Like-Minded).
In 1840, he coined the word kindergarten for the Play and Activity Institute he had founded in 1837 at Bad Blankenburg for young children, together with Wilhelm Middendorf and Heinrich Langethal. These two men were Fröbel's most faithful colleagues when his ideas were also transplanted to Keilhau near Rudolstadt. In 1840 the educator Emily Ronalds was the first British person to study Fröbel's approach and he urged her to transplant his kindergarten concepts in England.[3]
He designed the educational play materials known as
Friedrich Fröbel's great insight was to recognise the importance of the activity of the child in
These ideas about childhood development and education were introduced to academic and royal circles through the tireless efforts of his greatest proponent, the Baroness (Freiherrin)
After suppressing the
Legacy
Fröbel’s idea of the kindergarten had found appeal, but its spread in Germany was thwarted by the Prussian government, whose education ministry banned it in a Kindergartenverbot edict on 7 August 1851 as "atheistic and demagogic" for its alleged "destructive tendencies in the areas of religion and politics".[citation needed] Other German states followed suit.[citation needed]
The reason for the ban, however, may have been a confusion of names. Fröbel's nephew Karl Fröbel had written and published Weibliche Hochschulen und Kindergärten ("Female Colleges and Kindergartens"), which apparently met with some disapproval. To quote Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, "The stupid minister (Karl Otto) von Raumer has decreed a ban on kindergartens, basing himself on a book by Karl Fröbel. He is confusing Friedrich and Karl Fröbel."[citation needed]
The sudden ban caused a diaspora of teachers from Germany, spreading their ideas to other countries.[5] Fröbel's student Margarethe Schurz founded the first kindergarten in the United States at Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856 (though another student, Louisa Frankenberg, founded a school based in Fröbel's methods in Columbus, Ohio in 1836, prior to Fröbel's coining of the term "Kindergarten".[6]) In both schools instruction was in the German language, and primarily served immigrant communities. She inspired Elizabeth Peabody, who went on to found the first English-language kindergarten in the United States, in Boston in 1860.[7] The German émigré Adolph Douai had also founded a kindergarten in Boston in 1859, but had to close it after only a year. By 1866, however, he was founding others in New York City.[8]
From the mid to late 19th century, many missionary women from Western countries disseminated Froebel’s theory of kindergarten education across Japan. The prominent American missionary and Froebelian Annie L. Howe (1852–1943) was particularly influential through the establishment of her Glory Kindergarten teacher training school. Howe developed curricula specifically for Japanese students and trained hundreds of Japanese women to use Froebelian methods in kindergarten education.[9]
The pedagogue
Since then, there are many kindergartens in Germany named after Fröbel that continue his method. Many have sprung from parental or other private initiatives. The biggest Fröbel association, Fröbel e.V., today runs more than 100 kindergartens and other early childhood institutions throughout the country through the Fröbel-Gruppe.
Committed to Fröbel's legacy is also the Neuer Thüringer Fröbelverein (NTFV; New Thuringian Fröbel Association), and in particular to protecting the legacy's business receipts. As well, the Association runs a school museum and the Fröbel Archive in Keilhau. Furthermore, it engages itself in Fröbel institutions worldwide (United States, United Kingdom, Japan). Through this network, the NTFV further continues one of the most prominent lines of modern pedagogy from the authentic "Fröbel town" of Keilhau. The Fröbel Diploma, now conferred by the Fröbel Academy in Nordhausen, can also be traced back to the NTFV. All this ensures that Fröbel’s ideas will live on into the future.
In 1892, followers of Fröbel established a college of teacher education in South West London to continue his traditions.
Today the
There is a National Kindergarten Day in the United States on his birthday, April 21.[12]
Cultural influence
Fröbel's building forms and movement games are forerunners of abstract art as well as a source of inspiration to the Bauhaus movement.[13][5] In Fröbel’s honour, Walter Gropius designed the Friedrich Fröbel Haus. Many modernist architects were exposed as children to Fröbel's ideas about geometry, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Buckminster Fuller.[5]
Works
(Selected from those of his time at Keilhau)
- An unser deutsches Volk (To Our German People). Erfurt 1820.
- Durchgreifende, dem deutschen Charakter erschöpfend genügende Erziehung ist das Grund- und Quellbedürfnis des deutschen Volkes. Erfurt 1821.
- Die Grundsätze, der Zweck und das innere Leben der allgemeinen deutschen Erziehungsanstalt in Keilhau bei Rudolstadt. Rudolstadt 1821.
- Die allgemeine deutsche Erziehungsanstalt in Keilhau betreffend (Concerning the General German Educational Institution in Keilhau). Rudolstadt 1822.
- Über deutsche Erziehung überhaupt und über das allgemeine Deutsche der Erziehungsanstalt in Keilhau insbesondere. Rudolstadt 1822.
- Fortgesetzte Nachricht von der allgemeinen deutschen Erziehungsanstalt in Keilhau. Rudolstadt 1823.
- Die Menschenerziehung, die Erziehungs-, Unterrichts- und Lehrkunst, angestrebt in der allgemeinen deutschen Erziehungsanstalt zu Keilhau. Erster Band. Keilhau-Leipzig 1826.
- Die erziehenden Familien. Wochenblatt für Selbstbildung und die Bildung Anderer. Keilhau-Leipzig 1826.
References
- ^ "Henriette Schrader-Breymann".
- ^ . Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ^ Ronalds, B.F. (2023). "Emily Ronalds (1795–1889) and her Social Reform Work". Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society. 28 (2): 81–95.
- ^ "Fröbel's biography". Archived from the original on 2016-10-21. Retrieved 2015-10-27.
- ^ a b c "Froebel's Gifts". 99% Invisible. 9 April 2019. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ^ "Thank Two German Immigrant Women Kindergarten". Engage – Claremont Lincoln University. 2016-09-14. Retrieved 2023-04-16.
- ^ "Kindergartens: A History (1886)". Social Welfare History Project. 2015-07-15. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
- ^ "TSHA | Douai, Carl Daniel Adolph". tshaonline.org. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
- S2CID 248037983.
- ^ "Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies". Studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2012-07-18. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
- ^ Pestalozzi Froebel Haus Archived 2019-04-01 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 2 August 2015
- ^ "Celebrating National Kindergarten Day". IANR News. 2022-04-05. Retrieved 2022-07-26.
- ^ Frederick M. Logan, Kindergarten and Bauhaus, College Art Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Autumn, 1950), pp. 36–43
Further reading
ISBNs for the books listed. . (July 2019) |
- Berger, Manfred: 150 Jahre Kindergarten. Ein Brief an Friedrich Fröbel. Frankfurt 1990
- Berger, Manfred: Frauen in der Geschichte des Kindergartens. Ein Handbuch. Frankfurt 1995
- Fröbel, Friedrich (1900) The Student's Froebel: adapted from "Die Erziehung der Menschheit" of F. Froebel, by William H. Herford. 2 vols. London: Isbister, 1900–01. pt. 1. Theory of education – pt. 2. Practice of education (Substantially a translation of Froebel's work, with editorial comments and annotations)
- Hebenstreit, Sigurd: Friedrich Fröbel – Menschenbild, Kindergartenpädagogik, Spielförderung. Jena 2003. ISBN 978-3-934601-58-1
- Heiland, Helmut: Die Konzeption des Sachunterrichts bei Fröbel (1782–1852). In: Kaiser, A./Pech, D. (Hrsg.): Geschichte und historische Konzeptionen des Sachunterrichts. Baltmannsweiler 2004, pp. 69–72
- Heiland, Helmut: Friedrich Fröbel in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Reinbek 1982
- Heiland, Helmut: Die Schulpädagogik Friedrich Fröbel. 1993
- Wollons, Roberta. L., (Ed). Kindergartens and cultures : the global diffusion of an idea. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2000 ISBN 978-0300077889
External links
- Works by Friedrich Fröbel at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Friedrich Fröbel at Internet Archive
- Friedrich Fröbel in the German National Library catalogue
- Heinrich Heppe (1878), "Fröbel, Friedrich", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 8, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 123–124
- "Friedrich Fröbel". Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German).
- Froebel Education Centre – Demonstration School for The Froebel Institute
- Information about Friedrich Fröbel
- Friedrich Fröbel website
- Friedrich Fröbel: His life and influence on education
- Friedrich Fröbel’s letters
- How to make a Fröbel star
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905. .