Lesson with the «Gifts of Frebel»
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The education system founded by the outstanding German teacher and theorist of preschool education Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852).
Fröbel is the founder of the first kindergartens, whose task, unlike orphanages, was to educate and educate children. The main goal of Fröbel’s kindergartens was to promote the development of the child’s natural abilities: children grow like flowers (hence the term «kindergarten») and the task of educators is to take care of them and contribute to their fullest development. In the Froebel system, the main emphasis is on the activity of the child himself, on the need to stimulate and organize his own activities. Therefore, in the upbringing of preschool children, the enormous educational and educational significance of the game is emphasized.
Teaching children in Fröbel kindergartens is based on a system of games with specific didactic material. Fröbel developed his own didactic material (the so-called «Fröbel’s gifts»), which included objects that differed in color, shape, size and in the way they worked with them: knitted balls of all colors; cubes and cylinders; balls of different colors and sizes; a cube divided into 8 cubes; sticks for laying out; paper strips for weaving and appliqués, etc.
A large place in the Frebel system is occupied by the artistic activities of children: drawing, modeling, appliqué, music and poetry. An important principle of the Fröbel system is the combination of an action or sensory impression with a word. The connection with the word makes the child’s actions and his sensory experience meaningful and conscious. In the process of playing with Froebel’s gifts, the teacher showed the child an object, emphasizing its physical characteristics and possible ways of acting with it, and accompanied his display with a special text (usually a rhyme or a song). The Froebel system involves the active participation of an adult in the child’s activities: the transfer of «gifts», a demonstration of how to act with them, rhymes and songs — all this comes from the educator. But adult leadership is based on respect for the child and taking into account his interests.
The Froebel system had a tremendous impact on the development of preschool pedagogy and found its numerous followers. It was also widely used in Russia, where at the beginning of the century there were special Frebel courses in which educators mastered the system. Froebel societies were also organized, bringing together teachers and representatives of the progressive intelligentsia, who sought, through the organization of paid and free preschool institutions, to contribute to the improvement of family and out-of-family education of children.
However, in the process of their mass use, games with Froebel’s gifts were perverted and turned into formal exercises in which the adult took on the main activity, and the child remained only a listener and observer. The principle of activity and activity of the child himself was violated. As a result, these classes have lost their developmental effect, and the Frebel system has received a lot of criticism for formalism, pedantry, didacticism, excessive regulation of children’s activities, etc. At the same time, the basic theoretical and methodological principles of the Frebel system remain relevant at the present time and are used in modern practice of preschool pedagogy.
The world’s first kindergarten
In 1839, F. Fröbel opened an educational institution in Blackenburg for games and activities for adults with preschool children. Before that, there were no such educational institutions in the world. There were schools for older children. And there were shelters for young children, in which the goal of the development of the child was not set, but the task of looking after, caring for and preserving life was set.
A year later, F. Fröbel called the educational institution he created a «kindergarten», and the teachers working in it were then called «gardeners». The name «kindergarten» stuck and still exists.
Why is this «garden»? F. Froebel explained it this way:
1) a real garden as a place for a child to communicate with nature should be an integral part of the institution;
2) children, like plants, need skillful care.
Fröbel kindergartens were created not to replace the family, but to help mothers in the upbringing and development of children. Mothers could come and see how to deal with the kids, learn from the teachers.
The task of the kindergarten was the upbringing of a free, independent, confident person. Fröbel wanted the kindergarten to be a place of joy for children. The main goal of the work of the educators was to develop the natural abilities of the kids. Children were seen as flowers to be taken care of and promoted for their harmonious development.
Teachers and nannies for kindergartens were specially trained. Girls who were distinguished by love for children, aspirations for games, purity of character, and had already graduated from the women’s school by that time, were accepted to the courses of educators. Future kindergarten teachers studied the means of education, the laws of human and child development, practical exercises, and participated in children’s games. Already at that time, it was understood that in order to educate and develop young children, special knowledge about their development and special professional skills of a teacher are needed.