Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel

Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (born April 21, 1782 – died June 21, 1852) was a German educator, famous for work in children education and for inventing the kindergarten system.

Life

Friedrich Fröbel was born at Oberweissbach near Rudolstadt in Thuringia (now Germany), in a family of six children. The village he has been born in had been known for centuries throughout Europe for its herbal remedies trade. The herbalists had long established routes throughout Europe, which were handed down within the various families. Froebel’s father was a local pastor of an orthodox Lutheran faith. Shortly after Fröbel's birth, his mother's health began to fail. She died when Froebel was only nine months old, what profoundly influenced Froebel's life. After his father remarried, he felt neglected by both his father, who was busy with his work, and his stepmother. A family legend accounts that his stepmother once locked him in the cellar without any dinner, and forgot to let him out. Apparently, when she opened the door in the morning she was shocked that little Froebel was neat and his hair combed. When she asked him how he could be so tidy after a night in the cellar, he replied, "After you locked me in the cellar, my real mother came and spent the night with me. She combed my hair and straightened my clothes in the morning." The stepmother was so shaken by the incident that she allowed Froebel to go to Stadtilm to visit his mother's uncle, who was also a Lutheran pastor. Froebel's childhood was full of sad memories (see Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel).

After attending elementary school in Oberweissbach, sometime in 1792, Fröbel moved to Stadtilm to live with his uncle, a gentle and affectionate man. His formal education ended in 1796 with his confirmation. At the age of 15 Fröbel, who loved nature, became the apprentice to a local forester. In 1799, he decided to leave his apprenticeship and study mathematics and botany in Jena University. There he came across the writings of Schelling, Novalis, and Arndt, which deepened his interest for idealistic philosophy and history of German people. He was not able, however, to complete his education for financial reasons. He returned back to his home to assist his seriously ill father in his duties, and stayed with him until his father's death in 1802.

In 1805 Froebel moved to Frankfurt-am-Maine and started to work in a local school that was run on Pestalozzi’s principles of education. There Froebel decided that he wanted to dedicate his life to work as an educator. He traveled to Yverdon, Switzerland to further familiarize himself with Pestalozzi’s method, and he stayed in Switzerland from 1808 until 1810. As he was receiving the training, he tried to implement Pestalozzi’s concepts of elementary school education in his home district. Froebel’s brother Christoph, who was a local pastor there, helped him in his intentions. However the plans did not work well and the attempt failed. In addition, Froebel got entangled in a conflict between Pestalozzi and his colleagues, what caused Pestalozzi’s enormous popularity to decline. All that motivated Froebel to move back to Germany in 1811 to resume studies in natural sciences he left before.

Experience in Switzerland made Froebel question Pestalozzi’s theory. It made him long for better knowledge on the subject of education, so he finally decided to broaden his own education by studying language studies, chemistry, mineralogy, physics, and geography in Gottingen and Berlin.

When in 1813 war against Napoleon broke out, Froebel joined the army. During the war he met two theology students, who will later become his close colleagues - Wilhelm Middendorff and Heinrich Langethal. After more than a year spent in the army, Froebel resigned from it and took an assistantship position on the Mineralogical Institute of Berlin University. However, his brother Christoph died of cholera in 1813, leaving three children behind. In April 1816 Froebel decided to leave his university position and take over the education of his three nephews. He moved to Keilhan and opened a private school there, named it General German Educational Establishment. Froebel married in 1818 to Henriette Wilhelmine Hoffmeister and his life finally seemed to be on the right tracks. His school also started to flourish.

Froebel published several major works in 1820s, including his masterpiece Die Menschenerziehung in 1826. However, the political situation in Prussia was turning against Froebel. Nationalistic and conservative movements were swiping across the nation, and Froebel’s school, which was non-orthodox and progressive, was regarded being "too liberal". Many parents decided to take their children out of the school and the whole project came on the verge of collapse. In 1831 Froebel decided to move to Switzerland.

In Switzerland Froebel worked as an educator and a teacher’s trainer in early 1830s, and as a director of Burgdorf orphanage and elementary school in mid-1830s. He again had to however, change his plans and return to Germany due to his sick wife. In this last part of his career Froebel started to develop his ideas about kindergarten and construct educational tools, which will later be known as Froebel Gifts. In 1836 he opened the “Establishment to Take Care of the Activity Needs of Children and Young People” at Bad Blankenburg in Thuringia. This was a facility where Froebel was able to directly apply his ideas and tools to education of a small number of children. In 1840 he renamed it Kindergarten.

Froebel’s wife, Henriette Wilhelmine, died in May 1839. Froebel moved to Bad Liebenstein where in 1848 he opened the “Establishment for the Universal Unification of Life through the Developmental and Caring Education of Man”. That was a kindergarten and a boarding school for training of kindergarten teachers. He remarried to Luise Levin in 1851, and died a year later.

The promulgation of Froebel's ideas and activities must be attributed to a profitable friendship with Baroness Bertha Marie von Marenholtz-Buelow, who arranged for leading educators, government officials, and nobility to hear Froebel's lectures. She simplified and clarified his often complicated talks to make them universally understandable. Froebel's early adherents were the Dutchess Maria Pavlona (Romanova) von Sachsen-Weimar, the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, and the Royal Family of the Netherlands, among others. After his death, the Baroness continued to promote Froebelianism.

Work

Froebel’s ideas on education drew upon his general views on nature and the world. He saw unity as the primary principle in every single thing, with God as the source of that principle. In Die Nenschenerziehung he wrote:

”The purpose of education is to encourage and guide man as a conscious, thinking and perceiving being in such a way that he becomes a pure and perfect representation of that divine inner law through his own personal choice; education must show him the ways and meanings of attaining that goal”. (pp. 2)

Froebel believed that humans are essentially creative in nature, but that they do not know how to express that creativity. Only when living in harmony with nature and God, human inner potentials can be unfold and developed. Education thus has crucial role in this process. However, Froebel believed, education needed to encourage development not only of knowledge, but also of creativity. Through engaging in interaction with the world, our understanding of that world develops. He thus emphasized the importance of educational environment as the tool in education.

At first Froebel focused on education of young children through educational games within the family. However, by the end of his career he started to emphasize benefits of children group activities and education in specially designed environment, which later became known as kindergartens. The word kindergarten was first used by Froebel in 1840, for his Play and Activity Institute he had founded in 1837 at Bad Blankenburg. One of his educational tools used there - popularly known as Froebel Gifts, or Fröbel Gaben - included geometric blocks that could be assembled in various combinations to form three-dimensional compositions. Activities in the kindergarten included singing, dancing, gardening and playing with the Froebel Gifts. Froebel advocated the importance of free play. Each gift (Gabe, in German) was designed to be given to a child to provide material for the child's self-directed activity. Ottilie de Liagre in a letter to Froebel in 1844 observed that playing with the Froebel Gifts empowers children to be lively and free, and to interact with the environment. Joachim Liebschner (2002) wrote:

”…it is important to consider what Froebel expected the Gifts to achieve. He envisaged that the Gifts will teach the child to use his (or her) environment as an educational aid; secondly, that they will give the child an indication of the connection between human life and life in nature; and finally that they will create a bond between the adult and the child who play with them".

Legacy

Froebel was one of the first educators who emphasized that the goal of education was the development of human creativity and productivity, and not only intellectual knowledge. He thus firmly believed that children needed to learn through activity and social play. He even went one step forward and created a physical environment where he implied his ideas – the first kindergarten. With that he influenced the whole system of early childhood education that is still in use today.

Froebel’s followers, such as Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow, and the thinkers such as Diesterweg, continued to elaborate on Froebel’s ideas and eventually created whole movement based on his ideas (Froebel movement).

The famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was admittedly influenced through playing with the Froebel blocks. A book entitled Inventing Kindergarten by Norman Brosterman, examines the influence of Froebel on Wright and modern art. Famous modern art painters Vasily Kandinsky and Paul Klee were also influenced by Froebel.

Froebel Gifts remain popular today in Korea and Japan in early childhood education.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Brosterman, Norman. 2002. Inventing Kindergarten. Harry N Abrams. ISBN 0810990709

• Denny, Barbara. 1982. The Playmaster of Blankenburg: The Story of Friedrich Froebel, 1782-1852. Autolycus Publications. ISBN 0903413523

• Hubbard, Elbert. 2005. Friedrich Froebl. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 1425342299

• Liebschner, Joachim. 2002. A Child's Work: Freedom and Play in Froebel's Educational Theory and Practice. Lutterworth Press. ISBN 0718830148

• von Marenholz-Bulow, Bertha & Horace Mann. 2004. Reminiscences Of Friedrich Froebel. University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 1410212505

Bibliography

• Froebel, Friedrich. 1826. On the Education of Man (Die Menschenerziehung). Keilhau/Leipzig: Wienbrach.

• Froebel, Friedrich. 1887. Letters on the Kindergarten. (Michaelis, E. and Moore, H. K. Trans.) London: Swan Sonnenschein.

• Froebel, Friedrich. 1900. Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. (Jarvis, J. Trans.) London: Edward Arnold.

• Froebel, Friedrich. 1976. Mothers Songs Games and Stories Froebels Mutterund Rose Leider. Ayer Co Publishing. ISBN 0405079192

• Froebl, Friedrich. 2003. Friedrich Froebel's Pedagogics of the Kindergarten: Or, His Ideas Concerning the Play and Playthings of the Child. University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 1410209261

• Froebl, Friedrich. 2005. Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel. IndyPublish. ISBN 1421959968

• Froebl, Friedrich. 2003. The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play, (Eliot, H.R. & Blow, S.E., Trans.). University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 1410209628

External links

• Froebel College, Roehampton University

• Lucas, Bill. 2005. Studying the Creation of Kindergarten – History of kindergarten

• Friedrich Froebel – Short biography

• Friedrich Froebel website - links to different sites on Froebel

• Froebel Web - some links

• Froebel Gifts – some of the original Gifts in an online store

• Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) and the Froebel Movement - historical facts

• Froebel Education Centre - Information about the Froebel centre in Mississauga, Ontario

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