Froebel’s Philosophy of Education

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was the youngest of the five sons of Johann Jacob Froebel. Froebel experienced a difficult childhood, because of the demise of his mother at a tender age of 9 months, and a couple of years later, his father remarried, leaving his custody to his Uncle. That is a lot of turmoil for a young child to face at an early age. At his father’s insistence, he attended girl’s primary school Oberweissbach in Germany and from 1793 to 1798; he lived with his maternal Uncle, Herr Hoffman, in Stadt-Ilm, where he attended the local town school.

From the year 1798 to 1800, he was an apprentice to a forester and surveyor in Neauhaus. After several attempts and applications to Universities, Froebel got acceptance in Univesity of Jena, but due to debt of his tuition fees, he was sentenced to jail. He was a believer of Christ and had a love for nature. He never was much interested in top preschools in Gurgaon, but had a strong liking for the subject mathematics. From 1808-1810, he attended a Training institute run by John Pestalozzi. Froebel left the institute that was run by Pestalozzi accepting his principles as his apprentices, which were

i)                    Permissive school atmosphere

ii)                  Emphasis on nature

iii)                And the object lesson

Being a believer of god and religion, he termed a specific term called “spiritual mechanism” which happened to be missing in “Pestalozzi theory”. He claimed that “Pestalozzi” took man only in appearance on earth, which is a materialistic ideology. However, Froebel considered man to be of eternal existence.

His philosophy of education rested on certain beliefs: -

i)                    Free self expression

ii)                  Creativity

iii)                Social participation

iv)                Motor expression

Froebel was known as the founder of Kindergarten, and named his school “The Garden of Children”. Froebel stated :- (i) Unity of origin: All existence originates with and in God. (ii)Unity of Purpose: Everything in Universe, are interconnected from beings, ideas, objects making everything systematic. He gave importance to the essence of spirituality in top preschools in India and believed every child has an innate spiritual essence, which needs to externalize through self-activity.

Preschools in India

The Principle of Development: -   As we know, Change is the only thing which is constant. Thus, Humans, nature and the earth keep on evolving towards development and towards oneness. All parts of the universe are growing and they are growing from within through the force of the inner law of their own beings.

The principle Of Self Activity: - All things strive towards a divinely ordained perfection. Therefore, this principal states that all things are ordained from self-activity. When we are born, Our Brains are self-active, and prompt us to self-action. Children, when left to themselves reveal spontaneous activity in their thoughts and movement.

Froebel’s Gifts: - For the complete education and training of child, Froebel devised a series of Gifts. The gifts comprise carefully graduated series of material, which possess all the novelty of all playthings, yet they form the basis his educational method. They are to train the senses of sight and touch, to give the child an idea of size and surface and to present him a correct idea of numbers. The succession and order of gifts are determined by the principal of development. There happen to VII Gift’s of Froebel which emphasize on Education through observation and playful methods.

Influence of Froebel’s Kindergarten method :- I) His methodology raised the need for the school to function as a society where everyone’s view and ideology is respected and responsibility is shared by all. Brotherly rights are developed and voluntary coordination is practiced.