Background
Friedrich was a German educator who born in a small village in Turingia (Oberweissbach) on April 21,1782. He had an unhappy childhood because his mother died when he was just nine months after his birth. His father was a very strict orthodox Lutheran minister who remarried when Friedrich was four years old. It was difficult because his stepmother never feel affection for Friedrich. He attended to a girls´primary school because of his father´s insistence. At the age of ten Friedrich went to live with his uncle Herr Hoffman, also a Lutheran minister, in a small town and attendes the local school. When Froebel was 15 years old, he start apprenticed to a forester and developed his appreciation for nature. At the age of 32 he married Henrietta Wilhelmine Hoffmeister who assisted him until her death.
Career
In 1799, Froebel took some courses such us mathematics, botany, philosophy and architecture at the University of Jena, Frankfurt, but never finished any of those. In 1801, he became a land surveyor and a clerk in the forestry department of the state of Bamburg. In 1805, after developing many occupations he becomes an educator in a secondary school called Musterschule. Froebel study languages and science at the University of Gottingen from 1810 to 1812. During that time, he worked with Johann Pestalozzi´s institute tutoring attending boys in Yverdon, Switzerland. For a short period he served in the army to oppose Napoleon. In 1814 he returned to the University of Berlin and got a position in the school´s mineralogical museum. The year of 1816 was transcendental in his life because Friedrich established the Universal German Educational Institute at Griesheim based on his own educational theories related with nature and some physical and mental aspects of the student´s growth and development. On Lake Sempach in Switzerland, Froebel founded an institute at Wartensee and then relocated the school to Willisau. At that time, he managed an orphanage and operated an school at Burgdorf. In 1837 he returned to Germany and established a new type of early childhood school, a kindergarten for three and four years old children. He used play, songs, stories, and activities in order to develop the appropriate environment for the development of the children education by their self activity. Friedrich reputation increase and kindergartens were established throughout the German states. He rich the top of his career designing educational play materials known as Froebel Gifts and published many literary work. One of his famous publications were The Education of Man (1826). According to Friendrich Froebel, “Education consists in leading man, as thinking, intelligent being, growin into self-consciousness to a pure and unsullied, conscious and free representation of the inner law of Divine Unity, and in teaching him ways and means”. In that book he expressed his philosophy about educational undertakings and the unity of all in God.
Legacy
The kindergarten system was based on methodical use of toys according with the child creativity. He established basic groups of objects and represent their physical appearance and also a hidden symbolic meaning and stimulate the child mental consciousness. The following items were Froebel´s gifts:
- Six soft colores balls
- wooden sphere, cube, and cylinder
- A large cube divided into eight smaller cubes
- A large cube divided into eight oblong blocks
- A large cube divided into twenty one whole, six half, and twelve quarter cubes
- A large cube divided into eighteen whole oblongs; three divided lengthwise; three divided breadthwise
- Quadrangular and triangular tablets used for arranging figures
- Sticks for outlining figures. Whole and half wire rings for outlining figures
- Various materials for drawing, perforating, embroidering, paper cutting, weaving or braiding, paper folding, modeling, and interlacing
The gifts began with simple objects such as sphere or circle and moved to more complex objects.
 | ||||
This is a monument call "The Fröbel Memorial" at the Fröbel Kindergarten in Mühlhausen, Thuringia and it shows the pedagogical basic forms.
Finally, Friedrich Froebel invented Kindergarten. Friedrich Froebel believed that humans are essentially productive and creative, and fulfilment comes through developing these in harmony with God and the world. As a result, Froebel sought to encourage the creation of educational environments that involved practical work and the direct use of materials. He went on to develop special materials (such as shaped wooden bricks and balls - gifts), a series of recommended activities (occupations) and movement activities, and a linking set of theories. As a matter of fat, he is known as the "Father of Kindergarten." and he though that “Children are like tiny flowers; they are varied and need care, but each is beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers." As a result, using play, songs, stories, and activities, the kindergarten was designed as an educational environment in which children, through their own self-activity, could develop in the right direction. The right direction meant that, in their development, children would follow the divinely established laws of human growth through their own activity. Froebel's reputation as an early childhood educator increased and kindergartens were established throughout the German states.
Bibliography
Froebel, Friendrich. 1889. Autobiography, trans. Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore.
Froebel, Friedrich. 1896. The Education of Man, trans. W.H. Hailman. New York: Appleton.
Froebel, Friendrich. 1910. Mother´s Songs, Games, and Stories, trans. Francis Lord and Emily Lord. London: Rice.