Friedrich Fröbel: A Pioneer in Early Childhood Education

Interpreting Friedrich Fröbel: A Forgotten Pioneer in Early Childhood Education A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in German Studies. ______________________ ii Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Who is Friedrich Fröbel? .................................................................................................... 7 Motherless Child to Feminist .......................................................................................... 7 Student to Teacher .......................................................................................................... 9 Architect to “Gift” Designer ......................................................................................... 12 Why we do not know about Friedrich Fröbel? ................................................................. 16 Great Pioneer to “Rebel” .............................................................................................. 16 Theist to Atheist ............................................................................................................ 19 Family-Bond Enhancer vs. Destroyer ........................................................................... 20 What are we risking by not knowing him? ....................................................................... 22 Students become score chaser in standardized test ....................................................... 22 Parents are anxious and clueless about education......................................................... 24 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 29 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 30 iii Abstract Friedrich Fröbel invented the concept of “Kindergarten.” He had his educational ideas and systems set up for early childhood education. My thesis project is going to take a closer look on his original writing books about education and try to understand his great contribution to the field and the significant meaning of his work. His ideas were very progressive back then, but they cast lights to our early childhood education systems nowadays. iv List of Figures Figure 1: Fröbel’s Gifts ..................................................................................................... 15 v Introduction „Neue Samen müssen gepflanzt werden, um zu keimen und zu wachsen, wenn der Baum der Menschheit blühen soll. . . Wir können die Gegenwart nicht aus der Vergangenheit oder der Zukunft reißen. Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft sind die Dreifaltigkeit der Zeit. In den Kindern liegt das Saatkorn der Zukunft!“ --- Friedrich Fröbel Friedrich Fröbel, a critical German educator, has been long forgotten in the history of early childhood education, invented the "Kindergarten" and the matched education system, called “occupation.” Even though he had many progressive ideas that we are still using, he was barely known to educators today. My interest in this specific figure is due to my cultural background. I noticed that in the recent twenty years in China, early childhood education has become a trend in cities. Parents select preschools and kindergartens for their children carefully by comparing different institutions with different ideological systems. Eventually, two main early childhood education genres lane to dominate most of the preschools and kindergartens: Maria Montessori and Friedrich Fröbel. However, for various reasons, more and more people are shifting to Fröbel’s ideas, and more and more parents and teachers believe in his educational theory. I am eager to know the reason behind this phenomenon happens in China. As a result, I want to dig deeper to try to interpret his ideas and justify why he is important to us. I will write about who Friedrich Fröbel was in the first section of my thesis. Since he has long been forgotten and barely known, it is necessary to introduce his significant contributions. His main idea is about emphasizing the importance of interaction between individuals and society. Here is one comment on Fröbel’s education from Irene Lilley, that illustrates his significance, “The idea of an organic relation between subject and object and of a continuous process of development and interaction throughout the universe is fundamental to Fröbel’s educational thoughts.” Based on this principle, he designed the “Kindergarten” for children. In German, the word "Kindergarten" means children's garden, teachers who work in Kindergarten are called “kindergarteners.” He compared children to seeds and teachers to gardeners. For children studying in his Kindergarten, he designed "gifts" (die Spielgabe) and the curriculum (Occupation). He writes in his book Die Menschenerziehung: “From objects to pictures, from pictures to symbols, from symbols to ideas, leads the ladder of knowledge,” and explains what “gifts” and “occupation” are. I will also elaborate and summarize the information about these "gifts" and "occupation" in order to prove how progressive and essential his ideas were. Because he also consistently reflected on his childhood and adolescence and sought to find those factors in the environment that impede or encourage personal growth, his biography will also be discussed. Another prominent figure, Fröbel’s mentor and partner, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, will also be introduced here to show his direct influence on Fröbel. Fröbel first worked in one of Pestalozzi’s new Model School of Frankfurt, and after which he decided to study with Pestalozzi (Manning 372). They also created a Kindergarten teacher training institution together called “Pestalozzi- Fröbel Haus” (Baader 431). Eventually, Fröbel drifted apart from his teacher and established his own educational theories, which have a different focus from Pestalozzi. Fröbel emphasized that children 2 must interact with the world; on the other hand, Pestalozzi thinks family ties are the most crucial things. Fröbel’s ideas and contributions in education include creating Kindergarten, making people realize the importance of interaction in children’s education, setting up an environment of study that takes nature into account, and advocating respect for the development of children's individuality. He suggests in his book, Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, that we should give children a natural and comfortable developmental environment. Towns, including the vast countryside, have many unique natural and social situations; It is a large classroom for children's life, learning, and games. Rich folk culture, honest folk customs, and strong nostalgia are all educational resources available to Kindergartens. The full use of these abundant educational resources can promote the harmonious development of children in all aspects. He also believes that it is important that education adapts to the nature of children, and he opposes compulsory education and suppresses the development of children and instead attaches importance to children's active activities, the development of their creativity, and personality, which emphasizes the importance of early education for the development of life. These ideas are still wellreceived today. Fröbel stressed that people are active beings and have their own ideas, and education should guide children to develop following these ideas. Many Kindergartens pay more attention to common characteristics of children but ignore the level of their individual differences. In order to truly implement the teaching based on people, he suggested that teachers must put forward different requirements for different children under the same teaching goal because of those individual differences. 3 Because Friedrich Fröbel made such significant contributions, and yet people do not attribute to him, the reason behind how he has been long forgotten is worth exploring. The second part of my thesis is about why we do not know about Fröbel. There is a historical and cultural background of why Fröbel was intentionally chosen to be overlooked. The two powerful institutions at that time, the government and the church, do not look fondly on Fröbel because of his ideas and theories. In Prussian order of 1851, Kindergartens were prohibited in Prussia because they were condemned as a center of atheistic and socialist subversion (Baader 433). Fröbel's Kindergartens had also been banned in connection with the Revolutions of 1848/1849 because its spirit does not harmonize with the autocratic government (Baader 434). Also, around that time, the ties of love that bound together the members of the family were becoming weakened; father, mother, and child each looked to go their way (Baader 434). As a result, Fröbel's idea of getting out of the family unit and making more social interactions was clearly against people's expectation of enhancing the family bond and considered as something that distanced family members. However, Pestalozzi's idea was to teach mothers how to educate their children at home, which help to strengthen family ties. One central question is the historical effect and social atmosphere, which is contributing to the Chinese’s acceptance of Fröbel and his educational ideas. In Germany, by contrast, Fröbel's idea of the Kindergarten was seen as an attack on family ties, and Pestalozzi was highly esteemed because he made home education central. Fröbel was accused of destroying family ties and intentionally, has contribute to his being overlooked by history. Gender discrimination was another problem. Fröbel proposed to hire and train women as Kindergarten teachers, but at the time it was a ridiculous thing to see women working 4 (Baader 436). Furthermore, historians spilled tons of ink on Pestalozzi and only a little for Fröbel. I will discuss the difference between Pestalozzi and Fröbel in this part of the thesis. The comparison between Pestalozzi and Fröbel is another main question I want to pursue. The last part of my thesis is about why we should care about Friedrich Fröbel and what we are risking if we do not know about him. Today’s society is different from Fröbel's time, so we have a higher acceptance of his ideas. For example, in the immigrant society of the United States, it was essential to integrate children with various language and cultural backgrounds into social fabric. Families could not do this alone, and thus public Kindergartens were needed. His idea of respecting children's individuality matches American's spirit of independence, democracy, and individualism. Also, in the modern society of China, people realize the disadvantages of compulsory education and have started to question the exam-oriented education. More and more Chinese parents consider the importance of social skills and have started to respect and explore children's characteristics. Fröbel’s ideas match their expectations for education, which emphasizes innovatively and social cohesions. Some people may say that no matter what his post significance, he is outdated. However, there are lots of resurgent movements all about his educational theories and ideas (Manning 375), his ideas spread all over the world with some adaptations. For instance, the concept of “forest kindergarten” is very prevalent in Europe. This idea about children connecting with nature comes from Fröbel. As Irene Lilley mentioned, “On his death in 1852 it seemed as if his long effort to reform German education would be a failure, yet his educational doctrines were to exert a strong if indefinable influence in many 5 countries, particularly in England and America.” I will provide examples of adaptions from Fröbel's original ideas in Europe, Asia, and North America. Even though Fröbel lived two hundred years ago, his thoughts are still shaping the educational world, and his "gifts" and "occupations" benefit the children as they always have. 6 Who is Friedrich Fröbel? Motherless Child to Feminist On April 21, 1782, in a small German village called Thuringian, Friedrich Fröbel was born. His father was an orthodox Lutheran pastor with five children, and Fröbel was his youngest child. Unfortunately, nine months after Fröbel's birth, his mother died. His father was in charge of six or seven churches independently and was very busy with work. Therefore, the responsibility of taking care of Fröbel fell on the shoulders of his siblings and servants. When he was four years old, his father married another woman. At first, the stepmother liked this youngest and cutest child, but soon the stepmother gave birth to a boy. After that, Fröbel's life changed, and the stepmother began to beat him. Naturally, a deep conflict and unhappiness formed between him and his stepmother. There was one time, that little Fröbel was kept in the cellar all night because he somehow irritated his stepmother. The next day, when his stepmother released him from the cellar, she unexpectedly found that he was not embarrassed but had clean clothes and neat hair. The stepmother felt strange and asked him why. Fröbel said, "When you locked me in the cellar, my real mother came to spend the night with me. She helped me comb my hair and organize my clothes." Fröbel's father did not provide him with protection. As a strict Lutheran pastor, he raised him in a profoundly religious but unloving household. He thought Fröbel was dimwitted and insisted on sending him off to girls' primary school rather than the regimented boys institutions Oberweissbach. From 1793 to 1798, he lived with his uncle at Stadt-Ilm, where he attended the local town school. 7 Fröbel's lack of a loving, maternal figure in his life, combined with a strict, cold, but religious father, all contributed to his concept of Kindergarten. He approached teaching with the same religious zeal that motivated his father. He also incorporated the playful nature of the girls school he was forced to attend in his youth (Manning, 372). The way the girl school structured helps him to form his understanding of education. In the girl primary school, students played a lot of games instead of having a strict curriculum. Fröbel found out that knowledge can be learned by games (Heinemann 34). It is difficult to imagine how can a motherless child became a feminist. Perhaps it is not accurate to call him a feminist since his understanding of education is ground in a woman's nature not rights. Nevertheless, Fröbel did do much work of providing women jobs in the 70s'. He advocated that women had an essential and natural role to play in the education of young children. He argued that they should be trained as teachers, a novel idea at that time because in the 1800s women's status was negligible and the prevalent opinion was, they should stay at home not working. Perhaps it was the natural trust in women from the experience of attending the girls school, or it was the lack of maternal love from childhood and the development of a natural closeness to women that Fröbel believed in the ability of female teachers. He insists that the qualities of women, patience, and care are more conducive to the growth of young children. At that time, when women were not allowed to work and make money, Fröbel set up positions for women in her kindergarten and provided opportunities to train them to be teachers. 8 Student to Teacher In 1792, 10-year-old Fröbel was sent by his stepmother to his uncle, and then he began to feel the warmth of the family. For the next four years, he attended local national schools. At the age of 15, he stopped going to school and became a forest officer apprentice, cultivating his love of nature. In October 1799, he entered the Philosophy Department of the University of Jena to study mathematics and botany. At the time, the University of Jena was an important cultural and academic center in Germany, where significant philosophers such as Fichte and Schelling taught. After more than a year, Fröbel dropped out of school due to the inability to pay tuition fees. Another unfortunate thing happened to him in 1802: his father died. He subsequently moved to Frankfurt in hopes of studying architecture and design. While in Frankfurt, Fröbel met someone critical in education history, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. The headmaster of the new Musterschule in Frankfurt Fröbel was offered a teacher's position. This school is based on Pestalozzi’s educational ideas. After five years of teaching in the school, Fröbel was impressed by the teaching method and decided to study with Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi played the role of Fröbel’s mentor for over 20 years. While studying, Fröbel developed his educational theories and began to drift apart from Pestalozzi's idea. The real nature of the disagreement is the teaching method for different age groups. Pestalozzi thought that for younger children, there was no need for them to come to school and to study together with other kids. To enhance the family bond, Pestalozzi put his effort into organizing a family workshop and tried to train mothers to teach their children (0-6 years old) individually at home. In the meantime, Fröbel considered younger children's social nature and put forehand the idea that children need 9 social interactions and communications. At this time, Fröbel was driven by the question: ''What is the purpose of education?'' The answer seemed to go back to his architectural leanings. He saw a man in a world filled with objects. Man must interact with these objects, and they, in turn, must interact with man. He concluded that ''objects have form, size, and number, and these must be taught'' (Lilley, 35). For Fröbel, young children must interact with this world and each other. This idea is very crucial and centric to his education theories. Most literature about Pestalozzi and Fröbel leave missing information about how Fröbel drifted apart with Pestalozzi and ended up having completely contrasting ideas. In 1837, Fröbel, at 55 years old, founded a children's play activity agency in Keilhau, which develops children's instincts and spontaneous desire for activities. It recruited children aged 3 to 7. Fröbel named it “Kindergarten.” In German, "Kindergarten" means a child's garden. His experience as a forest officer apprentice made him fall in love with nature; that is why he named his institution Kindergarten. He wanted kids all to grow up in nature. Kindergarten is like a garden, children are like flowers and plants, and teachers are like gardeners. The meaning of Kindergarten as a pedagogical idea comes from this. Fröbel advocated that Kindergarten curriculum design should conform to nature. First, the creation of the environment of the Kindergarten should be combined with nature to give children a comfortable development environment. Towns, including the vast countryside, have many unique natural and social environments, which is a large classroom for children's lives, learning, and games. Rich folk culture, honest folk customs, strong nostalgia, and essential items are all educational resources available to kindergartens. The full use of these abundant educational resources can promote the 10 harmonious development of children in all aspects. In terms of the indoor curriculum environment, a "Science Corner" can be created to provide children with materials rich in local rural characteristics according to the theme content and seasonal changes for children to explore and discover. Second, Fröbel’s kindergartens focus on developing the curiosity and independence of young children. Fröbel believed that infants beginning to learn to walk is the first step in human self-reliance. To cultivate self-reliance, people should start with the baby's practice of walking. In the beginning, the adult will take his hand to walk or let him support the wall to learn to walk. Gradually, when the child asks himself to move, he will realize balance, stand on his own, and walkin balance. Moving forward is proof that man grows and develops in the natural order and self-reliance comes out of it. Curiosity should also be cultivated from an early age. We observe young children who have just learned to walk away, and they will have a good time seeing the branches. Fröbel says toddlers who are just learning to walk look for things everywhere. The average child learns the nature of things by looking for something. Therefore, when a child gets something, they will concentrate on observing each part, turning around, touching, tapping, smelling. Sometimes, adults will scold them, but according to Fröbel 's point of view, in terms of feeling, young children are sharper than the general public. Young children like to know the internal and potential power of things. Teachers should satisfy them according to these needs, which is the ideal educational method and curriculum structure. Third, Fröbel believes that the personality development of young children should be respected. Fröbel believes that education adapts to the nature of children and opposes the 11 compulsory education that suppresses the development of children; he instead attaches importance to children's active activities, values the development of children's creativity, values the development of children's personality, and emphasizes the importance of early education for the development of life. These ideas are still influential today. Fröbel emphasized that people are active beings and have their own ideas, and education should guide children to develop following their ideas. Many Kindergartens pay more attention to the common characteristics of young children but ignore the level of individual differences between young children. A unified plan, unified teaching materials, unified requirements, and unified assessments result in the phenomenon that children with strong ability and rapid development cannot further advance their knowledge. In contrast, children with weak ability and slow development cannot digest existing knowledge. To overcome this compulsory unified teaching model, and to truly implement the teaching of the individual, we need to put forward different requirements for different infants under the same teaching goal given individual differences. Architect to “Gift” Designer Fröbel’s academic background of mathematics and architecture has a significant influence on his innovation of the "Spielgabe," the "gift." Fröbel worked with one of the world’s foremost crystallographers in Berlin. Where most people saw nature in big flowing organic shapes, like hills and plants and animals, Fröbel zoomed in to study the straight lines and geometric forms of crystals, seeing these lines as the building blocks of reality. In 1836, he returned to his hometown and began designing a set of educational materials that meet educational requirements. Using his expertise in mathematics and 12 architecture, he designed six sets of toys for children named "Gift." The game is a central element in Fröbel 's pedagogy. Fröbel believes that the children express themselves and find themselves in play. In the game, the children seize the world and thereby appropriates it. So, they learn through the game. Fröbel, therefore, developed game material - a systematically based offering of materials called "occupations." The games primarily consist of the basic forms of the ball, roller, and cube. The shapes are initially given to the small child as a whole (undivided) shapes to play with (eg, ball and building blocks), and with increasing age in increasingly divided forms (smaller building blocks and laying tiles). By playing with the games, the world and its laws are revealed to the child. Fröbel divides Gift and its games into three categories: forms of life (objects found in life), forms of beauty (abstract patterns and symmetrical patterns), forms of knowledge (math/science). The rules of the game are to use all. When building blocks are first introduced, child new are not given too many pieces at a time; all knowledge is based on the fundamental knowledge, so when introducing new Gifts, kids can match the previous Gifts. The first gift is a ball made of wool for babies and toddlers. Then came the second gifts, such as wooden cubes and cylinders. Later, the children received smaller and smaller gifts, and the differences between them (the third gift, the fourth gift, the fifth gift, and the sixth gift). The principle here is that each gift kit contains known elements that the child already knows from the previous game, as well as new gifts that can be added or diminished from reassembling again. Children in the enlightenment stage should start playing a set of favors with games in the form of life, learning knowledge during the 13 process of playing; the tool is not imposing knowledge on the child. At the same time, Fröbel also believes that understanding the image of the cube is equally essential for art, science, and actual life. Today, most Kindergartens differ from Fröbel's imagination, and very few kindergarten children use the gifts he designed. Nevertheless, toy building blocks have never really disappeared. Many educators have seen the potential of building blocks. For example, Montessori's teaching aids also have many things derived from Fröbel’s gifts. Building blocks help teachers and children establish interactions. In some ways, all modern toy building systems reflect the influence of Fröbel. Lego toys and Kinex toys all need to understand shapes and forms and establish connections. They also represent Fröbel's highly organized and linear method. Today, construction toys are widely regarded as tools for the imagination, and children can use them to assemble houses, castles, and cities, and learn collaboration and creativity through architecture. 14 Figure 1: Fröbel’s Gifts 15 Why we do not know about Friedrich Fröbel? Great Pioneer to “Rebel” Fröbel is the originator of modern preschool education. He not only founded the first preschool education institution called "Kindergarten," his educational thoughts still dominate the primary direction of preschool educational theory. Fröbel's educational thoughts and practices have a profound impact on the development of early childhood education in countries around the world. Seeing the educational purpose in a far clearer and developmental perspective than has those who had gone before him, he showed that education must-have for its function the preparation of the human being’s living in society, and that character and social morality, rather than individual development, must, as a consequence, it broader aim. Fröbel, the creator of Kindergarten and the inventor of gifts and occupations, sees the educational importance of activity and expression. He had opened up for children a wealth of new contacts with the world about them in the new type of educational institution which he created (Cubberly, 780). However, such a great pioneer in the educational field has remained unknown. When I talk to people about him, everyone gives me a confused face. When I mention that he is the creator of the Kindergarten, many people are shocked. It is fascinating that people know a familiar concept but has no idea where it comes from. To understand the reason behind this phenomenon, we cannot merely blame people’s not knowing him on ignorance; history seems to intentionally hide Fröbel from us. German histories of education make little mention of Fröbel. In Karl von Raumer’s Geschichte der Pädagogik 16 [History of Pedagogy] and Karl Schmid’s Geschichte der Erziehung [History of Education], Fröbel hardly appears in either of those works. In von Raumer’s third revised edition of 1857, Fröbel is mentioned in the Appendix under the heading of ‘‘additional’’ in a list of persons who had visited Pestalozzi (von Raumer, 1857, Vol. I, 2. Teil, p. 522). Von Raumer devotes 110 pages to Pestalozzi, with particular emphasis on his Evangelical and Christian spirit, but nothing on Fröbel. The first edition of von Raumer’s history of education appeared in 1843, 15 years after the publication of Fröbel’s Menschenerziehung, numerous writings on the ‘‘gifts’’ and ‘‘occupations,’’ and his major work on the Kindergarten, Entwurf eines Plans zur Begründung und Ausführung eines Kindergartens (1840). The fact that Fröbel is absent in von Raumer's and Schmid's history book reflects the Prussian order of 1851 prohibiting Kindergartens in Prussia. In 1851 the Prussian Government, fearing some revolutionary designs in the new idea, and acting in a manner thoroughly characteristic of the political reaction which by the time had taken hold of all German official life, forbade Kindergartens in Prussia (Cubberly 763). Cubberly notes, "The kindergarten idea has made relatively little progress on the continent of Europe. Its spirit does not harmonize with the autocratic government (765)." I am wondering, what kind of spirit Kindergarten has that infuriate the autocratic regime. The German Revolution from 1848 to 49 (also called Märzrevolution at the beginning) was originally part of the sweeping wave of revolutions that broke out in many European countries in 1848. They are a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions among the German federal states. They emphasized that the Pan-German revolution was dissatisfied with the traditional, authoritarian political structure and was generally dissatisfied with the 39 17 independent states of the Federation, which inherited the German territories of the former Holy Roman Empire. The dominant idea in the Kindergarten is natural but directed selfactivity, focused upon educational, social, and moral ends. In Fröbel's kindergarten, children are on their own to play with all the gifts. The teacher would not give orders to children or teach them the “correct” way to play with the gifts. Fröbel believed in the continuity of a child’s life from infancy onward, and that self-activity, determined by the child’s interests and desires and intelligently directed, was essential to the unfolding of the child’s inborn capacities. Fröbel believed that the child’s chief characteristic is selfactivity, in other words, independence, and he insisted that teachers in his Kindergartens are more like assistants to help children explore instead of directly giving them knowledge and methods. Once children gain self-activity, they become more independent and creative; in other words, for the autocratic regime, intractable and disobedient, which are not the characteristics a dictator wants from his people. As a result, the kindergarten will always do best among self-governing peoples and seldom meets with favor from authoritarian regimes. As a person who lacked his mother's care during his childhood, Fröbel surprisingly believed that the mother, or the power of motherhood, was essential to the development of children. In his book, Die Menschenerziehung, he pointed out that women are inherently caring, and they can better help young children develop their bodies and minds. As Fröbel started Kindergarten, he offered to hire and train women as kindergarten teachers. In the 1850s, women's status was still low. Fertility is the main job of women. The whole society is very opposed to the appearance of women and going out to make money. There are only a handful of universities that accepted female students, let 18 alone let women be teachers. In this social atmosphere, the maverick Fröbel is considered a rebel, and those in power could not agree with his educational ideas. Theist to Atheist In the context of the revolutionary movements of 1848/1849, the Kindergarten was ‘‘condemned as a center of atheistic and socialist subversion’’ (Allen, 2000b). As we are reading Fröbel’s childhood story, we can realize that Fröbel’s lack of a loving, maternal figure in his life, combined with a strict, cold but religious father, contributed to his concept of Kindergarten. He approached teaching with the same religious zeal that motivated his father. Teaching to Fröbel is a “calling” to do God’s work (Fröbel,1906). Fröbel’s understanding of God is broader than his father’s. His approach denied original sin and made a plea for a non-sectarian Christianity rather than orthodox Christianity as defined by the Church. However, the social atmosphere at that time was more likely to obey the orthodox Christianity. For example, Schmid’s Geschichte der Erziehung (1901), which elevates education towards fear of God to a standard. For Schmid, education of God-fearing people must, for Germans, accord with the state church. Many of the Fröbel Kindergartens in Germany were open to children of all religious denominations, Jewish as well as Christian (Baader, 1998; Allen, 2000b). Fröbel’s Christianity played a significant role in the conservative regime’s charge that the Kindergartens were a bed of atheism and in the precipitated kindergarten ban of 1851 (Baader, 1998). 19 Family-Bond Enhancer vs. Destroyer When Fröbel was twenty-three years old, he decided to be a teacher and visited Pestalozzi in Switzerland. Pestalozzi became Fröbel’s mentor, teacher, co-worker, and friend. Gradually Fröbel developed his new understanding of education according to his experience and became convinced that the most needed reform in education should be during the early years of childhood. He also saw the social importance of education and that human being must realize himself not independently amid nature but as a social animal in cooperation with his fellowmen. Hence, Fröbel made his schoolroom a miniature of society, a place that children can interact, cooperate, and help each other. The social and, at the time, reverent atmosphere of the Kindergarten has always been a marked characteristic of its work. To bring out the idea social collaboration, many exciting games, such as role-playing shoemaker, smith, and farmer, were devised and set to music. Fröbel’s gifts and occupations are coordinated to develop children’s social skills. Individual development as its aim, motor-expression as its method, and social cooperation as its means were the characteristic ideas of Fröbel’s kindergarten. However, while Fröbel emphasized the importance of children interacting with society and the world, his ideas were unfairly accused of destroying family ties by Von Raumer. In the Von Raumer era, the bond of love that closely linked family members became weaker. Father, mother, and child all wanted to go their way. Anything that prompted the dissolution and spread of this atomized family must be carefully avoided. Pestalozzi was keenly aware of this. To him, the family home and the hearth were so holy that he opposed early morning schooling for the children and gave the basics to their mothers. He ran a workshop that taught mothers how to teach children at home. Pestalozzi was the 20 family bond enhancer at that time, but Fröbel was the family bond destroyer. In his book, Von Raumer mentioned Fröbel not only very rarely, but also indirectly commented that Fröbel disrupted family relationships. In contrast, Pestalozzi, whom von Raumer sees as a follower, has left children in their families. Fröbel’s educational philosophy emphasized human sociality and independence, which is gravely contrary to Von Raumer's point of view. This is also the main reason for deliberately omitting Fröbel’s achievements in the educational history book written by Von Raumer. 21 What are we risking by not knowing him? Students become score chaser in standardized test In Fröbel's educational philosophy, Kindergarten time is the best time for children to explore the world and express themselves. During this period, children's independence and autonomy must be gradually established. For some reason, Fröbel's educational philosophy was transmitted to China relatively late. Under the cultural background of China and the fierce competition in today's society, preschool education and Kindergartens in China have put much pressure on children and parents. In addition to the Chinese pinyin, Kindergarten children need to learn the English alphabet. Besides, parents are afraid that their children will "lose on the starting line," adding in many socalled "interest classes." As far as personal experience is concerned, my mother pursued perfection in her childhood philosophy. Playing the piano, writing calligraphy, and painting Chinese paintings are all proficient. I have been learning to play the piano since the age of three, and the pain is self-evident. In Fröbel's view, this is the way to destroy the nature of children. In early childhood, children should be more in contact with nature, more in contact with children of the same age, from which to understand the connection between self and the outside world and to stimulate children's curiosity to explore. Furthermore, the cramming method of teaching will only make children lose their interest in learning very early. This teaching method continues to high school in China. In high school, students stay in school for up to 12 hours. It is terrifying. Also, during the exam week, the school will cancel all physical education and art classes, leaving only subjects related to the exam. 22 After the exam, the school will rank the students according to their scores and ask the students to take them home for parents to sign. For many students whose grades are not the best, getting parents to sign the transcript is a big challenge in life. Many students with poor grades, because they were afraid of being punished by their parents, were forced to do nothing. Under this vicious circle, learning knowledge has not become the purpose of the majority of students, and getting a high score is the "best solution." Achieving a high score may not mean fully grasping the knowledge of the textbook. There are rules for standardized examinations. Under such circumstances, how can parents and teachers expect students to learn real knowledge? By blindly pursuing scores, students' learning ability has not improved, and there is no enthusiasm and desire for new knowledge. This should not be the fruit of education. The utilitarian, or instrumental phenomenon of education is becoming increasingly severe. Primary education has always revolved around the middle and high school entrance examinations, focusing on investigating the mastery of knowledge and coping with training in the middle and high school entrance examinations. Each of these examinations is crucial to student’s academic life. If a student screwed up on one of these tests, the pressure and the accusation from parents and teachers are almost unbearable. The school always emphasize the importance of practice. Teachers ask student to have great memory of all the things they stuff into the limited classes and also require them to do innovative thinking. When the students are facing the college entrance examinations, the slogan like “one point higher, thousands of people over” or “higher scores, better future” are all over the school. The highly valued and over-competitive psychology has made the entire educational ideology and environment eager for quick success. Education 23 puts political and economic functions first. It pays more attention to how individuals acquire knowledge and skills to meet the needs of socio-political and economic life than individuals' abilities and personalities. It annihilates the inherent education as function of education and abandons or forgets humanistic education is in order to seek the essential purpose of "sufficient self-sufficiency" of the individual. China's primary education regards students as machines to receive education, teachers as tools for imparting knowledge, and ignores human subjectivity and uniqueness. Primary education uses a unified curriculum, unified requirements, unified organizational form, and unified teaching level to create a unified educational product. The uniqueness of people is limited to a minimal range, and individuality is fundamentally ignored. Emphasizing knowledge, but did not guide due humanistic care, emphasizing the exertion of human subjectivity, but occupied a large amount of human thought and activity space, so that the subjectivity was not fully developed. This kind of education has caused teachers 'poor mental health, high psychological pressure, and shorter burnout cycles. On the one hand, students' weariness has become increasingly severe. In Fröbel's educational philosophy, the teacher's role is to guide and help, not to stuff students with knowledge. Teachers and students alike should enjoy learning instead of becoming superior to subordinate relationships. Parents are anxious and clueless about education. Parents 'anxiety disorder is almost accompanied by the birth of the child. As the child grows up, the parents' anxiety has not alleviated, but it has become more serious. Not only Chinese parents have this anxiety. There are also American parents. 24 I want to discuss several typical parental anxiety situations. The first is the anxiety caused by the mind of rivalry. There is a saying in China called the "children of other people." Many parents often envy "children of other people." These "children of other people" are excellent in all aspects, not only with excellent results, cheerful personality, smart and beautiful, but also piano Chess and calligraphy mastery. Many parents always pay close attention to the situation of their children, where to go to school, how good the school is, and how high the ranking is. In order to compare with their children, they often say, "If you can be as good as him." Many Chinese parents had experienced the torment and frustration at this kind of education when they were young. However, after becoming a parent, it is still inevitable to compare these “children of other people" with the "children of one's own family." Parents' anxiety often leads to unbearable and physically and mentally exhausted children. It is difficult for parents who suffer from comparison psychology to give positive guidance to their children's comparison psychology, and some may even put their children in a family environment shrouded in more negative emotions. The second is confusing anxiety. Such parents are always following suit, but they cannot find the best educational method for their children. My mother attached great importance to my education since I was a child. Since I was three years old, I have chosen a series of interest classes and extracurricular classes, including chess, piano, dance, calligraphy, ink painting, sketching, and taekwondo. My busy mother spends all her weekend time sending me to extracurricular session. In the face of my growth and development, there are many parents like my mother, who have daunting aspirations as my mother. Parents' bewilderment stems from two aspects: One is that they do not understand and are 25 unfamiliar with their children's growth and development and have anxiety and confusion. The second is unclear, unprepared, chaotic, and confused about the role of parents and the new issues they face. To solve the daunting problem of raising children, parents may wish to properly learn some basic knowledge of family education, understand the basic knowledge of children 's growth and development, and understand how children as a unique individual, the experience and experience of the experience and experience are different from the adult world, This will naturally reduce a lot of blindness and confusion. At the same time, parents may wish to take a good look at what direction to guide their children, how to spend a wonderful time with their children, and what suitable methods and skills can help themselves. Through these prepared studies and observations, they will be more relaxed when facing children. The third type is stress anxiety. In China, college education has become a "fuse" for family conflicts. Many parents, in order to let their children enter a better elementary school, junior high school, high school, instill a lot of knowledge in advance, so that children feel very stressed. When my cousin was five years old, my aunt gave her the elementary school content in advance. Every day, she was assigned homework such as literacy, memorizing poems, reading English, and spot checks. My cousin is occasionally playful. If my cousin doesn’t complete the tasks assigned by her, my aunt will be angry and scolded. There are many parents who are caught in anxiety in this way, and the content is similar, but they are just facing the pressure caused by their children's studies, schoolwork, employment, and other problems. Under pressure, why not worry? But in fact, many "pressures" are exerted by the parents themselves, which is completely unnecessary. 26 Anxiety only becomes a problem when it goes beyond the functional scope and is called "anxiety disorder." Human anxiety comes from the wilderness and primitiveness, from the response to the law of the jungle. When the jungle becomes a dense relationship between people, the occurrence of anxiety becomes ubiquitous, unconceivable, with no rules to follow. Continued anxiety will burn up the body's mind and functions, making the body's physical and mental states tend to be exhausted. Such anxiety among young and middle-aged parents divides, differentiates, and grows in the form of tumor cells, and quickly devours their lives. The spread of anxiety is not limited to itself, but more important is the spread and transmission between people. The method of transmission is simple and effective and can be completed only if the donor has explicit behavior and emotions. Children are the main objects of anxiety transmission and are susceptible to it. There are various ways for parents to transmit anxiety-pathological pursuit of perfection and similar requirements for their children, spontaneous pressure on life and internalization of children, and selection of a desperate evaluation system for themselves and their children using cold data models. Parent’s anxiety can also pass on to the children without barriers; children will cope parent’s anxiety mode and always be tense and worried about their own things in the future. Young and middle-aged parents need to jump out of the affected torrents, stand on the shore to see where they are, and re-clear the direction they want to go; they need to shut down and restart their anxiety system; they need to truly make free choices for themselves real nature and society, and the world to complete the integration of the real sense, rather than passively being an object that can only adapt to the world; out of the original closed an isolated fragment of the real world, 27 let yourself see the whole world, and do what Fröbel suggested, to explore who you are and achieve independence. Parents are anxious, on the surface, they are worried about the growing competition of children, and the deeper reason is the misunderstanding of education. What is education? From the perspective of human life, the best education is to cultivate a sound personality. From early childhood, the best education is to guide good habits. Education is an art and requires individualization, but education is also science and has its laws. Only through continuous learning can we better grasp the laws of education and help children better choose the path of growth that is more suitable for them. Fröbel believes that education should stimulate children's nature and guide children to show their talents, rather than forcing children to instill knowledge in children. Learning should be proactive. In Fröbel’s educational philosophy, parents must let their children freely explore the world in order to establish their own worldview and values. 28 Conclusion As I stated above, I introduced the life and educational philosophy of German educator Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel, and also cited the current problems in the field of education that I understand. I admire Mr. Fröbel very much. I think the essence of education is to empower students and let them find out whom they want to be, and education will succeed. 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