In 1838 the German educator Friedrich Fröbel laid the foundations of modern education when
he opened the "Play and Activity Institute".
Fröbel soon called his institute a Kindergarten , reflecting his belief that young children
should be nurtured and nourished "like plants in a garden”.
Fröbel, who studied under the Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi, established the idea that
games and playing are typical and essential forms of life.
Activities in the kindergarten included singing, dancing, gardening, and self-directed play.
Quality time spent like this was a considerable improvement to the life of many children,
given that the alternative was often to help parents with work.
He also introduced the concept of "Frei-Arbeit", which can be translated into "free work".
During set periods of time, children were allowed to work on things by themselves.
Where many adults saw pointless play, Fröbel saw important learning taking place . While
practicing their concentration skills and resilience,the children also learned about
engineering, logic and physics.
To help facilitate this process, he developed a set of educational toys known as Fröbel
Gifts . The set contained 20 objects, such as balls, blocks, and sticks.
Fröbel carefully designed the toys to help the children in his kindergarten recognize
and appreciate common patterns and forms found in nature.
His innovative ideas soon found appeal and many young educators came to learn from Fröbel
and to see the immense potential displayed by children at his institute.
Later, many of Fröbel’s students opened their own Kindergarten and Germany experienced
a rapid growth in the numbers of early childhood centers.
Then something bad happened.
After suppressing the German revolutions of 1848–49, the Prussian government started
a crackdown on new democratic ideas and women were forbidden from being politically active.
The fact that some were operating a kindergarten all by themselves was seen as problematic.
And so it didn’t take long for the government to label Fröbel’s Kindergarten ideas as
dangerous to both the State and church; soon all schools that followed Fröbel’s principles
were banned.
For Fröbel, who saw his life’s work destroyed and the future of all the children disrupted,
this was a terrible blow.
He died in dismay just a year later.
But the ban caused a diaspora of kindergarteners who could no longer work in Germany, spreading
Fröbel’s ideas all over the world.
One of Fröbel's students founded the first kindergarten in the United States in 1856.
But the story was far from being over.
Exactly 20 years later, a young woman named Anna Lloyd Jones stumbled upon a set of Fröbel’s
Gifts at a visit to the first World's Fair in the United States.
Anna, a teacher by training, was so excited by the wooden toys that she bought a set for
her nine-year-old son.
Little Frank loved the toys his mother brought home and began building all kinds of geometrical
structures — first with the wooden toys, later in miniatures and with other materials.
Without formal training, Frank Lloyd Wright became one of the world’s most renowned
architects, responsible for some of the most iconic buildings in modern architecture, many
of which resemble Fröbel's toy blocks.
Germany lifted its ban on kindergartens in 1860, realizing that it was a terrible mistake.
And while Fröbel wasn’t around anymore to witness the rebirth of his ideas in his
homeland, they continued to spread around the world and became an inspiration for Maria
Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, and many others who set out to innovate formal education.
Fröbel once said that “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood,
for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul.”
Frank Lloyd Wright described the influence of such play in his approach to design as
follows: "For several years, I sat at the little kindergarten table-top… and played…
with the cube, the sphere and the triangle—these smooth wooden maple blocks…
All are in my fingers to this day.”
How was your personal experience with play and learning when you were young?
Did you go to kindergarten?
And what are your thoughts on the play as a way of growth and development?
Share your thoughts!
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