Frierich Froebel

Friedrich Frobel

Best known for his work on kindergarten and play Frobel has a lot to say for internal educators.

Wilhelm August (1782-1852)

Friedrich Froebel, the German educationalist, is best known as the originator of the “Kindergarten” system. Froebel had a difficult child hood. His mother died when he was a baby. And his father a pastor left him to his own devices. He grew up, it said, with a love for his nature and with strong Christian faith and this was central to his thinking as an educationalist. He saw and sought to encourage, unity in all things.

He came in to teaching via a school run along Pestalozzi an lines ( and spent time at Yverdon) Friedrich Frobel’s enduring significance was through his for change of the “kindergarten” system with his emphasis on play and its use of ‘gifts’ (play materials) and occupations (activities).

Friedrich Froebel believed that humans are essentially productive and creative, and fulfillment comes through developing these in harmony with god and the world. As a result, Froebel soughs to encourage the creation of educational environments that involved practical work and the direct use of materials through engaging with the world, understanding unfolds, also playing is a both creative and activity and through it children become aware of the place in the world.

He developed special materials as shaped wooden bricks and balls. A series of recommended activities and movement activity his original concerns was the teaching of young children through educational games in the family. In the later years of his life this became linked with a demand for the provision of special center for the care and development of young children outside home.

Froebel's abiding influence has come in part from the efforts of followers such as Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow and the thinkers such as Diesterweg. We have seen the development of kindergartens, and the emergence of a Froebel movement. For informal educators, Friedrich Froebel's continuing relevance has lain in his concern for learning through activity, his interest in social learning and his emphasis on the 'unification 'of life.