Early Childhood Practice

Froebel today

Tina Bruce, Tina Bruce

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781446290262
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

Nursery World Awards 2012 winner!

This stimulating book brings together contributions from distinguished practitioners, who demonstrate how they have used educational methods advocated by Froebel in contemporary settings. Stressing the importance of outdoor play, they explore the Froebelian principles of:

-Play

-Learning through firsthand experience

-Parent partnership and community in early childhood

-Practitioners supporting children?s interests and learning

-Finger rhymes and action songs

-Movement

-The garden and forests

-Wooden blockplay

-Use of clay, paint, junk modelling, construction kits

The book emphasises how learning and the application of knowledge become possible through play. It contrasts the Froebel approach with the methods such as Montessori, Steiner and recent approaches to play such as post-Modern ?playfulness?. This book is relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Early Childhood Education, as well as students following QTS and EYPS, PGCE, CPD and BEd courses.

Tina Bruce CBE is an Honorary Visiting Professor in Early Childhood at the University of Roehampton.

CHAPTER 1

THE WHOLE CHILD

TINA BRUCE

The whole child – the child’s relationship with self, others and the universe

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At regular intervals in the history of the world, there are clashes between people who hold different views of the world. Sometimes a way of thinking will creep quietly and gently into people’s minds, difficult to put into words, almost a group feeling that this is how things are or ought to be. At other times there is a clarion call for change, and old moth-eaten ideas are ruthlessly attacked and put on the rubbish dump. This is as true for theoretical frameworks as it is for political systems and governments.

The Froebelian framework that is put forward in this book is not a new one. It started life in the middle of the nineteenth century – the period of the Enlightenment. But it still has a time-honoured place in early childhood education and care. This is because a good framework transforms itself and is as relevant today as it was when it was first formed. The principles and philosophy of Friedrich Froebel have lasting value and have become a navigational tool, leading reflective practitioners in different parts of the world into a new era. In this way, something which started as a small idea has rippled out into something larger and of lasting value.This is well expressed in a saying on the notice board outside a Quaker Meeting House in Hammersmith recently:

I set my hope on the small inner circles which ripple outwards and in doing so transform and grow, changing self and others.

The Enlightenment, which certainly influenced the original thinking of Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), has at its heart several key features. These are that:

• people need to be educated to think for themselves and not to rely on the thinking of others in authority to tell them what they should think
• there should be tolerance such that we can put our ideas into the public domain without fear of retribution from political, religious or other such authorities that have power to punish those whose ideas they disapprove of
• the past is seen as a resource to inform and transform the present and the future.

These ideas are strongly represented in this book which is about how Froebelian practice is being developed today in the UK. Froebel was influenced by the German Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). But it is also important to remember that the Scottish Enlightenment was responsible for a surge forward in thinking which had particular features. These are also central in this book. Broadie (2007) is of the view that the Scottish Enlightenment uniquely involved a close-knit community of thinkers who shared, debated and reflected on ideas together, such as the two friends, David Hume and Adam Smith.

The group who initiated this book are in that mould. The Froebel network in Edinburgh comes from a long and respected tradition, which has allowed depth of discussions, some of which have been, and will continue to be, robust and challenging. Feeling safe enough to explore and critically reflect (through being linked into a Froebel network of this kind) has led to the practitioners feeling able to discuss regularly the educational principles of Friedrich Froebel, and to study them with rigour through short one-day courses and an accredited Froebel course at the University of Edinburgh. This kind of close-knit community is important, but contact with the wider world of education is also important. Just as the literati groups which were such a feature of the Scottish Enlightenment linked with commerce, science, and ecclesiastical life, so the Edinburgh Froebel network is strongly linked with educational ideas beyond. This provides opportunities to put in the public domain (such as this book and conferences) the reflections on Froebelian principles that have developed, leading to consideration of what Froebelian practice might look like, and how it transforms (without losing its essence) to take in the rich cultural diversity across the world.

Central to Froebel’s thinking is the idea that education is about the relationship between self, others and the universe. These elements make up a whole and lead to an understanding and respect for the unity that is in all things. Nowadays we no longer describe this as ‘unity’. Instead, we usually talk about the whole child.

The whole child – what does it mean?

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This term has become a cliché. It means different things to different people, but in this book it is developed to have meaning for Froebelians today. It involves an updating of terminology which ensures that the concept of unity remains, but as a navigational tool that has use, application and meaning today.

In developing this concept of the ‘whole’ (unity), Froebel brought together many existing ideas. In doing so, across the years, slowly and gradually, by the time he died in 1852, he had developed an understanding of the need to see children as whole people with thoughts, feelings, physical selves, and relationships to others. He placed the child in context, not in isolation from others or the universe. He did this in a larger way than those before him, but he used the past and others more contemporary to inform his approach. This thinking about the whole child continues to inform practitioners today, but it needs to be transformed into the context of today and the cultural setting in which it is to be used. Just as there are no two children who are the same (although they all have physical selves, intellectual lives, feelings and relationships) in the same way there are no two settings or classrooms the same (although they might have Froebelians practising in them). Froebelian practice embraces diversity, held together by elements which make it whole (giving it unity).

Like Kant, Froebel believed that we experience life through the senses and movements, through which we have sensory and kinaesthetic feedback. Also like Kant, he believed that we have the possibility to transform these experiences and to develop, in doing this, the symbolic. The symbolic life developed by the child is, in Froebel’s view, a crucial part of being human. Experience which is real and direct with materials, nature and people is the bedrock of this, and childhood play is another central part of its development.

Learning by active participation and making connections

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Most educators today would agree that children learn by doing and active participation and initiation in their lives, but Froebel’s insistence on the wholeness of that experience is still not understood or embedded. Children might study trees, or grow plants in the garden, but for Froebel this needs to connect with the whole. There must be wholeness and unity of experience, which makes the meaning great for the learning child or adult. Trees take soil and air and they also give to the air and the soil. They contribute to the way the climate functions in different parts of the world. Children might watch fish in an aquarium, but they need to see a river and learn which fish live there and how. They need to understand about freshwater fish and sea fish. They need to see the sea to fully understand this. They need to know about running water environments and still water ponds. It is surprising how much children can learn and understand about nature study in the first seven years of their lives. This wholeness of learning is the kind that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Each aspect of the experience links to another, opening up deeper understanding of the whole. Froebel stresses the importance of interconnected experiences. The result is a whole (unified) experience.

In the same way, if learning about fruit and vegetables is to have meaning, logic, coherence and to be a whole understanding, it will need to be about more than presenting children with plastic fruit. An apple, for example, grows on a tree. Children need to experience this. Some schools now plant orchards, but this is not yet widespread, or considered to be part of basic learning. Apple trees rely on bees to cross-pollinate. They need the right climate (temperature, sun, rain). Learning about different apples and what they are for (cooking, eating) and then learning to apply this with recipes, or sharing fruit to eat makes the study of apples fascinating, deep and meaningful for children.

Sharing fruit together brings a different wholeness to the child’s development and learning. The relationship with self will bring the child to understand which fruits are favourite, how to eat them, cut them up, enjoy the experience. But it will also connect the child with others. If several children want the one banana what happens then? There can be discussion of whether it could be cut or broken into pieces. The child who has visited botanical gardens and seen bunches of bananas grow, or visited countries where they grow naturally, will quickly become aware of the temperature and climate bananas need in order to grow. This connects the child with the wider universe. So does making compost with the skin, and turning it to soil. Would this help the apple tree to grow?

Through these examples, which show just a few of the possibilities through which children learn to be whole people, the importance of unity of experience which is inter-connected is clear. So often the learning experiences offered to children lack these important elements, and so the learning is far less than it could be. This is a waste of childhood, which is when most learning, (and certainly the foundations of the dispositions which encourage it), takes place. In the chapters which follow, the practical impact of the need for wholeness of first-hand, direct experience will be ever present and central.

The child as a symbol user and maker

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A symbol is something which stands for and represents something else. Once a child is free from being rooted in the present, and can go back and forward in time, the symbolic life takes off. Walking, talking and pretending all seem to come together. Pretending and talking is part of having a symbolic life.

In the last section several of the examples given feature Froebel’s emphasis on the importance of the study of and relationship with nature as part of the basic education of a child. Song, rhyme, stories are also interconnecting and whole experiences with literature, music which involve children in symbolic ways. These also connect children with self, others, and the universe. We see this in the Movement Games and the Mother Songs. Because cultures develop or vary, through different historic times, or in different parts of the world, these are no longer used in the way they were originally. But the essential messages remain.

Children learn best when they can use what they know and understand to learn about what is new to them. They use what they know as a jumping-off point, equipped with dealing with what is not familiar to them. For example, once you know that apples grow on trees, it is possible to understand that oranges do too. You do not have to grow an orange tree to be able to understand quite a bit about how that happens. The important thing, as Froebel realised, is that children are not required to learn what is beyond biological maturity.

Developing the symbolic life of the child through music, song and rhyme

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The same approach is used in the choice of songs, music, rhymes and stories selected by Froebelian practitioners today. The subjects for songs, movement games (finger and action songs) and stories that Froebel chose were based on everyday experiences, and the physical self-knowledge of children. These were about the baker, the dovecot, the charcoal burner, the carpenter, for example. Now children sing about buses, cars, aeroplanes, doctors, buying buns. But they do not focus on these in respecting the work being done, or understanding the processes of baking the buns. Froebel’s respect for craft and work essential for everyday life and communities perhaps needs reactivation.

Typically the songs sung to and with children are rather superficial in their content, and in the melodies and rhythms. Perhaps this is because few practitioners in the UK today can sight-read any more, or play by ear. Before the days of records, CDs and DVDs, computers and other technologies bringing tunes and music into the home or early childhood setting ready-made, adults learned to sing from memory complex songs, or to play musical instruments by ear, and, in some circles, to sight-read music. The words of songs, the complexity of illustrations in songbooks with layers of symbolic meaning, all need attention in the musical and movement aspects of early childhood education. Children are being underestimated in this respect because the adults they spend time with are not equipped to help them develop as much as they could, if given the opportunities. They are also functioning at lower levels in relation to the sophistication of the melody and rhythms, or the movements that are part of the music and movement experience.

Children need to spend time with adults whose minds have been expanded through music and dance, three-and two-dimensional visual arts, literature and drama, as central to this. Children depend on adults to teach them about these through participation in their culture. Depending on the adults they spend time with, they will either have less-than-whole or whole experiences. They will either live whole, fulfilled artistic lives, or not. This is the difference between a broad, rich and deep education, and narrow schooling.

The cultural aspect of educating children is a crucial strand, but so is the biological. Songs and dances and action songs and finger rhymes, used and developed in the Froebelian tradition build on what the child naturally does. Examples are walking, jumping, hopping, skipping, sliding and running.

Developing the symbolic life of the child through movement and dance

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The symbolic life burgeons as children begin to walk, talk and pretend. You can walk round a chair, but you can only walk parallel to a wall. Toddlers love these kinds of movement games, and adults, family or practitioners can spend happy times together making up songs to accompany this, all about straight lines and round and round.

Froebel developed ‘wandering games’ and ‘visiting games’. These involved meeting people in a particular order, greetings of characters, invitations and events (imagined and real). The dances were designed for children who had developed enough experience and biological maturity (typically 5–8 years of age) to form figures of eight, and other shapes. There were representations of, for example, a snail. This made a spiral shape, echoing nature. Other movements showed a woodland, swimming, birds flying, tying a bow, planting seeds, working in the garden, feeding chickens and a cat playing with a mouse.

The mill wheel involved children in dancing formed of two concentric circles, with the outer circle moving faster than the inner circle. This gave tangible form to a scientific concept in the working of machinery and technology. Games suitable for the culture and everyday lives of children growing up today in different parts of the world need to be developed in the Froebelian traditions.

Knowledge, everyday life and beauty and how they connect with each other

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All of these artistic experiences developed the whole child through the ideas and imagination, physical body and the emotional mind. Froebel believed that these were all interconnected as a coherent and integrated whole. He called them the forms of knowledge, life and beauty, respectively. Everything, in his view, is interconnected. He talked about the need to link, and link as central to being educated.

According to Froebel, symbols hold meanings which grow out of active life, and which translate actions back to the inner meaning of life. It is not enough to observe and describe or represent a garden with plants growing in it. It is essential to act on what is seen and described,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the authors
• Preface
• Professor Maurice Craft, PhD, DLitt Councillor Marilyne MacLaren
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The whole child
• 2 Family, community and the wider world
• 3 The changing of the seasons in the Child Garden
• 4 Adventurous and challenging play outdoors
• 5 Offering children first-hand experiences through forest school: relating to and learning about nature
• 6 The time-honoured Froebelian tradition of learning out of doors
• 7 Family songs in the Froebelian tradition
• 8 The importance of hand and finger rhymes: a Froebelian approach to early literacy
• 9 Froebel’s Mother Songs today
• 10 Gifts and Occupations: Froebel’s Gifts (wooden block play) and Occupations (construction and workshop experiences) today
• 11 Froebelian methods in the modern world: a case of cooking
• 12 Bringing together Froebelian principles and practices
• Integrated book list and bibliography
• Index