Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel
Ed-111
Tuesday: 6:30-9:30
Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel is said to be the “Father of the Kindergarten” for his huge involvement, and devoting his life to the development of a system of education for young children. In German, the word kindergarten means children’s garden, and he thought that this was best in the age of six and younger. He spent his entire life helping with the development of the young and early childhood development.
Wilhelm Froebel was born in the Thuringia region of Germany. He had a childhood that was not so fond for remembrance because of how terrible it had been for him. This is what shaped him to be able to come up with the idea of kindergarten. Froebel lost his mother before the age of one, and this meant that he had been left with this father who had to take care of three boys because Froebel had two other brothers. Their father never had much time for any of them. As a boy that would be hard for any child, and this caused him to have to spend most of his time alone at his home. He spent a lot of that time in the gardens by his home, and would play there for most of the day (Coron 4). Exploring all day was what he loved to do the most, and this would make a major influence on what he would do for the rest of his life.
He started teaching at a school when he was a young man at Frankfurt Model School, and this school was a school that was focused on the teachings of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who was a very well respected teacher of his day. This school accepted poor children, and orphans. He believed that children needed to be involved in very active ways. As he left this school, he left it with his very hands on learning approach, and went to privately tutor children. The parents of the children that he tutored were very kind in giving him space in their garden to use to help teach the children.
In 1837 Froebel founded his first school, and called it Kindergarten, or the