Froebel’s Kindergarten Merging Into American Context:What Has Changed and What Has Remained?

Abstract

This study attempts to explore how Froebel’s ideas of kindergarten originated in Europe merged into American educational contexts in the 1800s and 1900s. For Froebel, kindergarten stood for an educational place where young children’s learning characteristics were considered to organize the curriculum. Froebel attempted to actualize educational ideas such as education by development and education through play, which still characterize contemporary early schooling. However, Froebel’s kindergarten ideas were differently translated by different groups of American educators: transcendental Froebelians, American Hegelian Froebelians, and developmental Froebelians. Each group of educators translated Froebel’s ideas of kindergarten in their own terms and then transformed his ideas or added new meanings. In spite of different interpretations, all of them remained Froebel’s gifts and occupations which characterized kindergarten. They shared that the significance of play which characterized ways of children’s learning as well as children’s development or nature. They merged into the discourse of Froebel’s kindergarten: education according to children’s development and education through play. However, Froebel’s idea of child-centered education which underpinned the kindergarten had changed and transformed into developmental kindergarten based on child-study developmentalism.