All of the educational philosophies around the globe have been designed to provide improved academic as well as social development within children from the age of 0 – 12 years. Some of the better known philosophies have been propounded by Froebel, Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget and Humboldt. The programs devised by these enlightened people focus on the education of the “whole child” and believe in empowering the child to learn at his or own pace and through the process of self exploration.
Let us look at the philosophies and the people behind them in brief that impacted the progress in education in Germany.
Wilhelm von Humboldt, the linguist, educationalist and philosopher from Prussia influenced German education such that it had a domino effect across the world as well. He founded the Berlin University in 1810 and thanks to the post of Prussian Minister of Education that he was holding; he could implement his philosophies without hindrance from anybody. He brought about major changes in the quality of tertiary education, initially in Germany and then in the other European and Western countries.
His philosophies about universities needing to focus on learning as a process of discovery and about education for individual development, rather than just to get a job led to huge improvements in the standard of teaching and education delivery.
Now we look at the contribution of the German educator Friedrich Froebel. His program revolutionalized the manner in which kindergarten schools were run till then. The principles he put in place then became the bedrock for modern kindergarten early childhood specialists. He stressed the importance of parents being the primary educators for their children, the necessity of home-school links and how it was important to enable children to develop on all fronts. He focused on aspects of social, emotional, physical and spiritual development equally.
Something similar was the contribution of Maria Montessori and the The Montessori Method. This is a system that is very popular the world over and came into being in 1897. It was based on the premise about children being natural learners and all they need is a supportive environment for them to flourish. Here again, the accents is on total child development such as physical, emotional, cognitive and social abilities.
Jean Piaget took a different route when he suggested that child development involves stages of cognitive development and mental state. By specifying these relevant to the age groups, he lay down the importance of tracking them so that parents, caregivers, teachers could see the improvement taking place in children.
Contact us for more information about each of these philosophies on the numbers below. We can work out a suitable curriculum development, planninng for your preschool in consultation with you.