Jennifer Furr

January 10, 2015

Lesson 1 Review of The History of Art Education: Proceedings from the Penn
State Conference (The Froebelian Kindergarten as an Art Academy).
How does Frobelian philosophy inform contemporary art education practices?
Summary
The invention of the institute known today as kindergarten, has a lot in common
with the pedagogy involved with Art education. Both are concerned with the
manipulation of materials, the development and awakening of the senses, and the
unfolding of creativity in the child (Sienkiewicz, 1985).
Friedrich Froebel was a German educator who is given credit for creating the
institution of kindergarten. He thought that kindergarten was not just another way to
prepare for adulthood, but should be a developmental stage given its own value and
importance. Froebel was also very spiritual, and he believed that the childs mind was of
a spiritual origin, which was why he wanted to study them so much.
Froebels program dealt with the physical and perceptual developing skills of
children by educating them through their senses. He thought play and appropriate
environments were the best ways for children to learn. Froebel wanted to make
materials that would best suit the social and cognitive needs of children. He spent years
observing children so he could better understand their learning needs. As a result, he
developed educational toys such as cylinders, sticks, wooden blocks, and metal rings,
that were all made smaller for childrens small hands. Teachers and parents were
trained how to use these toys, or gifts as he called them, with the children.
Art was taught as an absolute necessary part of the curriculum. The
kindergarten room curiously resembles the nineteenth-century artists studio or art
classroom (Sienkiewicz, 1985). Todays art classroom, typically involving a rich visual
stimulating smorgasbord of inspirational items, was originally based upon the first ideas
of a kindergarten class, that would be a sensory learning environment, which strongly
encouraged learning through play.
Key points
Froebel had three key principles that had a major influence on art education:
play, symbolization, and learning through the senses. Art played a very strong role in
the kindergarten classroom. Froebel had kindergarten students employing art forms
such as weaving, sewing, drawing, making designs, and using blocks; as well as

teaching them important artistic concepts such as color relationships and geometric
solids. In the current sense of the term, the kindergarten was an art academy for the
young child (Sienkiewicz, 1985).
Sensory education is one of the most important principles from Froebel that still
informs todays art education practices. Using the five senses is an important preproduction experience vital to the creation of any art. Froebel had discovered that
children collected information and explored the world through active use of their senses.
His gifts were one of the main ways that he provided a sensory learning experience for
children.
Another important point that Froebel believed was that art is the most sublime
form of playPlay combines attention with relaxation, purpose with independence, and
rule with freedom (Sienkiewicz, 1985, p.132). His occupations were an important part
of learning through play, by using hands-on processes to further implement the sensory
learning obtained through the gifts. Occupations, specifically, were the use of
materials such as clay to build with, lacing paper strips together, or building models with
sticks and peas, much like students today build with toothpicks and erasers, or straws
and marshmallows, etc.
Froebel believed that his kindergarten was indeed, a work of art, in and of itself.
His ideas influenced numerous art advocates and influential figures in the world of art
education. Elizabeth Peabody and Walter Smith were two such people who had a very
strong voice in the history of art education, and stood strongly in their beliefs of art
advocacy.
Peabody was a teacher who strongly valued sensory education, as established
by Froebel. She fought for kindergartens to be established and spoke publicly and wrote
about their many benefits. She pointed out that higher education will be useless unless
the children shall be prepared for these art schools in the primary department
(Sienkiewicz, 1985, p.135). The art schools she was referring to were the new schools
that were forming independently, or being incorporated into public schools, in
Massachusetts, to teach drawing instruction.
Meanwhile, the legislation on drawing instruction in Massachusetts was good
news for Walter Smith, who formed Massachusetts College of Art, which was the first
public art college in America. He wanted art instruction to be effective, efficient, and
meet the needs of the growing industries in Massachusetts (Sienkiewicz, 1985, p.133).
If it had not have been for the establishment of the kindergarten, art education
would not have grown and changed so rapidly in America. The legislation in
Massachusetts which was using drawing as a technical device for job production in
factories, had previously been pretty much the extent of higher art education in the

United States. Kindergarten helped make art a more expressive and aesthetic learning
activity.
Personal Reflection
Previous to reading this article, I had never really known about the origins of the
kindergarten class, nor what an impact it had on art education in the United States. I
had known that kindergarten had started in Germany, but that was really about all I
knew.
After reading this article, as well as Transplanting Froebel into the present, I
began to see how the institution of kindergarten started off as an amazing learning
environment for children, and how much it really impacted the growth of art education in
our country. Even though kindergarten has changed rapidly and become quite a
bastardized version of what Froebel intended it to be, some teachers and places, Im
sure, hold fast to his idealist vision of a utopian classroom society of young children who
are offered the chance to explore and learn through their senses gradually, rather than
having Common Core nonsense thrown at them and being forced into a rapid learning
program which offers them little time to explore, discover, or use their sense to learn.
I was left with an impression of Froebels sense of wonder with children, and his
never ending fascination while observing and learning from their behavior, and
discovering the ways in which they learned best. I was also impressed with his intellect,
his theories of interconnectivity, and his spiritual beliefs. Most of all, though, Im thankful
that through his kindergarten, art was introduced in our country to young children. They
were able to start exploring through their senses, and then using that input to create.
Thats what art is all about. So not only was Froebel a pioneer in early childhood
education, he was also very much a pioneer, if not a founding father, of early art
education in our country, as well as Germany, and many others, Im sure.
The main ways I would apply his philosophies in my art room would be through
the use of sensory learning. I need to point out that we are using our senses in more
instances. I think pretty much all teachers use his occupations without even calling
them that. We all do hands-on work, such as clay modeling, to teach a concept or
reinforce a certain art element. The biggest challenge in using his gifts would be
providing structure with them, because thats what our students are accustomed to, and
his initial idea was to let children learn though their own type of play, with more freedom
and discovery time than what they are given in classrooms today. Using his ideas of
self-directed play would also be challenging, because of structure issues, but could be
incorporated through the use of art toys in a center after an assignment was completed.

Sienkiewicz, Carol. (1985) The Froebelian Kindergarten as an Art Academy. The

History of Art Education: Proceedings from the Penn State Conference; NAEA
Publishing
Strauch-Nelson, Wendy (2012). Transplanting Froebel into the present. International
Journal of Education through Art; Volume 8 Number 1; Intellect Ltd.