NEW EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23201, 27 May 1937, Page 17

NEW EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP

THE NATURE OF KINDERGARTEN WORK 11. [These articles arc contributed by a former kindergarten specialist and supervisor—Mrs Alfred Fels. The first of the series appeared on Saturday last.] In the kindergarten a right environment is created for the child; he visits the blacksmith, plays with the wind, gathers the autumn leaves, and hears the well-told, well-selected story. The little child is interested in doing things; he likes to sew, to hammer, to draw, to build. If allowed to follow his inclination without guidance very haphazard results would follow. The kindergartener helps him to choose wisely, to work with a purpose in mind, and to accomplish the activity which he commences. Such materials as the doll and doll house will teach a child to concentrate and hold his own energy .to one line of effort for some length of time. The child is interested in talking about things. When he is full of a subject he must express himself in some way. The subjects of which he likes to talk are not always the most valuable for him to think about, and often he does not have adequate language with which to communicate his ideas. The kindergartener, by supplying the right surroundings, by taking him to see good and beautiful things, fills his mind with the best, and he bubbles over with delight when expressing his happy experiences. She talks with him, providing a choice vocabulary, and thus encouraging him in a most effective way to use it. Then songs and stories also, add to a select vocabulary. He is interested in imitating the activities of people and animals; he likes to exercise his own body. He plays horse, farmer, fairies, giants, elephants, and jumping rope. He may want to play about a drunken man. "What a child imitates, that he tends to become." The kindergartener leads the child to select such games as will help in his great development. He gains poise and lightness in playing birds and fairies, he learns the characteristics of the animals whose actions he imitates, and to make the experiences of others his own when he plays Little Miss MufTet or Little Boy Blue. He learns accuracy and control when aiming a ball at a target. The kindergartener feels that play is the serious business of childhood." olt is the means by which the child enters into the spirit of his surrounding. Through imitative play he enters into the experience of others vicariously. It is a short-cut to the ethical and spiritual inheritance of the race. While the kindergartener provides opportunities for the child to expand his energy in ways that he enjoys, she has in mind social standards and values towards which she is guiding him. "A child who plays thoroughly with self-active determination will surely be a thorough, self-determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion of the welfare of himself and others. , ~ , . . For physical development the kindergarten provides as far as possible good hygienic conditions, cleanliness, fresh air and sunshine, space for free activity, large blocks for building, gardens for digging, good rhythmic exercises, and opportunities for rest and quiet. L . Intellectually it forms new centres of thought and relates them to the old; it guides the imagination and fills it with wholesome content; it presents through simple, concrete material concepts of form, size, colour, number, direction, and position; it incites the child to observe, to discover, and to create; it utilises spontaneous activities and native interests for educational purposes. The fireman, baker, blacksmith, carpenter, grocer living near a kindergarten are quite accustomed to visits from the children. On windy days groups of children may be seen flying kites or running with pin-wheels; on sunny days the same group may be seen chasing one another's shadows. Butter from the children's own churning and yarn from their own making may be seen sometimes on the lunch table. Dolls are cared for by these tiny mothers, and their clothes washed and ironed when required. In all these experiences there are facts which it is valuable for a child to learn, either for their effect on character development or for information. In giving opportunities for experiences of different kinds, the kindergarten trie, to awaken a child s interest to the best aspects of his environment, and to help him gain enough knowledge about them to want to learn more. In other words, it endeavours to develop in the child an attitude of alertness to his environment, of selecting for consideration the best that there is in it. and of learning something of value about it. The kindergarten endeavours to develop ethical standards both directly and indirectly, directly through the association with other children and indirectly through the types of workmen considered and the ideals emphasised in stories and dramatisations. The particular interest which is ripening between four and six years of age is the social instinct. Children when they come to the kindergarten have seldom been in a group of equals of the same stage of development, although they know how to associate with those older and younger. When they enter the kindergarten they are very individualistic and. they want a toy for themselves merely for the sake of possession. Gradually they become willing to share the toy with some other child and eventually control themselves for a short time in order to be fair in waiting their turns, in plays and games. Many of the activities of the kindergarten give opportunities for a child to develop in his own individual way, but at other times the little citizens learn to take their places in a democratic community where each one has his fair chance. This of necessity means subordination of individual desires for the sake of justice or a combined aim. Although this finding of one's place in a little community is developed in many of the exercises of the kindergarten it is seen most plainly in the games played by all the children on the circle. In the early games the children all take part, performing the same action; later the children are found willing and able to take many different parts. The later games are of a more organised type, where the different parts work together to produce a diversified yet complete whole. Such games show the gradual organisation of the social instinct which takes place at the kindergarten age Froebel felt this need for social development, and that is why so much group work is planned in kindergartens. Most of the experiences through which a child lives should be given social channels for expression in order that his nature may receive the kind of education which is demanded to complete this stage of development. Socially the kindergarten adjusts children to each other through play. It is here that justice, sympathy, consideration for the right of others, mutual helpfulness, kindness, punctuality (a social virtue), obedience to law. and all the ethical virtues are most surely cultivated. Not only does the kindergartener strive to raise the child's standard of truth and goodness, but also of beauty She surrounds him with artistic furnishings and pictures that appeal to him and are at the same time good She tells stories that he enjoys and that are also world literature. She recites short poems and rhymes, and he learns many of these. She plays good music and sings poetic songs. As the best composers are becoming interested in the beginnings of musical taste, there will be many more songs simple enough for the children to learn and yet set to really good music. A spiritual influence pervades every true kindergarten. There is an intangible something which makes lifebetter and brighter. The snirtual development of the little child runs like a golden thread through every activity of the kindergarten What he grows to be is fundamental Through morning praver and hymn, through conversa tion. story, and song, right attitudes of thought and feelinp are awakened Moments of greatest happiness turn into songs of praise, of love and grati tude towards the source of all things. Since early childhood is plastic and formative, and since impressions for good or evil at this stage influence in a largo measure the selections, the standards of value and the appreciations

of later life, the kindergarten, with its powerful system of nurture, is truly of value for every child. The kindergarten is play from the child's standpoint, but it is serious play from the standpoint of the kindergartener. Through it she hopes to develop the child, his instincts, his interests, his capacities, and his nature, and in its many sidedness teacher and child work together towards this end because they are playing together. I have tried in this brief paper to show first of all how kindergarten is related to education, and further, how important it is that the early years of the child shall be given fitting material for expression so that his inner self may find proper outlet and hence- growth. On the understanding of the importance of these early years and with the idea that education means leading forth, Froebel's system was planned and his disciples endeavour to promote those ideas in the every-day life of the kindergarten. Through wise guidance and knowledge of the child's needs they supply him with the means of expression appropriate to his development. By this method, which the kindergarten strives to advance, the child grows not only physically and mentally but spiritually, so that he has opportunity to become conscious of that inner law of Divine unity of which Froebel speaks in his definition of education, and to mould his life in accordance with that knowledge and consciousness " The child, the boy, and the man, indeed, should know no other endeavour but to be at every stage of development wholly what this stage calls for. Then will each successive stage spring like a new shoot from a healthy bud, and at each successive stage he will with the same endeavour again accomplish the requirements of this stage; for only the adequate development of man at each preceding stage can effect and bring about adequate development of each succeeding later stage."