Introduction to Kindergarten
Kindergarten, a school for children just below the elementary level. the ages normally ranging from four to six. The name is German for “children's garden. The kindergarten movement is based on the theory that the education of children should begin by cultivating their normal tendencies for play, exercise, observation, imitation, and construction. The kindergarten tries to supplement the home lives of children, broaden their childhood experiences, give them opportunities to explore and understand their world, and introduce them gradually into the academic work of the elementary grades.
A nursery school is for younger children, usually three and four years of age. A day nursery provides care for children of working parents and is generally not operated as a school.
The states authorize local school districts to establish kindergartens, but they do not require them to provide education for children below first grade. Most of the states help the local school systems bear the costs of kindergartens. Attendance in kindergartens is not compulsory. Most cities provide public kindergartens, but some smaller communities and rural districts do not. Many parochial school systems have kindergartens.
Aims
Educators have found that to a large extent learning ability and patterns of personality become set before the age of six. For this reason the early educational, social, and emotional development of young children has an important bearing on the course of their lives. Thus, the kindergarten tries during these crucial years to promote the physical, mental, social, and emotional growth and development of children.
The program of the kindergarten is planned mainly to provide children with the safe environment and experiences that will (1) help them learn to work and play with others; (2) help to stimulate their curiosity, interest in exploration, sense of responsibility, and judgment; (3) help to expand their understanding and promote their readiness for the work they will do in the first grade; and (4) help them achieve maximum health.
Activities
The kindergarten room is usually a cheerful, homelike one, with toys, picture books, plants, and pets. At times the children sit around a table, busy cutting, pounding on wood, folding, pasting, painting, working with clay, handling various types of materials, and manipulating many types of toys. Such activity helps develop eye-hand coordination and a readiness for writing. At other times the children gather around the teacher to listen to stories, to sing simple songs, to use rhythm instruments. At certain periods they play indoor or outdoor games. A recess is also provided.
The teacher tries to encourage interest in books by taking the children on visits to the school library. Occasionally, the teacher takes the children on exploring trips outside the school---perhaps to a park, a zoo, or a fire station.
Many kindergartens teach reading, arithmetic, and other academic subjects. In reading, the children are expected to learn the alphabet and then progress to reading simple sentences. Arithmetic usually is simple addition and subtraction, using worksheets first with illustrations of everyday objects and, later, numerals. Children are also taught how to read clocks and calendars.
Science instruction is concerned with aspects of the physical world, such as the parts of the body and their functions and the relationship of the sun to night and day. Social science usually involves familiarizing the children with the role of various workers in the community, such as fire fighters and police officers.
Classes are usually small because of the need for individual attention. There should be one teacher for every 15 to 20 students. In most school systems, the kindergarten session is a half day, either in the morning or in the afternoon. Some school systems conduct full-day kindergarten sessions. Kindergarten teachers must have special training. Some states require that the teacher have a kindergarten certificate.
History
The kindergarten movement began in Germany during the 19th century under the leadership of Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852). Froebel had studied under the Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), who was opposed to the harsh, often brutal, teaching prevalent in his day. Pestalozzi introduced a kindlier atmosphere into the classroom. He insisted that teaching should adapt itself to the natural order of child development.
In 1837 Froebel founded the first kindergarten, in Bad Blankenburg, Thuringia. He devoted the rest of his life to the promotion of his new type of school. In 1850 he established a training school for teachers in Marienthal. His ideas were considered radical and dangerous, and in 1851 the Prussian minister of education ordered the closing of all kindergartens. Froebel died the next year, but the kindergarten movement continued under the leadership of Baroness Berta von Marenholtz-Blow, and soon it spread throughout western Europe.
In the United States the kindergarten was introduced by German immigrants. The first one was opened in 1856 in Watertown, Wisconsin, by Margarethe Meyer Schurz, wife of the reformer Carl Schurz. In 1860 Elizabeth Peabody, aided by her sister Mary Mann (wife of the educator Horace Mann), established the first English-speaking kindergarten, in Boston, and the movement then spread throughout the country.
Many of the early kindergartens were operated by churches or were maintained as philanthropic institutions. The first public kindergarten was opened in St. Louis in 1873. By 1900 many large cities had kindergartens, and some normal schools had departments for the training of kindergarten teachers.
The early kindergartens tended to follow rather rigidly the principles and methods of Froebel. After 1900, however, the findings of child psychology led to greater freedom of activity and to other changes. During the depression of the 1930's many schools dropped their kindergartens as being “expensive frills. During the late 1940's, however, kindergarten became a regular part of the school system in most cities and suburbs of the United States. Rural and small-town school systems were slower to establish kindergartens, but by the early 1980's, more than 95 percent of all five-year-olds in the United States were enrolled in kindergartens.
During the 1970's, school systems began to incorporate reading, mathematics, and other academic work into the kindergarten curriculum. A trend in the early 1980's was to lengthen the session from the traditional half day to a full day. Some educators opposed these developments because they believed that many five-year-olds were not emotionally and socially developed enough to handle academic work and to stay in school a full day.