The Playhood Blueprint for Early Years’ Education: Part 2

The Euro OGs: evaluating the influence of some key thinkers

‘Pedagogy’ as discipline was introduced by Johann Friedrich Herbart in the late 1700s, amongst others translating philosophical discussions into the academic field of education. Individual paths to knowledge and the development of ‘moral’ character were their trending topics back then. Let’s zoom-in today on a few folks’ ideas about early childhood that have stood the test of time and provide inspiration for our practice at Playhood.

IN NATURE

Friedrich Froebel brought his own childhood love of playing out in the forest, along with his architectural training creating drawing and models, to bear when he started the first ‘kindergartens’ in 1837. Motivated by Johann Pestalozzi’s push to counter rote-learning based on memorising at desks with outdoor, physical, and creative learning, these settings aimed to nurture the child’s personal journey including songs and movement, as well as being literal gardens for plants and wildlife, too. We will be sharing more on our free-flow indoor-to-outdoor learning and forest education in a future blog post, but it’s a critical part of our design for the children’s everyday all-weather experience here at Playhood. The recent snowfall was serendipitously timed on the day we began an atèlier week exploring the festive season!

Note: anyone interested in analysis of the ecological systems theorists, check out Montessori Musing’s blog post about Maslow and Bronfenbrenner. It takes inspiration from a reminder by the editor of Nursery World that a large proportion of child development theories we use today were authored by long-dead, and all white, men; an important challenge we hold in mind in what follows here!

IN DIALOGUE

Dr Montessori apparently drew inspiration from Froebel’s methods (as seen in the Roman Arch etc.) but let’s appreciate how she championed child-led exploration from the start whereas kindergarten materials are somewhat more adult-directed. Sequencing tactile items as the child’s curiosity, skills, and interests were the powerful “Gifts” that Froebel’s design background gave to children. Regularly here at Playhood we interpret and adapt parents’ (and grandparents’ - see our recent post) professional skills to inspire the children. Sharing a range of expertise broadens their horizons: a playful workshop on engineering sparked many construction experiments, while talking to a GP deepened appreciation for healthy eating habits, and so on.

Feedback from parents after their observation sessions also reminds us how much the grownups learn from the children too. Teaching is not a one-way street.

In fact, Jean Piaget, who explored the stages of cognitive development in childhood in his research as a psychologist and developed many frameworks like the assimilation of knowledge into schemes, by observing his own children. Both Piaget and Montessori had enormous faith in the innate learning potential of very young children. Team Playhood has been sharing several examples of how to unpack ostensible “playing” moments and reveal the deep learning impact, over on our social media recently and our parent members regularly carry out play observations at home to discuss with educators in the setting. Workshops for parents and partnership with Schema Play have advanced appreciation of child development beyond the highly trained staff and given us a helpful common language for discussing activities.

IN COLLABORATION

It is worth noting, as we have some settings nearby us in North London and some of our families are interested in the approach, how Rudolf Steiner had built on the ideas of holistic education that served a more diverse social spectrum of children later in the 19th century. The autonomy given to teachers is an interesting part of the method because it aims to empower them to build meaningful relationships, rather than following a homogenous curriculum and rules. Our faith and trust in the staff at Playhood comes in part from their credentials and experience but massively from the way we get to know each other in - and outside of! - the setting.

Friendships between the adults invests us all in each others’ career satisfaction and success, whether co-working or delivering the children’s education.

Worth noting that elements of Steiner’s approach (and the Waldorf institutions that implemented it) have been brought into question by some for being underpinned in part by esoteric spiritualism and ‘pseudoscience’. Worse, his own writings on race reveal discriminatory attitudes, which all Waldorf educators now disavow.

IN STEP WITH THE TIMES?

And finally in reviewing some of the 18th-to-early-20th century pedagogical foundations, and limits of relevance, a chap called Vygotsky challenged Piaget’s findings by underlining the importance of factoring in the cultural context of a child’s background. They are simply not ‘lone scientists’ because so much learning happens collaboratively. We absolutely embrace the unique identities and family stories of each child at Playhood as part of everyone’s learning; differences are so often strengths.

Also, more recent cognitive science studies have proven young children actually to be less egocentric and more able to comprehend abstract concepts than he had argued. So, while giving some credit to a raft of progressive and experimental thinkers for some of what we hold dear about pedagogy today, it’s also necessary to continue to reflect critically upon and update their findings. Any scientist by trade and/or open-minded person would encourage that!

Turning our attention to experts, such as Alison Gopnik, might be a useful course of action for anyone interested in how the latest research into how children learn applies to their setting as well as their parenting approach. We love her validation of the innate abilities of the child, from which Montessori began all her work too.

CHEATSHEET

Key takeaways from early European pedagogy:

DON’T SEPARATE THE CHILD’S HOME AND SCHOOL WORLDS: Pestalozzi believed strongly that the parent-child relationship was important as model for a person’s relationship to wider society, and sympathetic early education of the whole self was essential. (Makes a ton of sense to us but these ideas were counter to the mainstream approach at a time when many children worked in factories and farms!) We touch on this on our Montessori overview post and looking forward to unpacking this point more when we share thoughts on the Reggio-Emilia approach in a future blog post.
FOSTER LEARNING TO LEARN, ABOVE SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE: Albert Einstein credited his fruitful ‘thought experiment’ process with his education in a Pestalozzi setting and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright attested to the great influence of his exposure to Froebel’s blocks! Piaget’s theories have been influential in the fields of computer science, particularly in AI. It seems that supporting the uniqueness of each child and sparking their intrinsic motivation plus belief in the value of their own ideas are routes to unlocking both their own limitless potential and benefits to wider human civilisation too.
KINDNESS & RESPECT - the most powerful startpoint for all work and play with children and adults alike. Nurturing conditions enable the most valued character traits our society needs today.