Exploring Froebel's Kindergarten Education Theory

3. Theoretical Framework
3.1 Froebel’s kindergarten education theory
3.1.1 Obeying the nature
A famous Swiss educator, Rousseau was considered to raise the Copernican Revolution after he came up with a theory “children-centered”. In his famous book Emile, he severely criticized rigid and inflexible traditional education which seriously distorted and suppressed the natural world of children. He called for “regard children as children” and asked people to teach children according to children’s physical and mental development rule. (Liu, 2014)
Another great educator, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi also pointed out that education should be with the development of nature. He once said “In essence, human nature also should follow the same rule.” (Pestalozzi,

1994)
Based on the theory of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, Froebel’s theory of obeying the nature includes two aspects: on the one hand, education should adapt to the natural general principles, that is to comply with children’s physical development. Children can’t be cultivated excessively out of age and body quality. On the other hand, it refers to conform to children’s natural instincts. People can’t shape or develop children as other people’s thoughts and will. (Liu, 2014) Froebel makes a metaphor that the gardener prunes the vines for it. Vines should be trimmed, but it doesn’t mean trimming vines can bear grapes. On the contrary, no matter what good intentions they are for, vines may be completely destroyed owing to trim, if gardener is not patient or careful to trim vines or doesn’t comply with nature. So animals and plants should be given in space and time. According to their survival law, they can thrive. Gardener must be patient to young plants and animals, can’t adopt the method of “spoil things by excessive enthusiasm”. Any opposite practice will disturb their pure development.
3.1.2 Attaching great importance to games
In Froebel’s preschool education, he attaches great importance to games and activities. He thought it was beneficial for developing children’s cognition, imagination and creativity according to games and activities. The game was the source of children’s happiness and a part of children’s life. So he designed a set of toys for children called “Froebel Gifts”. (Chen, 2010)
The first gift was a soft ball or yarn ball in solid color, which was the right size for the hand of a small child. [1] The second gift originally consisted of two wooden objects, a sphere and a cube. [1] The third to the sixth gifts were big cube made up of many small cubes or rectangle plate. The seventh and the eighth gifts were all sorts of triangular wood and metal ring. The ninth gift was seeds and pebbles. The 10th gift was peas and wax pills, which were connected with straw. (Chen, 1991)
The set of toys was helpful for children’s intellectual, emotional and physical development. Playing games is the best way to keep active, so it is of great importance to emphasize the support and care from adults. Therefore, Froebel said: “mother, cultivate children’s ability to play games! Father, protect and guide children to play!” (Zhang, 1979: 310)
The Froebel Gifts are perhaps the world's first educational toys. They certainly were the first materials designed for child development, as Kindergarten was the original preschool method.[2]
Homework, the development of Froebel Gifts, requires that children apply gifts to practice. Froebel pointed out that only children mastered how to use Froebel Gifts could they be able to do homework. However, Froebel Gifts and homework have many distinctions: First, on sequence, homework is following gifts; second, the main function of gifts is to accept and absorb, while homework is to deliver and express; third, gifts don’t change objects’ shape, while homework does.
3.2 Chen Heqin’s kindergarten education theory
3.2.1 Living education
The purpose that Chen Heqin put forward the living education was that he was in an attempt to change Chinese rotten and rigid traditional education and reform old education. He appreciated a famous saying that Tao Xingzhi criticized old education: “teach as books say; teach literally; teach inflexibly; read as books say; read literally; read inflexibly”. (Ding, 1988) He wanted to change inanimate education into progressive, automatic, active and animate education. After years of educational experiment, he took living education into theoretical system, and set three goals for it: teleology, to be a man, to be a Chinese man, to be a modern Chinese man; curriculum, nature and society both can be regarded as living textbook; methodology, teaching in playing, learning in playing and making progress in playing.
Teaching principle of living education (1948), a total of 17, published respectively in the monthly volume living education. In 1948 they compiled into one book published by Shanghai Xinhua Bookstore. Chen Heqin in the book said; “17 principles here are based on recent children’s psychological theory and my personal teaching experience.” [3]
17 principles are as following:
1) Let children do what they can do themselves
2) Let children think what they can think themselves
3) What children do depends on what you teach
4) Encourage children to discover their own world
5) Positive encouragement is better than negative sanction
6) Nature and society both can be regarded as living textbook
7) Comparative pedagogy;
8) Use competition to improve learning efficiency
9) Positive hint is better than negative command
10) Alternative teaching methods
11) Notice and utilize environment
12) Learning in group and research together
13) Teaching in playing
14) Teaching in story
15) Teachers learn from each other
16) Children learn from each other
17) Precise observation
Teachers in his kindergarten of Penggu combining children’s actual life often lead children to Pukou railway station to see trains and take trains, or to Weigang dairy farm to observe workers how to milk a cow. Chen Heqin said to teachers: “you should give children opportunity to get in touch with nature and society. It is important for them to observe and contact reality. Give more practice so as to cultivate their imagination and creativity.” (Chen, 2004)
3.2.2 The importance of family education
Chen Heqin thought early childhood education from family can affect their whole life, which played foundation roles.

He wrote in his book family education “whether a person is full of knowledge, has thoughtful ideas or develops a good habit, family education should take full responsibility.” “Family education is the hope of prospering the Chinese nation, is the foundation of the whole education, related to the fate of the country.” (Chen, 2008:262) It is endowed with the double meanings: first, namely the important influence of early family education for children personal life; second, early family education influences the rise and decline of a

nation.
Family is not specialized institutions, and parents are not full-time educators, but family education contains a lot of the tasks and contents. In terms of children's physical health, parents need to train children develop good health habits, such as dressing, brushing their teeth, washing their faces, washing their hands before each meal, sleeping after lunch, rationing what they eat, urinating and defecating in settled place and so on. Parents ask children to take part in games to exercise and create conditions to let them draw, shear diagram, wear beads, water the flowers, play with sand, etc.. Don't threaten, beat or scold at random. The principles of family education are as follows:
1) More encouragement, more praise, less scold or hit
2) Set up a good example.

Children like to imitate, and adults must behave themselves.
3) Teach as early as possible. Children are easy to plasticity. Parents give them good education as soon as possible, which can benefit children’s whole life. Otherwise, it is difficult to develop their future education.
4) Be strict. Parents love their children, but it is harmful for them if they give them too much love and accommodate themselves.
5) Keep the same teaching attitude. Parents should keep consistent attitude in education. For example, mother let them drift, while father is strict with them, which is extremely bad for children’s development.
6) Proper toleration or strictness. Too strict and too tolerant are not conducive to children’s development. Parents should grasp the moderate scale.
7) Punish carefully. If children do something wrong, parents can punish them only when they make it clear that what happened and why they did it. Don’t punish children when other people are on the scene. Don’t punish them in the morning or in the evening. Don’t transfer their anger to children.

[3]
Example: After his birth, Yiming’s parents cleaned his mouth with potion cotton every day. One and a half years later, they gently brushed his teeth with a small brush. At the age of 3, they began to ask Yiming to brush his teeth by himself. At the beginning, Yiming was unwilling to brush his teeth, so his father suggested him with a variety of ways, such as pasting a colorful picture in the bathroom where three or four children stood in a beautiful bathroom, each one took a toothbrush and a glass of water, joyfully brushed their teeth, with their mother looking at them grinningly. Once a kid in his neighborhood came to Yiming’s home. Chen Heqin knew she brushed her teeth by herself, pointing to her said to Yiming; “Her teeth are so pretty and clean. If you brush your teeth every day, your teeth will be as neat and clean as hers.” As usual, parents seriously brushed their teeth and made a demonstration for him. After Yiming brushed his teeth, Chen Heqin always praised: "ah! Your teeth are beautiful than yesterday.” Yiming was happy and gradually liked to brush teeth. (Chen, 2001:30)
3.2.3 Attaching great importance to games
Children are born to be active. Two or three months old, babies can kick in bed, playing alone. When five or six months, they grasp something what they can see, and put it into their mouths. Older, they push something here and there. When they can crawl, they become more active. At the age of three or four, their activities are more various and frequent than before. What water to fish is what game to child.
Chen Heqin advocated "all course content is selected from the actual life and experience". (Chen, 2008：262) Life is integrated, which absolutely contains health, language, science, art, social and other fields; Life is changeful, where children can experience the change and development of their body and mind. Chen Heqin takes the nature and our society as live teaching material. Children can get sports academic knowledge and movement experience from games and outside activities.
In the mode of teaching, Chen Heqin advocated active game teaching. He pointed out: “games are children’s favorite activities”, “life of children is like game”, “teacher in the kindergarten should teach children adopting the method of game teaching.” and the principle of game for teaching is regarded as one of the basic principles of education. (Huang, 2012) As game-centered, game for teaching should take the live education methodology “teaching in playing, learning in playing and making progress in playing” into practice.
The teaching theory has been advocated by preschool education of our country and provides beneficial reference for early childhood teaching. In 2001 the ministry of education promulgated kindergarten education guidelines, which underlined “the organization of education activities should fully consider children’s learning characteristics and cognitive laws. All fields shall be connected and infiltrated, pay attention to comprehensive, interesting and active education. Education lives with life and game.” “Teachers in the kindergarten should respect children’s personality and rights, respect learning characteristics and children’s physical and mental development rules, regard game as basic activity, be equal to child care and education, pay attention to individual difference and promote the development of personality.[16]
Ten principles [3] are as following:
 Children should have the chance of drawing
 Children should have the chance of seeing a picture
 Children should have the chance of cutting pictures
 Children should have the chance of cutting paper
 Children should have the chance of coloring pictures
 Children should have the chance of hammering
 Children should have the chance of threading pearls
 Children should have the chance of watering flowers
 Children should have the chance of kneading clay
 Children should have the chance of playing with sand
Chen Heqin cultivated his son Chen Yiming with these ten principles. For example:
When Yiming was less than 2 years old, he gave him the chance of drawing. Chen Heqin bought him a box of crayons and paper. At first, he just scribbled, but he was fond of graffiti. At this time, Chen Heqin pay much attention to his sitting posture and penned posture, in order to avoid developing his bad habits. Several months later, he could draw something. When he was more than 3 years old, he could draw something interesting and unconsciously learned many color names.
3.3 Comparison
3.3.1 Similarity
1) Pay attention to early children education and family education.
Froebel thought the period of children was the main stage of development. He said: “A person’s whole future life is rooted in this period till he dies.” Chen Heqin claimed people brought up children in accordance with the development of children’s physiological and psychological characteristics.
2) Emphasize the importance of game education
Froebel thought game as one of the most important factors was the most pure and sacred activity to influence children’s studying and life. With the growth of age, games are playing more and more crucial roles in promoting the development of children’s intellectual and moral characters. Playing games can enhance physical strength and cultivate fraternal love and courage. Chen Heqin thought game was like children’s life. Playing games can not only bring children happiness, knowledge, ideas and health, but also develop their good habits of learning. Game should become the primary educational mode.
3.3.2 Difference
1) Difference between teaching content and method
The main content and method of Froebel’s kindergarten education contains three aspects: games, homework and Froebel’s gifts. He designed a series of toys for children. The reason why we called them Froebel’s gifts was that these toys were god's gifts for children. Homework included paper-cut, painting and clay sculpture, etc. In western educational history, it was the first time that he put the manual labor as a formal subject in schools.
Chen Heqin’s living education is based on the nature and society. It mainly refers to “five fingers”: children's health, children's society, children's nature, children's art and children's literature. The method is teaching in playing, learning in playing and making progress in playing. (Huang, 2012)
2）Difference in limitations
Froebel’s education system is based on idealism philosophy as the theoretical basis. The core of his philosophy thought is to emphasize that god is the unity of all things, so his theory has a strong mysticism color and the limitations of formalism.