Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychologyMurray, E. R. (Elsie Riach)
Science
Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology
Murray, E. R. (Elsie Riach)
Fröbel, Friedrich, 1782-1852; Psychology
Under the head of Attention comes such games as Hide and Seek, because
of the alternate stress and relaxation, and Froebel noted before Darwin
did the pleasure of the baby in Bo-peep. Groos also brings curiosity
under this heading, and we have seen that Froebel deals fully with such
play as the outcome of the instinct of investigation, or the instinct for
self-teaching.
Froebel would certainly not draw the line where Groos does, when he says
“the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio to the intensity
of the desire for knowledge,” and if this rule were strictly adhered to,
a good deal of what Groos does call play might have to come out.
The plays which fall under the head of Reason have two bearings, says
Groos, first causality, and second inherence. There are various
references to the “joy of being a cause” from the child “whose capacity
for speech is as yet undeveloped,” but who draws away the support and
as the cube falls “turns to his mother in joyous triumph,” up to the
pride of Keilhau boys, who “might not have accomplished their fortresses
without the sapper,” but “who believed that if cast on a desert island,
each could build a hut of his own.” Froebel also brings in intellectual
games such as draughts, and he notes how children will invent their own
words and their own alphabets in play. Of the making and solving of
riddles I think Froebel never speaks.
As to what Groos says of Experimentation with the feelings, the parallels
in Froebel are surprise plays such as Hide and Seek, adventure and
hunting games where there may be play with fear, and the legends and
stories.
Under the Impulse of the Second or Socionomic order, come the Fighting
Plays, Love Play, Imitative Play, and Social Play. Of Love Play, Froebel
has none, but the hunting and fighting were allowed abundant scope at
Keilhau. Of Imitative Play there is much that can be cited from the
playful imitation of simple movements and sounds in the Mother Songs and
the Kindergarten Games, to the “classic dramas” of the Keilhau boys.
Plastic and constructive play, too, goes from the simplest sand play,
through the Kindergarten handwork, not only up to the fortress making,
but also to the “boxes with locks and hinges, so neatly finished,
veneered, and polished that many a trained cabinet-maker’s apprentice
could have done no better,” which were made at Keilhau.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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