of life they build within the four walls of the home, are largely responsible for the future social and public life of the country.
Just as we cannot take care of the child apart from the family, so his welfare is bound up with a lot of other institutions that influence his development – the school, the church, the agencies that offer useful interests for leisure time. . . . And the money and hard work that go into these public and private enterprises are, again, repaid many times.1
As a nation, how far have we strayed from this vision? Raising children and educating them takes courage, but there are tremendous rewards. Parents and teachers can leave a legacy that will not be forgotten. But it can’t stop there. We need to speak out beyond the walls of the home or classroom.
On behalf of all children, we need to turn our national priorities upside down, with spending for children at the top, and guns and bombs at the bottom – if we leave them there at all. New schools, not new prisons, could multiply across the country, and politicians could win on the most creative platform for education, not the toughest approach to crime or the most belligerent foreign policy.
The world needs children, but they also need us.
We owe them more than mere survival. In the words of Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore:
Children are living beings – more living than adults, who have built shells of habit around themselves. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should have not only schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.2
New children are born into our world every day, and as Tagore writes, each one brings “the renewed message that God has not lost faith in humankind.” It is a mystical thought, but it carries a challenge as well. If the Creator has not lost hope in our humanity, who are we to do so?
Chapter 2
Play Is a Child’s Work
Play is the highest expression of
human development in childhood,
for it alone is the free expression
of what is in a child’s soul.
Friedrich Froebel
True education can never be forced – a child has to want to learn. This longing is often locked deep inside, and it is the teacher’s task to discover and encourage it. But teaching has probably never been as difficult as it is now. Many children spend more hours each day with their caregivers than with their parents. Too frequently, they come from broken homes into understaffed and underfunded classrooms. These children often enter the room rebellious and guarded, blocking teachers out for fear of being betrayed by yet another figure of authority.
But the role of the teacher is now more important than ever, and the most vital part of the work is not academic. We need to allow children to be children for as long as possible. They need time to breathe in and breathe out. They need to play. Children are not computers or robots that can be programmed according to our wishes; they have a heart and soul, not only a brain.
Friedrich Froebel, who created the concept of the kindergarten, was a nineteenth-century German educator whose greatest gift was his ability to view life through a child’s eyes. That is why, almost two hundred years later, his educational philosophy makes sense to anyone who loves children. When he coined the name “kindergarten,” he meant it literally – “a garden of children” – where each child is nurtured with the same love and care given to a seedling. He knew that humans are essentially creative and compassionate beings, and that education must involve the development of these traits.
Froebel often spoke of the importance of children’s play: “A child who plays thoroughly and perseveringly, until physical fatigue forbids, will be a determined adult, capable of self-sacrifice both for his own welfare and that of others.”
I have heard this quote all my life, as my mother, Annemarie, was Froebel’s great-great-grandniece. My parents often spoke about his insights into childhood. As a matter of fact, Froebel’s school in the little German village of Keilhau was run by my mother’s family for many years, until the Nazis commandeered it.
My mother kept the vision of Keilhau alive through the war years, as her family migrated from Germany to England, then to Paraguay, and eventually to the United States. Because of her commitment to her educational heritage, my own children and grandchildren and many others have benefited from Froebel’s approach. And we have seen that it works.
In Froebel’s Educational Laws for All Teachers, educator James Hughes distills much of the wisdom of Keilhau into thoughts that are easily understood today:
Froebel objected to every system that magnified knowledge at the expense of the child, and his whole life was a protest against the “stamping and molding” processes of teachers who failed to recognize the sacredness of the child’s individuality. What he valued was not power, but creative power. He aimed to make something better of his pupils than mere “machines,” and, as he so well said, to make them “free, thinking, independent people.”1
Some of the greatest educational visionaries in America studied and built on Froebel’s philosophy. Elizabeth Peabody was instrumental in the establishment of kindergartens across America. Caroline Pratt invented the concept of the unit block in 1913 and started City and Country School the next year. Lucy Sprague Mitchell founded the Bank Street College of Education with its focus on the early years. These women blazed the trail for learning through play, and their schools still stand as beacons for the education of the “whole child,” emphasizing physical activity and creative expression.
Today advocates of play and exploration can be found everywhere. In fact, all good teachers know that play for its own sake is irreplaceable in a child’s life. Not only is it the best method of early education, but it’s also essential for the growth of a child’s spirit. In a way, play ought to require no further defense; it defines childhood.
Yet in their document Crisis in the Kindergarten, Alliance for Childhood’s Edward Miller and Joan Almon report that play continues to vanish from young children’s lives. They back up their claim with studies and compelling evidence, and sum up their findings:
Kindergarten has changed radically in the last two decades in ways that few Americans are aware of. Children now spend far more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to standardized tests. In an increasing number of kindergartens, teachers must follow scripts from which they may not deviate. These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching. It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children’s health and their long-term prospects for success in school.2
Some of the worst changes have originated from government-mandated academic programs that rob children of their chance to learn through play and burden teachers with ever more pressure and paperwork. As I watch this trend grow every year, I agree with Albert Einstein’s observation: “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”
The motives behind standardization often sound right. Politicians say they want to “fix” our broken educational system so our children can compete on the global stage. They talk about going back to basics, mastering the three Rs, and documenting measurable results. And many of these mandates are a direct result of parents and voters calling
