Three Education Principles
Development through education is based on Froebel’s three primary principles of the educational journey:
- Working in partnership with the family
- Transforming creative play into creative work
- Making connections with others, the world and God
1. Working in partnership with the family
We work in partnership with the family to further the foundation of who the child is becoming. We ask families to share with us the expectations they have for their children. We listen to the parents in order to better get to know the children and to hear the dreams they have for them.
It is so good to know that my daughter is the same child at Froebel as she is at home. I was never comfortable enough at school to be myself.
Froebel parents are involved in a variety of ways. Some help with lunchtime supervision, others accompany the children on field trips or volunteer to assist with special events. Many of our parents take part in Froebel Institute courses or parent sessions. There are several occasions during the year when parents are invited to participate in daily activities, student presentations or discussion groups.
The small family groupings at Froebel mirror the benefits of a family structure. Being part of a family teaches children about themselves and their relationships with others, cooperation, conflict resolution and responsibility. Our students develop life long friendships.
You can't hide at this school. If you have a problem with someone, you have to find a way to sort it out because you see them a lot, everyday.
Because the children in the Kindergarten have an opportunity to interact with children from age 3 to age 7, a 5-year-old learns what it is like to be in grade 1 before his/her first day. The grade 8 student who leads the Morning Opening Exercises for all the students in grades 3 to 8 learns about effective leadership styles and about motivating others.
2. Transforming creative play into creative work
During the early years, a child learns best through concrete experiences resulting from her own activity, much of which is play. These concrete experiences form the basis of the child's later abstract thinking.
Play is the forerunner of work. The process of playing, or the journey, is far more valuable than the product or destination itself. Play requires creativity, planning and organization, cooperation and teamwork, effort and energy.
If you trust the process [of childhood]...and recognize play and fun as essential elements of the process, if you allow a child to be a child first and an adult later, something amazing happens. The child becomes who he or she is meant to become. Not who you or I want the child to become but who the child wants and is meant to become.
Creative play is transformed into creative work as the child becomes self-disciplined and develops habits of diligence and industry. We see this more obviously in the activities of the older school students.
The following example was written by one of our grade 8 students. It is an excerpt from an article she wrote for the local newspaper.
Last year, I started doing a math project with some of my friends. We decided to design, build and operate an imaginary zoo. We made spreadsheets showing incoming and outgoing cash flow. For example, we worked out how much land we would need, how much it would cost, how much land tax we would have to pay etc. As a result, we figured out how much profit we could expect. Once that was done, we made part of our project real. We added a dog pound to the zoo and allowed other students to adopt or buy one of our imaginary dogs. Certificates and sign up sheets were created and we even built a website! We were guided and encouraged by the teacher even after we went well beyond what we were supposed to do. In that way we learned things ourselves, but ended up learning what the teacher wanted us to. We learned about statistics, graphing, spreadsheets, website development, advertising, research, business and a whole lot of other things. And as much fun as that was, it's not in the curriculum in that way (though it probably should be)!
3. Making connections with others, the world and God
Froebel wrote about all children as both creative and self-active. They are creative in God¹s image yet part of the created world. Creativity is a heartfelt motivating energy. Self-activity means the development of qualities and skills that make it possible to take an invisible idea and make it a reality. When these qualities are nurtured, children take initiative and demonstrate responsibility.
Froebel’s philosophy is Christian, seeking to bring the child into wholesome relationships with others, his world and his Creator. This harmony of life is possible, so we encourage each child, at all ages, to discover himself and his world, and to build the relationships that result.
Education takes place through experiences. With guidance, children explore connections between one thing and another and, most significantly, in relationship to themselves and to others. Our students discover their passions and follow their dreams.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
