HISTORY OF PRESCHOOLS
by Margaret Dutkiewicz

Eariliest Pre-Schools Worldwide

Charity Pre-Schools
The earliest pre-schools were actually charity schools established to care for rural and urban poor children while their parents worked.

FRANCE
1767
Johann Friedrich Oberlin opened  an infant school which was called the salle d 'asile  ("hall of refuge").
This school was set up purely fro the purpose of caring and schooling small children while their parents                         
labored in the fields.  This form of pre-school exploded in both France and Germany.                                                  


SCOTLAND
1816
Social reformer, Robert Owen established the "Institute for the Formation of Character".  This was a                                                  
pre-school that was formed to school the children of the cotton mill workers.  Two years later, James
Buchanan opened England's first infant school in London.  Buchanan had been director of Owen's school              
in Scotland.   




                                                                                                                    



ITALY
1829
A Roman Catholic priest named Ferrante Aporti created Italy's first infant school.  He developed a               
curriculum plan that incorporated intellectual, physical and moral training for pre-school children. 
He felt that children needed to be better prepared for higher learning.


The main drawbacks of these early pre-schools were the same - they were chiefly copies of schools for older children.  The pre-schoolers were expected to sit at desks in rows, learn to recite and spend all day learning the basics - such as math, reading and writing.                     


Restructuring the Pre-school

Germany 1837
Friedrich Froebel did not approve of the early pre-school structures.  He thought that early                                                             
childhood was a special time and most learning should be acquired through play and imitation.                                                 
Pre-schoolers should not be focusing on formal instruction and rigid classroom activities. 
Froebel was the founding father of the kindergarten system (German for "children's garden"). 
Froebel thought that the "garden" setting was the appropriate place for young children - not a
formal school setting.

Froebel's educational theories became very popular and spread to many countries - Austria, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Great Britian, Hungary, Japan, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.


MARIA MONTESSORI (ITALY)                                                        

Maria Montessori was a  researcher in  educational theory.  In  1907 she opened her Casa dei Bambini (Children's House).  The concept of her pre-schools was that "children go through a series of phases during which they are particularly ready to learn certain skills such as reading and arithmetic.  If these early periods are missed in the schooling process, later difficulties in learning may result.  Therefore, she believed, all children should be given a measure of freedom to work at their own pace, without the tension that results from being in competition with others.  The amount of freedom allowed was not absolute, however, for she believed that all freedom must be combined with self-discipline and a respect for authority.  The individual initiative and self-direction allowed to children in her school were combined with group exercises and learning social manners.  The children learned to read, write, count, and express themselves artistically."

Maria Montessori's methods have become widely accepted and world famous!


UNITED STATES

Pre-schools first appeared in the United States sometime in the early 1900's.  At this time certain universities, colleges and research centers formed pre-schools as experiments.  These scholars wanted to study the training of the very young. 

During the 1930's (at the time of the Great Depression) pre-schools were supported by the government only to provide jobs for teachers!

Psychologists and pre-school advocates hoped that the public schools (where many of the pre-school programs occupied space) would accept them as part of the system.  Unfortunately, most public schools were not open to the concept of providing a pre-school education.

In the U.S. today, most pre-schools are operated by park districts, churches and institutions not associated with the public school system.


http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8770
type in title of article - "Past, Present, and Future, What We Can Learn from the History of Preschool Education by Barbara Beatty

http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article-203436