From Scott Bultman, Froebel Foundation, USA:

Mary:

 
Thank you for posting the fax from John Taylor Gatto regarding Froebel. I have been meaning to write Mr. Gatto about his misinformed statements about Froebel, but I see from this post that I would be wasting my time. What a shame that such a brilliant man has had no direct experience with what he is
writing about! It's a double shame because the Froebelians have long been champions of non-schooling and everything that Gatto seems to stand for.
 
Gatto wants to punish Froebel for his patriotism but gives him no credit for the fact that the school-minded Prussians banned the kindergarten because it appeared to threaten the control they had on society. Froebel sought to empower mothers and fathers to educate their own children according their own spritual ideas -- sounds like homeschooling to me.

I admire Gatto but wish (like the rest of academia) he was better informed -- hence the mission of the Froebel Foundation USA. I think Gatto just likes to be

provocative, whether he's right or wrong. Hopefully he inspires people to
take action.
 
To which I responded:
 
Hi, Scott,
I agree with you completely. In the 90s I met a guy who was descended from Froebel, John Froebel-Parker, in Albany. When I first published the piece by John Gatto on Froebel, he wrote me a letter saying practically the same thing you did - which I published as well, of course. He made the same point you did that his ancestor's school was banned by the Prussian state.
 
We also published a review of a children's book entitled The Silver Pencil, which was a story about a girl who grows up to become a Froebel kindergarten teacher and how she handles children, having absorbed Froebel's principles - and thereby gets herself in trouble with the head teacher, who is doctrinaire and prejudiced against poor children.
 
I guess my position is that any system is only as good as the person who uses it, and good teaching really stems from a good teacher, which essentially means a person who really enjoys teaching and kids! But I have no doubt that Friedrich Froebel's influence in Germany was totally salutary, and that Froebelian training still creates a humanistic, creative environment for little kids.
 
By the way, my father went to a Froebel school for six years. He ended going through Harvard in three years, then Harvard Medical School, and became a highly popular and well-thought-of OB/GYN!
 
Scott wrote back:
 
... The main reason why Froebel education went awry in this country was that the
population boom did not allow us ample time to train teachers in a Froebel style of education. As the situation worsened, the Froebel method was corrupted and misinterpreted. People like Dewey (a Froebelian himself) tried to "fix" it by developing a "progressive" style that foreshadowed the current kindergarten.
 
They sought a more efficient, factory approach to education instead of Froebel's "mystical" method. And so we lost Froebel's emphasis on true learning and family values, only to replace it with a massive state-run bureaucracy. Someday I'll get a chance to tell the story. I'd love to learn more about "the Silver Pencil." I've read hundreds of books on Froebel, but I don't have that one.
 
Anyway, I'm happy I found your site. Your efforts are much appreciated. Keep in touch.
 
Warmest regards,
Scott Bultman, director
Froebel Foundation USA
scott@froebel.net
 
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