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Friedrich Froebel creates Play and Activity Institute
Froebel founds the Play and Activity Institute in Bad Blakenburg. Froebel believed in the "harmonious development of the child through exploration and play. -
Froebel coins term "Kindergarten"
Froebel recognizes the importance of "activity of the child" in learning. Froebel teaches to teach what is relevant in a child's life for full engagement, and developing skills through play. He develops educational play materials he calls his "gifts." -
Elizabeth Peabody opens first American Kindergarten
Elizabeth Peabody, a teacher at the Alcott's Temple School, promotes the "harmonious play of mind and heart" as a firm Froebel believer and promoter. This "play" could be satisfied in imagination producing activities such as drawing and painting. Peabody believed that childish play had all the characteristics of art and therefore a child's educational experience should begin with an emphasis on sensory experiences. -
Francis Wayland Parker
Parker was the pioneer of the Progressive School Movement. He believed education should focus on the "whole child" and education should be about teaching students to think for themselves and become independent people. -
G. Stanley Hall and The Child Study Movement
Hall declares art a powerful tool for expression and believed the analysis of art and drawing was one of the most useful procedures for discovering a child's true nature. He thought of art as a way to cultivate imagination and promote emotional growth. He promoted a broad use of media in art and promoted experimentation of color and use of very large sheets of paper for adequate expression -
Henry Turner Bailey
Bailey declares art a "refuge for the child from the burdens of everyday life" and promotes drawing from nature. He taught art as leisure or a form of play. -
Maria Montessori develops new school
Montessori promoted a model of human development regarding interaction with the environment leading to self discovery. She believed children should choose and act freely within their environment for optimal development. She created "prepared environments" with order and arrangement that facilitates movement and activity. -
Margaret Naumberg
Naumberg coined the term 'Art Therapy' and believed art should be thought of as relief from other academic subjects. Art was a natural respite because of the natural play involved in art activities. -
Sigmund Freud
Freud promotes art as play and a means of escape for children. He believed art should be a fully immersive and sensory experience and children should be able to get lost in the experience. -
John Dewey
Dewey writes "Art as Experience" which was one of the first major writings on aesthetics. He believed in connecting art with everyday life and creating aesthetic experiences. -
Jean Piaget
Piaget promoted experiencing the world through the senses and interacting fully with your environment for fulfillment. -
Maxine Greene
Greene was an educational philosopher, author, social activist and teacher. She promoted the power of imagination and teaching that helped create critical thinkers and teaches questioning. Greene believed in artistic aesthetic experiences, different for every age group, that involve "existing beings in the pursuit of meaning."
