John Dewey (1859-1952). Dewey's work helped to transform the role of the kindergarten at the turn of the twentieth century and eventually influenced the entire field of early childhood education.
Dewey organized the classroom into a community in which children learned in cooperation with each other. He used everyday materials and encouraged child generated choices about activities and materials. He promoted teacher flexibility,creativity, and responsibility and the introduction of art and music, field trips, and nature studies, to encourage problem solving and independent thinking.
The classroom became a model of group living in which the children initiated activities, projects, and play. The teacher became a guide who enabled children to develop social skills by providing opportunities for their practice. Dewey explained that children develop when they are involved with activities that have a purpose. He maintained that firsthand experiences motivate growth in reading, writing, and arithmetic. When exposed to the right materials and role models, children develop skills for later academic learning as well as the flexibility to cope with social and emotional problems.
With Dewey's reinterpretation of the kindergarten emphasis on the social and emotional needs of children, a split developed within the Intemational Kindergarten Union in which one group argued for strict adherence to Froebel's methods and materials and the other for Dewey's reforms.
This debate eventually led to a program similar to the modern kindergarten. No other educational philosopher/ practitioner has had more influence on early childhood education than John Dewey. His work, replicated by his students and. added to by other philosophers, helped shape practice and theory as we know it today.
The Reggio Emilia Approach is an educational philosophy focused on preschool and primary education. It was started by the parents of the villages around Reggio Emilia in Italy after World War II. The destruction from the war, parents believed, necessitated a new, quick approach to teaching their children. .... The city of Reggio Emilia in Italy is recognized worldwide for its innovative approach to education. Its signature educational philosophy has become known as the Reggio Emilia Approach which many American preschool programs have adopted. The Reggio Emilia philosophy is based upon the following set of principles:
Children must have some control over the direction of their learning children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening, seeing, and hearing children have a relationship with other children and with material items in the world that children must be allowed to explore and children must have endless ways and opportunities to express themselves
The Reggio Emilia approach to teaching young children puts the natural development of children as well as the close relationships that they share with their environment at the center of its philosophy. Early Childhood programs that have successfully adapted to this educational philosophy share that they are attracted to Reggio because of the way it views and respects the child. They believe that the central reason that a child must have control over his or her day-to-day activity is that learning must make sense from the child's point of view.
Parents are a vital component to the Reggio Emilia philosophy. Parents are viewed as partners, collaborators and advocates for their children. Teachers respect parents as each child's first teacher and involve parents in every aspect of the curriculum. It is not uncommon to see parents volunteering within Reggio Emilia classrooms throughout the school. This philosophy does not end when the child leaves the classroom. Most parents who choose to send their children to a Reggio Emilia program incorporate many of the principles within their parenting and home life. Even with this bridge between school and home, many people wonder what happens to Reggio children when they make the transition from this style of education to a non Reggio Emilia school. The answer is that there is some adjustment that must take place. In most school environments, intellectual curiosity is rewarded, so students continue to reap the benefits of Reggio after they've left the program.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Using theoretical knowledge of biology and zoology and his postdoctoral work with Alfred Binet, Piaget developed an influential theory of how children think.
Piaget's theory of intellectual development provided early childhood educators with the following: the recognition of infancy as a critical period in cognitive development; the concept that the child is an active participant in the learning process from birth; the concept that cognitive development is divided into four distinct stages through which children go in a specific sequence at their own rate which is influenced by experience and maturation; and a change in the role of the teacher from an imparter of information to a designer of activities appropriate to a child's level of development, which allows them to act on materials and develop thinking skills.
His theory provided a means by which to assess children's levels of intellectual functioning, intellectual readiness, and the appropriateness of classroom ac tivities. Piaget's theory also helped parents to become more effective by looking at children's activities to assess what verbal and manipulative behaviors mean for the child.
Educators can also access the numerous publications by a growing body of experts interpreting Piaget's theory and its implications for early childhood programs.
Piaget's work provided insight into how children's understanding of the world changes as they grow and what schools can do for young children. Piaget provided a new way of viewing the importance of the early years in the life of the child as the foundation for later learning.
Maria Montessori (1870-1952). Maria Montessori built on the work of Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard and Edouard Seguine to develop a child-centered approach to education. She created a program for young children in the slums of Rome which became known as the Montessori Method.
The innovations Montessori brought to early childhood education include the belief that each child develops from within as an individual; and that a child must be free to select and use materials with a minimum of adult interference for as long as desired.
She invented self-correcting materials that developed the senses, language, the intellect, and the muscles; encouraged the use of child-size, moveable furniture; and the use of sensory materials to build the foundation for reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Montessori advocated a change in the role of the teacher from a shaper of behavior to an observer of child development and the development of independence, self-care, and self-confidence through self-directed activities in an unhurried environment that was suited to the needs of the child.
Elements of the Montessori Method and adaptations of Montessori materials are used widely today in early childhood programs throughout the world. Montessori provided insight into and respect for the ways in which young children learn.
Art Education
Florence Cane "The Artist In Each Of Us" 1951 - the only book ever publihed by Ms. Cane. This extremely rare, long out-of-print book, is one of the most important publications an Art Educator could ever wish to read. To recognize the significance of this book, it is worth quoting the opening paragraph in the forward by Harvey Zorbaugh, then Director of the Counseling Centre for Gifted Children, New York University.
"This is a story that is warm with living. It is told by a remarkable woman - an artist, not only with brush and canvas, but also with human relationships. It is a story built out of creative moments in her life as a teacher and in the lives of those whom she taught. It is a story that will thrill all who thrill to the growth of children."
In her preface, this is Florence Cane's opening paragaph:
"My work is founded on the belief that every man is born with the power to create. This power is of the spirit and through its use man awakens and grows."
At the heart of her book, Ms. Cane defines her theory and method, and maps a clear course of study with exrecises, easily extractable lesson plans, and 23 color and 166 black and white images.
Biography
Florence Cane was born in 1882 and died in 1952. She was the second oldest child out of four siblings. Margaret was younger than her. As a child, Cane was outgoing and friendly. At the age of eight she started a diary, which she titled "Things My Mother Does to Me That I Won't Do To My Children."
Because of her love for making things as a child, she decided early on to be an art teacher. Her experience with teachers who inhibited her creativity and also with those who encouraged it gave her the idea to learn more about what made a good art teacher. During the time in which Cane was a child the use of feelings as a source for creative art making was not popular among art teachers.
Florence believed that the person and the product (art) should be integrated. Movement, feeling, and thought were functions that combined help one achieve this integration. Daughter Mary Cane Robinson said of her mother, "Florence developed her style, her method, from an intuitive search for ways to stimulate the creative process in each person she was teaching; then she put it into a form that she could convey to others" (1983).
Florence Cane taught privately in her own home in addition to teaching at the Walden School. She also lectured to teachers, groups, and for a few years had a school of her own in Rokefeller Center. Later she became the director of art for the Counseling Center for Gifted Children at New York University. Ms. Cane held this position for fourteen years.
Florence Cane wrote The Artist in Each of Us in 1951. This is the only book she published. She was known as an open, positive, and eager woman. She was a suffragette and really worked hard for women's causes.
Ms. Cane and her husband, Melville both did personal therapy with Jungian analyst Dr. Beatrice Hinkle. They were quite influenced by the philosophy of George Gurdjieff. One aspect of this philosophy was the term "essence"; which was to mean the intrinsic, unchanging part of a person. Florence used drawing and painting as a means to help her students to find their "essence".
Cane stressed physical health. She believed that with a higher state of consciousness one could move beyond driven behavior to a state in which one could be free to choose. Like her sister, Cane was influenced by Eastern thought and philosphy. Florence had stated "the direction of my teaching has been towards the liberation and growth of the child's soul through play and work and self-discipline involved in painting". (Cane 1932 p42.)
Margaret Naumburg and Florence Cane
Margaret Naumburg was first an educator, with undergraduate work done at Vassar and Barnard Colleges. She did Graduate studies with John Dewey at Columbia, as well as Beatrice and Sidney Webb at the London School of Economics. Later Margaret studied with F. Mathius Alexander in England, Dr. William Brown at Oxford, Dr. William McDougall, and Maria Montessori in Italy. Psychology, parapsychology, and physical coordination are some areas that these studies were in. She took her psychological and educational backgrounds to create what would become art therapy.
Naumburg was born in 1890. She expressed that as a child she felt constrained and miserable. Her son, Thomas Frank (1983) mentions that "perhaps her feeling both misunderstood and without opportunity to share her inner life during these early years gave her a beginning motivation to battle for less restrictive educational approaches focused on the individual child's emotional needs. And perhaps those early restrictive experiences with her own parents influenced her ultimate approach to art therapy."
In early adulthood Naumburg and author-husband, Waldo Frank lived and worked in New York City. They shared a circle of friends and colleagues comprised of many elite creators of the time. This includes people such as painter Georgia O'Keeffe, poet John Marin, and film star Charlie Chaplin.
In 1914 Margaret Naumburg started what she called the "Children's School". She later renamed it the Walden School. She wanted to practice her belief that "the emotional development of children, fostered through encouragement of spontaneous creative expression and self-motivated learning, should take precedence over the traditional intellectual approach to the teaching of a standardized curriculum.", as said by Thomas Frank (1983). Her psychoanalytic training influenced her educational methods. At the Walden School, all teachers were encouraged to see a psychoanalyst personally.
In 1920, Naumburg invited her sister Florence Cane to teach at the Walden School after she had criticized the way that art was being taught there. Margaret hired faculty according to different principles than were typical of the time. The faculty she hired often did not even have education degrees.
In the early 1920's Naumburg resigned as director from Walden and had a son shortly after. Three years later she divorced Waldo Frank. In 1928 she published her first book, which was based on her experience with the Walden School called The Child and the World.
Margaret Naumburg did much of her personal therapy with Dr. Beatrice Hinkle, who was a Jungian. Later she did more personal analysis with Dr. A. A. Brill, a Freudian. Freud, Jung, and Harry Stack Sullivan were all theorists who influenced her work. Naumburg was also interested in Eastern Philosophy, the occult, psychodrama, parapsychology, modern surrealist art, and primitive art. Those interests played a role in the development of her theories as well.
From 1930 on she concerned herself primarily with developing art therapy technique and moved away from progressive education. Naumburg devoted much of her life to the establishment of art therapy as a discipline, which psychiatry as a field, really opposed. "She was forever pointing out that art therapy, with its use of symbolic language and imagery, was often a more effective road to the unconscious than the usual verbal approach of psychoanalysis and dynamic psychotherapy", Thomas Frank (1983).
Naumburg was a poet and a playwright in addition to being an academic writer. Academically speaking, she wrote numerous papers and a total of five books in her life. From 1941-1947 she researched under Dr. Nolan D. C. Lewis at the New York Psychiatric Institute. Two books that she wrote stemmed from this research: Studies of the "Free" Art Expression of Behavior Problem Children and Adolescents as a Means of Diagnosis and Therapy (1947) and Schizophrenic Art: Its Meaning in Psychotherapy (1950). In 1953 Naumburg published Psychoneurotic Art and in 1966 she published Dynamically Oriented Art Therapy.
Margaret Naumburg taught at New York University into her eighties. She facilitated the beginning of art therapy instruction at the undergraduate level. A graduate program for art therapy was not started until 1969. Margaret Naumburg never held a teaching position on graduate level.
Florence Cane was born in 1882 and died in 1952. She was the second oldest child out of four siblings. Margaret was younger than her. As a child, Cane was outgoing and friendly. At the age of eight she started a diary, which she titled "Things My Mother Does to Me That I Won't Do To My Children." Because of her love for making things as a child, she decided early on to be an art teacher. Her experience with teachers who inhibited her creativity and also with those who encouraged it gave her the idea to learn more about what made a good art teacher. During the time in which Cane was a child the use of feelings as a source for creative art making was not popular among art teachers.
Florence believed that the person and the product (art) should be integrated. Movement, feeling, and thought were functions that combined help one achieve this integration. Daughter Mary Cane Robinson said of her mother, "Florence developed her style, her method, from an intuitive search for ways to stimulate the creative process in each person she was teaching; then she put it into a form that she could convey to others" (1983).
Cane taught privately in her own home in addition to teaching at the Walden School. She also lectured to teachers groups and for a few years had a school of her own in Rockefeller Center. Later, she became the director of art for the Counseling Centre for Gifted Children at New York University. Cane held this position for fourteen years.
Florence Cane wrote The Artist in Each of Us in 1951. This is the only book she published. She was known as an open, positive, and eager woman. She was a suffragette and really worked for women's causes.
Cane and her husband, Melville both did personal therapy with Jungian analyst Dr. Beatrice Hinkle. They were quite influenced by the philosophy of George Gurdjieff. One aspect of this philosophy was the term "essence"; which was to mean the intrinsic, unchanging part of a person. Florence used drawing and painting as a means to help her students to find their "essence".
The work of Florence Cane and Margaret Naumburg is the basis on which all modern therapeutic art theories and practices are built. They significantly contributed to the fields of art therapy and art education. When Naumburg stopped teaching and started to concentrate on art therapy, she still stressed to art educators the importance of creativity, the intuitive, the nonverbal, and the unconscious. It has been speculated that tensions existed between the two sisters, but that this tension probably caused them both to be more productive.