Lovely to see again your piece on Kindergarten. Its such a great thesis Norman developed: that women and children got there first! And thanks for the nice mention - i still believe Froebel played an under-recognized role in the history of science. It's interesting also that the general relativity universe with its frozen conception of time is now referred to as the "block universe".
Very interesting material about kindergarten. I wrote about the first kindergarten in the U.S. (which was in Watertown, Wisconsin) as part of a 2018 piece about Tony Evers's race against then Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Evers beat Walker, which ushered in a revival of the state's progressive spirit, and a wave of Democratic victories there that's still ongoing. Perhaps it's owed to his appreciation of the political power of kindergarten!
"On Saturday, I visited a white clapboard house in Watertown, the site of the first kindergarten in the United States. Now a museum, the school was founded in 1856 by a German immigrant named Margarethe Meyer Schurz. Schurz had studied with Friedrich Fröbel, the founder of the original kindergarten (“children’s garden”), in Blankenburg, Germany, in 1837. “The kindergarten is the free republic of childhood,” Fröbel once wrote.
That spirit is on display in the little one-room museum, where you can hear a recording of children singing “Kommt ein Vogel geflogen” (“A Bird Comes Flying”), one of the songs that Schurz’s first students sang. Her school lasted only a couple of years in Watertown, but the kindergarten movement quickly spread. In 1882, Milwaukee became the second-largest American city, after St. Louis, to offer free kindergarten as part of a public education.
Earlier in the week, I had spoken with Evers about Schurz’s kindergarten, and about Wisconsin’s place in the history of education in America. He considers himself a defender of this heritage, and believes his path to victory lies in reclaiming the trans-partisan pragmatism that once defined Wisconsin’s politics. “You don’t have to be a historian to remember that progressivism wasn’t necessarily Democratic or Republican,” he told me. “The progressive tradition was about protecting natural resources and support for our schools and university and those things are under attack. But it wasn’t just Democrats that held those progressive values, they were held by the people of Wisconsin. That’s where we have to be if we want to win this election.”
I LOVE that Brosterman book and weirdly connected it with your penchant for playing with blocks when blocked (I don't *think* I knew at the time you'd written about him?!?) https://austinkleon.com/2018/02/06/writers-blocks/
Lovely to see again your piece on Kindergarten. Its such a great thesis Norman developed: that women and children got there first! And thanks for the nice mention - i still believe Froebel played an under-recognized role in the history of science. It's interesting also that the general relativity universe with its frozen conception of time is now referred to as the "block universe".
- In admiration from Oz. xM
Very interesting material about kindergarten. I wrote about the first kindergarten in the U.S. (which was in Watertown, Wisconsin) as part of a 2018 piece about Tony Evers's race against then Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Evers beat Walker, which ushered in a revival of the state's progressive spirit, and a wave of Democratic victories there that's still ongoing. Perhaps it's owed to his appreciation of the political power of kindergarten!
Here's the piece
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/why-education-may-be-the-issue-that-breaks-republicans-decade-long-grip-on-wisconsin
And the relevant passages:
"On Saturday, I visited a white clapboard house in Watertown, the site of the first kindergarten in the United States. Now a museum, the school was founded in 1856 by a German immigrant named Margarethe Meyer Schurz. Schurz had studied with Friedrich Fröbel, the founder of the original kindergarten (“children’s garden”), in Blankenburg, Germany, in 1837. “The kindergarten is the free republic of childhood,” Fröbel once wrote.
That spirit is on display in the little one-room museum, where you can hear a recording of children singing “Kommt ein Vogel geflogen” (“A Bird Comes Flying”), one of the songs that Schurz’s first students sang. Her school lasted only a couple of years in Watertown, but the kindergarten movement quickly spread. In 1882, Milwaukee became the second-largest American city, after St. Louis, to offer free kindergarten as part of a public education.
Earlier in the week, I had spoken with Evers about Schurz’s kindergarten, and about Wisconsin’s place in the history of education in America. He considers himself a defender of this heritage, and believes his path to victory lies in reclaiming the trans-partisan pragmatism that once defined Wisconsin’s politics. “You don’t have to be a historian to remember that progressivism wasn’t necessarily Democratic or Republican,” he told me. “The progressive tradition was about protecting natural resources and support for our schools and university and those things are under attack. But it wasn’t just Democrats that held those progressive values, they were held by the people of Wisconsin. That’s where we have to be if we want to win this election.”
I LOVE that Brosterman book and weirdly connected it with your penchant for playing with blocks when blocked (I don't *think* I knew at the time you'd written about him?!?) https://austinkleon.com/2018/02/06/writers-blocks/
Wow. Back to kindergarten! Artists today would do well to return to the play of their kindergartens, too. It warms my heart.
(Gaza, on the other hand, has broken my heart, to no end.)