When we talk about pedagogy, for some reason we immediately imagine a strict school teacher with glasses and a pointer in her hands, or a gray-haired university professor broadcasting about the wisdom of education. But pedagogy is not only school education and university education. Today we will talk about preschool education.
Preschool pedagogy is a branch of pedagogical science that is engaged in the study of the upbringing and education of preschool children. That is, it is that foundation, the foundation of the future personality. That is why the requirements for preschool teachers are very, very high.
And pre-school pedagogy began to take shape as a science under the influence of the famous educator, one of the “fathers” of pedagogy, Jan Amos Comenius. He was the first to draw attention to the fact that children need, as we like to say, “to be engaged” from birth, that only an integrated approach in upbringing and education gives worthy results. He outlined all his fabrications on this subject and the main points of preschool pedagogy, its functions and role in personality formation in the book “Maternal School”, which has not lost its relevance today.
The tasks of preschool pedagogy are very broad. Firstly, this study and qualitative improvement of the educational process of the youngest children. Secondly, preschool pedagogy is engaged in the development of new forms and methods of upbringing and education, which involves research activities, psychological and pedagogical studies and experiments. But the main task of all such is the direct work with the child, the formation of his views, beliefs, cognitive abilities, abilities to express his own self, laying the foundations for further education and upbringing.
Previously, there was an opinion that the child should be allowed to develop independently, in the direction in which he feels good, “not to interfere with nature,” and school teachers will correct everything. So the children grew up uncontrollably for the most part. With the development of human thought, due to the fact that interest in psychology and pedagogy has increased many times, now we can talk about the stages of personality formation, starting from birth, preschool pedagogy has become an integral part of the life of any human society. It developed rapidly in the late 19th - 20th centuries. A special influence on its development was exerted by J.J. Russo, who put forward the ideas of natural education, labor education, innovative at that time ; Pestalozzi, who proclaimed the principle of self-development, F.V. Frebel, who became a theoretician of preschool education and devoted a significant part of his scientific work to the coverage of this issue. It was Fröbel who opened the first preschool institution in 1840 , bearing the name Kindergarten (literally from the German - kindergarten), where modeling, role-playing and developmental games were considered the basis of upbringing.
Preschool pedagogy developed not only thanks to Western luminaries. A considerable contribution to its development was made by the Russians. Say, Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky, who is called the “teacher of teachers”, has developed a training system for teachers, which is still used in a somewhat expanded form. Ushinsky advocated for the holistic and harmonious development of the individual, for refusing to prioritize the development of some qualities to the detriment of others, and for raising morality.
Speaking about preschool pedagogy, it is impossible not to mention Adelaide Simonovich Semenovna. She was not only a theoretician of preschool education (she wrote the manual Practical Notes on the Individual and Public Education of Young Children, later published as Kindergarten), but she also worked as a practitioner in kindergartens in Tiflis and St. Petersburg. Moreover, she herself opened a paid kindergarten in St. Petersburg, where in practice she proved her theories about the importance of the unity of the development of the physical and spiritual.
As you can see, preschool pedagogy has come a long way and today the process of its active development is just going on.