Inspiring Educators

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The New Education movement is an overall name for different currents whose main feature is that the childs needs and interests are the basis of education. The role of the educator is to make the child active in its own learning with reality as the source of knowledge. This attitude and view about education and children is highly reflected in the swedish curriculum for pre-schools Lpfö 98.
Freinet is the educator who has melted together different ideas and methods within the New Education movement with his own and put them into practice. "Freinet" pedagogy is a dynamic and democratic learning attitude that is constantly developing.

Célestin Freinet (1896-1966)

Freinet has created a pedagogy called a pedagogy of life or a pedagogy of work. He contested the traditional authoritarian school teaching and wanted to create a school where the pupil would be able to express itself freely and develop its creativity. Knowledge is acquired by trial and error methods and enquiry based learning on reality (life). Manual and intellectual learning are equally important. The main condition for Freinet pedagogy is to create an environment which makes the individual search for knowledge possible.