Wkład teoretyków i praktyków obcych i polskich w rozwój badań psychologicznych nad dzieckiem (na przełomie XIX i XX wieku)

Abstract

At the break of the 19th/20th century, the world achievements in the field of research into child development set the beginning of formulation of the functions and tasks of the preschool education on the territory of Poland. A great contribution to that was made by the German, French, English, and American educators and psychologists. Their work, mostly translated, was known to the Polish scholars dealing with the problems of child development. Comprehensive research was started by Jan Władysław Dawid with his original works entitled: Program of Psychological and Educational Observations of Children and Child s Intellectual Resources. His students and followers, among others: Aniela Szycówna (Child’s Concept Development), Wacław Osterloff (Child s First Systematic Learning Based on Its Intellectual Development), Maria Weryho-Radziwiłłowiczowa {Preschool Education Method), continued the research and defined the tasks concerning support of children’s development. The Polish Society of Child Research, which was established in Warsaw on April 24th, 1907, made a considerable contribution to the preparation of the research works and publishing their results. Many practitioners presented their research in the periodicals: Przegląd Pedagogiczny (Pedagogical Review), Rodzina i Szkoła (Family and School), Bluszcz (Ivy), and others. During the discussed period, many treatises addressed to parents were also published, in which their tasks serving optimisation of the development of children were defined. Among the problems, preferred goals, principles and methods of pre-school education presented at that time and current today, the following can be mentioned: - tendency to care for a comprehensive development of the child in preschool, with the objective to prepare it this way to the systematic school learning; - introduction of school learning elements in the curriculum; - cooperation between preschool and home for the purpose of optimisation of the work with the child; - necessity to study children entering school. The idea of basing the work at school on a strong foundation of preschool education demonstrated the increasing appreciation of work stimulating the intellectual, physical, social and moral development of children. Much of the work of that time was used in the organization of the state preschool education system in 1918.