Beata Doreck (1833 – 1875) was a German educator and first president of the Froebel Society who worked to bring

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

s to Britain.

Career

She was born on 5 February 1833 in

Mannheim Mannheim (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: or ), officially the University City of Mannheim (), is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, second-largest city in Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, the States of Ger ...

Grand Duchy of Baden The Grand Duchy of Baden () was a German polity on the east bank of the Rhine. It originally existed as a sovereign state from 1806 to 1871 and later as part of the German Empire until 1918. The duchy's 12th-century origins were as a Margravia ...

. Despite her father's opposition to her becoming a teacher, she trained for three years at the normal school at Riboville,

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

, and received her teaching diploma in

Colmar Colmar (; ; or ) is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Alsace region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department ...

at the age of nineteen. In 1857, she began a three-year post as a

governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...

in England, but was unhappy with the way she was treated by her employers. In 1866 she opened her own school at 1 Kildare Terrace, Bayswater, London, which moved to 63 Kensington Gardens, Bayswater in 1869. In June 1871, she was elected to the council of the

College of Preceptors The Chartered College of Teaching is a learned society for the teaching profession in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1846, the college was incorporated by Queen Victoria into a royal charter as the College of Preceptors in 1849. A supplemental ch ...

at the suggestion of Frances Buss. She and Buss proposed a scheme to the college for the creation of a professorship of the science and art of education. This post was created in January 1873, and taken by Joseph Payne. In September 1873, Doreck and Buss became the first women to be elected fellows of the college. Doreck served as president of the Schoolmistresses’ Association for the year 1873/4.

Kindergarten work

Doreck added a kindergarten to her own school, but struggled to find staff for it as the concept was little understood outside of Germany. The kindergarten system had been proposed by

Friedrich Fröbel Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel (; 21 April 1782 – 21 June 1852) was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique nee ...

and stressed the importance of play to children's education; most English kindergartens at the time were German-speaking. In November 1874, she held a meeting at her house in Kensington Gardens to bring together British educationists who were interested in kindergarten work. The next month, Doreck was elected the first president of The Froebel Society for the Promotion of the Kindergarten System, a society which also included Buss, Payne, Eleonore Heerwart, Caroline Bishop, Emilie Michaelis, and

Adelaide Manning Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (1828 – 10 August 1905) was a British writer and editor. She championed kindergartens. She was one of the first students to attend Girton College. Manning was active for the National Indian Association which champ ...

, and was soon joined by Emily Shirreff, who succeeded Doreck as president. She died at the Hotel Interlaken in September 1875 on a recuperative trip to Switzerland, and was pronounced to have died of overwork. A Doreck scholarship in the theory and practice of education was offered by the College of Preceptors afterwards.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doreck, Beata 1833 births 1875 deaths 19th-century German educators 19th-century German women educators