프뢰벨의 인간교육 사상에 나타난 수학교육의 의미

The Value of Mathmatics Education in Froebel's Educational Thoughts

In this paper, in order to explicate how mathematics education can contribute to humanity education, I enquired in which position mathematics occupy in Froebel's <Education of Man>. For this, I examined Froebel's theory of humanity education, his theory of mathematics education, and the applicational problem of his thoughts to nowaday education. Froebel's educational theory is based on the concept of the Divine Unity which is relevant to the notion of 'The Absolute' of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. He claims that from inanimate objects to human being, all is subject to the eternal law, which is presided by God. So the world itself is the representation of this law of the Divine Unity and education consists in leading man to conscious and free representation of it. The revealing process of the inner law of the Divine Unity can be attained through the awareness of the divinity which resides in the self. And this process of self-consciousness is dialectical movement of the two opposites, i.e. 'inner' and 'outer'. Froebel suggests that mathematics is the mediator between the inner and outer world, i.e. he suggests that since both human being and nature are the representations of the Divine Unity, mathematics is both the pure human spirits and the law of nature. Having such a role, mathematics becomes the main discipline in education. Though there are some criticism on Froebel's educational thoughts on mathematics discussed in this paper, it can provide a typical answer to the question about how mathematics education contributes to humanity education.