Century of the Child @ MoMA

Ellen Key

Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900–2000 at  the Museum of Modern Art surveys 20th century design for (and by) children.  

The exhibition takes its name from an eponymous book by Swedish feminist writer and suffragist Ellen Key, who was an early advocate of a child-centered approach to education and parenting.

The show looks at Frederic Froebel's philosophy of the kindergarten in the context of the development of modernism, where "great value was placed on the child's enjoyment of the creative process and intuitive investigation of materials.  The new pedagogy prized authentic expression, the inspiration of the natural world, and the creative potential of every individual, every child."  (from exhibition wall text).  Key believed that homework should be moved back to the school. As far as possible, teaching should be aimed at the pupils, their search for knowledge and in shaping their own opinions. "Our age cries for personality, but it will ask in vain, until we allow them to have their own will, think their own thoughts, work out their own knowledge, form their own judgements; or, to put the matter briefly, until we cease to suppress the raw material of personality in schools, vainly hoping later on in life to revive it again."  In our current educational policy, where play has been sacrificed for "college readiness" the exhibition begs the question: Is the century of the child a relic of times gone?