kindergärtner

plural kindergärtners

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of kindergartner (“person who teaches at a kindergarten”).

   A few years ago Miss Blow, of St. Louis, took up, with the kindergärtners of that city, a study of “The Mother Play and Nursery Songs” in the German.

   1886, Angeline Brooks, “The Theory of [Friedrich] Fröbel’s Kindergarten System”, in The Kindergarten and the School, Springfield, Mass.: Milton Bradley Co., page 51

   2 more examples

   Six churches have been built, and we now have about 800 communicants and three men studying for the priesthood; four kindergärtner are now in training and hundreds of children are receiving Christian instruction.

   1955 September 25, “Something Hidden: Report of the 1955 Joint Committee on Programme and Budget […]”, in Peter [Morton] Day, editor, The Living Church, volume CXXXI, number 13, Milwaukee, Wis.: Church Literature Foundation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 22, column 1

   It is another to maintain that the expertise needed to decide how best to run kindergartens in terms of what goes on within their walls is to be found among those who have never ventured inside them. The justification of the enlistment of the layman as kindergärtner would require a denial that there is indeed a relevant expertise in this area and a corresponding redefinition of the area of competence that makes an adept of any naturally shrewd human being.

   1989, Alastair Hannay, “Politics and [Paul] Feyerabend’s Anarchist”, in Marcelo Dascal, Ora Gruengard, editors, Knowledge and Politics: Case Studies in the Relationship Between Epistemology and Political Philosophy, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, →ISBN, part 6 (The Antimethodologists), page 252

2. nonstandardNonstandard spelling of kindergartner (“child who attends a kindergarten”).

   It’s like chasing a couple of kindergärtners around.

   2004 October 12, Jod Kaftan, editor, The Simple Life (Cine-manga), Hamburg: Tokyopop, →ISBN, page 27

   2 more examples

   The Kindergarten School had been dismantled, and our kindergärtners benefited by receiving the playground equipment. […] Kindergärtners and first graders were expected to learn the names of as many states as possible.

   2006 December 1, Rochelle LaMotte McDonald, “Year Round Education 1990-91”, in Educating Shelly, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, pages 24–25

   This year’s batch of four-year-old kindergärtners on the school van I drive have an overwhelming case of ants in their pants. […] I have a new four-year-old kindergärtner who recently rode with me for the first time. […] One of my kindergärtners was quite upset when I picked her up one day because hadn’t had time to brush her teeth after eating lunch.

   2017 February 15, Angeline Haen, Sweet Wisdoms, Brunswick, Me.: Shanti Arts Publishing, →ISBN, “Ears and Eyes”, “Dad’s Eyes”, and “Dome Some Good” sections

plural Kindergärtners

1. alternativeAlternative form of kindergartner (“person who teaches at a kindergarten”).

   I fully believe myself that, though this foreign name [Kindergarten] has been temporarily adopted in England and America, neither this nor that of Kindergärtner (gardeners) for the teachers will be permanently employed.

   [1876, Joseph Payne, “Hamburg”, in A Visit to German Schools: Notes of a Professional Tour […], London: Henry S[amuel] King & Co., →OCLC, page 28

   3 more examples

   The Kindergärtners began their revolution by substituting objects for books in teaching, according to the express doctrine of [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau; but that is no evidence that they understood his philosophy. […] The Kindergärtner indiscriminately begins the teaching of forms, either with a cube alone, or with a cube and a ball, or with several cubes, without appearing to suspect the radical differences between exercises of comparison of the different parts of an object, and of two objects, and the exercises of combination of single objects to form a compound one. […] At this point, the Kindergärtners fail to establish the link of continuity between the automatic and willed action, the perception and the idea, the instinct and the morality.

   1875, E[dward] Seguin, “The Kindergarten”, in Report on Education (Vienna International Exhibition, 1873), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, pages 17, 18, and 20

   Our standard-point is: One year’s training and a second year of practical work in a Kindergarten,—that makes the Kindergärtner if otherwise qualified for it. Learning by “apprenticeship” will never make a Kindergärtner, though it may be of infinite value to any girl. […] A good Kindergärtner should not only be a Kindergärtner, but at the same time a good teacher, thus verifying the saying: that a good Kindergärtner may become any day a teacher,—but not vice versa.

   1877, Maria Kraus-Boelte, “The Kindergarten and the Mission of Women. […]”, in The Addresses and Journal of Proceedings of the National Education Association. […], Salem, Oh.: […] [T]he Association. […] Allan K. Tatem, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 211

   Young Kindergärtner, whose mathematical knowledge is at best very limited, must be carefully trained in this respect, for they do not easily understand the philosophy of it, and thus expose the system to be misjudged by the physicians, who know better of what the little brain is yet capable without injury. […] If Kindergärtner will confine themselves to making children see things with their own eyes and judge and compare them with their own minds without any attempts at abstractions, they will gradually see them generalize for themselves even in words; […]

   1881, Mary [Tyler Peabody] Mann, quotee, Report of the Commissioner of Education […], part I, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page xc

2. nonstandardNonstandard form of kindergartner (“child who attends a kindergarten”).

   Father shrugged and sighed like Mrs. Owl when explaining something to a dim-witted Kindergärtner.

   2021 December 22, Marga T [pseudonym; Marga Tjoa], “The Scissors of Syafruddin”, in If Only: A Memoir, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, →ISBN, page 227

   3 more examples

   For the rest, the brain of our little Kindergärtner was being engrossed with the business of getting knowledge, and, as a result of this fancy, was being taken in hand by sober understanding and drilled to the useful and necessary task of discovering truth.

   1895, James Sully, “Extracts from a Father’s Diary”, in Studies of Childhood, London; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 482

   [He] accepted a cigar from one of his timid admirers. They followed him like Kindergärtner as he pointedly moved away from the Owl before allowing someone to light him up.

   1976, John Kelly, The Wooden Wolf, New York, N.Y.: Golden Apple Publications, published 1983, →ISBN, page 212

   Hey, Jimbo, does it really makes sense to use slowed clocks that are asynchronous, along with contracted rulers? Even Kindergärtners know better than to use warped tools.

   2008 February 29, kk, “Re: why relativists just can't handle the truth?”, in sci.physics (Usenet), archived from the original on 18 Sep 2025