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HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Educational Sci., 2017, Vol. 62, Iss. 6, pp. 176-184 This paper is available online at http://stdb.hnue.edu.vn DOI: 10.18173/2354-1075.2017-0142 INNOVATION OF AESTHETIC EDUCATION IN KINDERGARTEN IN THE LIGHT OF CHILD-CENTERED APPROACH Dang Loc Tho National College for Education Abstract. Aesthetic education is an integral part of intellectual and moral education and is one of five areas of comprehensive education for preschool children. Aesthetics will be highly effective when it comes to child-centered innovation, and is linked to practical activities and integrated into educational activities that promote children’s creativity. The paper addresses the following topics: (i) the roles and objectives of aesthetic education for preschool children; (ii) limitations in current aesthetic education; (iii) some measures to improve aesthetic education in the child-centered model in order to enhance children’s creativity and potential artistic talents, meeting the requirements of innovation and globalization. Keywords: Aesthetic education, aesthetics in preschool, child-centered approach, music for preschool, preschool education. 1. Introduction Aesthetic education is an integral part of intellectual and moral education which is one of five areas of comprehensive education for preschool children because “aesthetic education is the moral education of people in and through aesthetics” (Eliot W. Eisner - an American theorist) and “the beauty saves the world” (Burnetxki - Russia). Young children’s mind is very sensitive to people and the surrounding. The imagination of children is rich and unlimited; children’s artistic talents often arise so this is the golden age for aesthetic education. Studies on aesthetic education for preschool children have been done by many authors both nationally and internationally, including: Problems with aesthetic education in kindergarten by Xaculina NP, Calinxia NS, Ecuador VA (1960) [18], Aesthetic education for children in the family by Iacopon p. M (1962), [15], Understanding children through drawings by Roselin David (1991) [16], Basic theory of music by V.A. Vakhrameev (1993) [17]; Aesthetic education in school by Nguyen Huy Diem (1982) [1], Aesthetic education - some theoretical and practical issues by Do Huy (1987) [7], Educating children of the beauty by Nguyen Anh Tuyet (1992) [12], Aesthetic education - a big debt to young generations by Do Xuan Ha (1998) [3], The aesthetic education in our country by Le Vinh Quang (1999) [8], The path of children’s creativity development by Phan Thi Thu Hien (2002) [5], Encouraging children to create by Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy (2005) [9], The role of art in aesthetic education by Tran Tuy (1998) [11]; Music art and music games for preschool children by Hoang Van Yen (2009) [14], Musical activities and methods of music education in kindergarten by Pham Thi Hoa (2006) [6], Le Thi Duc, Ly Thu Hien and Pham Received date: 24/3/2017. Published date: 26/5/2017. Contact: Dang Loc Tho, e-mail: tho1962@gmail.com 176 Innovation of aesthetic education in kindergarten in the light of child-centered approach Thi Hoa (2013) [2], Enhancing children’s intellectual ability and creative activities by Phan Minh Ha (2006) [4], Methods of organizing shape activities for preschool children by Le Hong Van, Vu Duong Cong (2014) [13], How to recognize and evaluate creativity in children’s paintings by Nguyen Thu Tuan (2011) [10] ... The paper addresses deeply the following topics: (i) The roles and objectives of aesthetic education for preschool children; (ii) limitations in current aesthetic education; (iii) some measures to improve the capacity of aesthetic education in child-centered model in order to improve effectiveness in aesthetic education, contribute to promoting creativity of children, develop artistic talents of children, and meet the requirements of innovation and globalization. 2. 2.1. Content Roles of aesthetic education to preschool children 2.1.1. Roles of aesthetic education in education Aesthetic education is a process to form and develop proper aesthetic relations, contributing to the development of a harmonious and comprehensive personality of a child. It develops a specific ability in humans, that is, the ability of aesthetics. Aesthetic education is a mean and premise for people to have an adequate "intellectual" to promote the full development and perfection of man. Aesthetic education is an integral part of the social education system for the full development of a person. National textbooks in the 30s and 40s of the last century mentioned four basic subjects to form human qualities, "Learning to read, learning to write, learning to draw, and learning to calculate." Learning to acquire knowledge is learning to read; learning to express thought is learning to write; learning to feel the beauty and express emotions is learning to draw; learning logical thinking skills is learning to calculate. Aesthetic education is the basic and long-term value that has aesthetic-oriented effects. It detects, cultivates and fosters artistic talents for children. 2.1.2. Objectives of aesthetic education in kindergarten The objectives are (i) to form and to develop aesthetic sentiments in the process of sensing and perceiving the beauty in art, nature and social relationships; to create interest in the aesthetic aspects of reality; to feel and understand the beauty in its manifold manifestations; (ii) to develop judgmental capacity, aesthetic assessment, artistic creativity and aesthetic belief; to form and develop excitement, demands for artistic values; to get familiar with the process of artistic creation, contributing to the comprehensive development and harmony of human personality; (iii) to direct artistic values and to develop artistic creativity potential of children. 2.2. Some restrictions on aesthetic education in kindergarten 2.2.1. Awareness of aesthetic education to preschool children - Aesthetic education as an art course for gifted children. Taking aesthetics as a "gifted subject" has led to a mistake. "Professionalizing" the aesthetic lessons has complicated the content of teaching; teachers with inappropriate methods let gifted children free to express themselves, while neglecting the other children in the classroom. As a result, most of the children cannot complete a product, while the gifted show their restriction in creativity. - Aesthetic education as a secondary subject: teaching art just limits to teaching painting; teaching music limits to teaching singing. A large number of parents and teachers have a concept that children attend classes mainly to learn literacy and mathematics. Hence, the Art subjects 177 Dang Loc Tho are considered secondary, so the content of aesthetic education exists only in form. As a result, most schools do not have their own classrooms for aesthetic education. In addition, teachers are not well trained for aesthetic education. In fact, art is a very interesting subject, including many subjects such as drawing, craft, sculpture, decoration..., which help children feel, discover the beauty, discover rules through lessons and hands-on exercises. "Study of art helps children feel and apply the beauty of art to their study and daily life" ("Q & A on teaching classes 1, 2, 3" by Nguyen Quoc Toan, 2004). If we only teach children skills, we are training for workers, and if we only teach children to feel, how can they understand all about beauty and bring the beauty to life and know how to create and promote imagination? 2.2.2. Limitation in knowledge and professional capacity There are four limitations in teachers’ knowledge and capability in conducting aesthetic educational activities in preschool. Firstly, preschool teachers show their lack of knowledge on suitable ways to help children exploit the manifestation of the beauty and evil through preschool educational activities. They also show limit in exploring the content of general preschool education program to provoke children’s love of the beauty and hate of the evil. Secondly, teachers have not basic knowledge of painting, music for children, traditional arts, shaping materials, traditional folk music instruments and general knowledge of aesthetic education. Most of them cannot do the decorating, or take part in organizing art performance programs in order to guide their children’s participation. Thirdly, most aesthetic education activities are practices that help children approach and form basic knowledge and skills of music and painting; however, teachers do not create the atmosphere of artistic activity in the classroom. Lessons are rather ‘heavy’ and ‘formulated’. No one realizes that teachers do introduction, they "duplicate" children’s skills by chance, consequently, leading to the fact that aesthetic educational activities are turned into those for children to copy the sample, and therefore children’s works in a class are the almost same, showing the restricts of children’s creativity. Teachers also place too much emphasis on children’s performance at the end of lessons. Teachers do not know how to evaluate children’s products, and show limit in organizing extracurricular activities, and the ability to use language effectively when organizing aesthetic educational activities. Fourthly, the implementation of the methods of organizing activities for children is still limited. The tendency to innovate teaching methods with the viewpoint of "learning by playing" and "learner-centered" imposes requirements that every teacher must try to do, but most teachers show the lack in their understanding of methodology, and therefore fail to perform effectively, or just perform formalistically. It is noted that playing activities are not actually organized to help children self-control the content of knowledge. Moreover, planning for activities in the spirit of innovation is still confusing to most teachers. In addition, the existing facilities are not being exploited effectively. Besides, children just take part in games mechanically, with no or little attempts of thinking and exploiting, which is easy to make children bored, and restrict their “potential talent”. 2.3. Some measures to renovate aesthetic education in kindergarten 2.3.1. Renewing ways of organizing aesthetic educational activities - Creating appropriate aesthetic educational activities for children to discover and express themselves through natural environment. Nature is never exhausted of the beauty. It always attracts children, making children’s heart filled with joy. It is an endless source to nurture the soul and talent of children. Teachers need to create opportunities and suitable activities for children to interact with nature in order to foster their love of nature. Teachers also encourage children to watch, observe nature with a passionate and respectful attitude, and help usefully children to 178 Innovation of aesthetic education in kindergarten in the light of child-centered approach recognize natural phenomena, to establish a relationship between nature, life and people, to know how to inspire themselves from nature to create the beauty. Teachers need to facilitate carefully the sounds, colors and flavors of nature to touch children’ senses, leaving in their mind unforgettable impressions, and give rise to special feelings in them. Teachers need to help children love the beauty and love to protect the beauty, too. Teachers organize extracurricular activities to create opportunities for children to immerse themselves in beautiful nature, which will let children make deep impressions on the beauty of homeland, and nourish the love and pride of the country. Teachers teach children to feel nature through its sounds, landscapes, colors of flower gardens, orchards, grasslands, rice fields, spring, and autumn rain ... to form their imagination, language development and emotions. - Helping children to feel the beauty of the music world. Music is the language of emotions and a mean of expressing human emotions. Music is a spiritual food indispensable to life and the common language of mankind. Melodious notes in smooth, cheerful and clear melodies of music works as sweet milk flowing into the young soul, helping them develop their personality. It is clear that music education is not just about teaching children to sing and dance. It, instead, includes singing and dancing in various forms. These activities are often accompanied by such aids as musical toys that fit into the activities of a whole day in kindergarten. They are integrated into classroom activities, outdoor activities and morning exercises. Teachers need to combine music and movement with a purposeful, appropriate and creative way to create a sense of excitement and joys for children. Instrumental music should be used when organizing activities during lunch, playtime in the playgrounds, outdoor activities, and group work hours. This will keep children focused and excited. Music can be used to stabilize the class, to introduce new lessons, to transit parts during school hours, and to move from one activity to another. This helps to create excitement, relaxation and attention of children. Teachers need to create illustrative movements that combine with singing to promote the movement of children’s body, agility, ingenuity and endurance. Teachers should facilitate children to use simple musical instruments when moving in the music, and when acting in small plays (namely knocks, drums, rattlesnakes, shakes, trumpets...). Teachers should let children listen to instrumental music to form "music ears". Attention should be paid to folk melodies that are short, simple and cheerful, with cheerful tones suitable with the pitch of a child’s voice. Children should be encouraged to sing and dance in groups regardless of gender and age to create sympathetic innocence among them. - Helping children express their thinking, desires and emotions through the world of paintings and shaping activities. The content of shape activities helps to develop aesthetics effectively, creating favorable conditions for the development of senses and aesthetic perception. It helps children to recognize colors, shapes, lines, proportions, space arrangements, features, the beauty of things and phenomena; as a result, children’s thinking, memory and imagination will develop gently. Children will have opportunities to learn and study the objects which are being described. Understanding and visualization of objects will contribute to the overall development of personality and the desire to create the beauty. It is necessary for children to acquire the beauty, experience emotions; emotional states through folk paintings and folk art products, including objects, plants and animals close to their childhood. Those include statues and sculptures in parks, monuments, temples with a variety of colors and shapes. Those consist of dolls, household utensils and labor supplies, and also fairy tales and historic tales that children have been acquainted through literatures. Children should be allowed to attend art exhibitions, art museums, especially children’s art exhibitions. Teachers should organize many activities to enhance children’s physical development, to help their hands become more flexible and to develop their language competency. Children’s vocabulary and coherent language can be developed through listening to their teachers presenting visual products. In addition, their knowledge in science and society can be enriched. 179 Dang Loc Tho - Using art works in educational activities. The aesthetic capacity of young children is fostered through decorating the campus with visual aids, providing opportunities for children to become acquainted with and learn about art, developing their sense of art and aesthetic creativity, attracting their interest, inspiring their feelings of love of people and the community, and encouraging children to explore and desire to create the beauty. 2.3.2. Integrating aesthetic education in educational activities Aesthetic education must be integrated in all educational activities in order to make the "aesthetic sense" permeate into all children’s activities, from the representation of the beauty in all forms of activities, to the expression of the beauty in daily communication and daily behaviors. Aesthetic education is integrated with outdoor activities such as going sightseeing, visiting museums, visiting villages, planting trees and caring for animals. - Integrating aesthetic education with activities for children to familiarize themselves with literary works. Literary works with a rich, sparkling language in visual expression are an effective means to educate aesthetics to children, helping them not only perceive but get inspired to act and to create. Literature is a popular art and has powerful aesthetic effects, arousing and energizing the sense of beauty, nourishing aesthetic emotions, preserving and developing art spirits in every soul. Literary sensibility, an appreciation of art forms, is the process of perception and the perception of the beauty contained in the world of words. It is necessary to teach children the skills of cognitive literary works so that children can retain their artistic impressions. It is necessary for children to perceive literary works directly, to experience what they hear, to stimulate their interest in the art of literature, to be able to creatively and creatively work in literature and art. Children should be exposed to many genres of literary works such as poetry, cartoons, stories, fairy tales, myths, etc., to form cultural and artistic expressions. Teachers should read and tell children fairy tales accompanied by vivid illustrations, bringing children into the mysterious and imaginative world to evoke children’s dreams of the beauty, of goodness that always wins the bad. It is important to teach children how to chant words to help themselves close to working life, encourage children to read poetry, to learn and follow good characters in stories. Children need to learn to play dramas and play roles when reading literary works... to develop their feelings and emotions. - Integrating aesthetic education in the activities for children to get familiarized with mathematics and with the environment. Aesthetic education for children should be integrated into other activities such as learning of shapes with differing sizes and colors, playing games, assembling with easy-to-find items like pieces of wood, plastic blocks, match boxes, paper boxes, rock, stone... to build "architecture" of houses, parks, playgrounds, farms... It is necessary to leave children free in their imagination to choose objects, materials, layout and color combinations. It is necessary to select stories that are associated with visuals of the surroundings and mathematical shapes. In all activities, right background music should be played to stimulate children’s interest, so that the children can express their emotional expressions. This helps create a joyful atmosphere, and stimulate learning sense for children at the same time. 2.3.3. Reforming professional development for teachers on aesthetic education - Fostering aesthetic knowledge and aesthetic sensory capacities: It is necessary to organize activities of professional development on aesthetic education through workshops, contests and regular extra-curricular activities. This will create an objective premise for kindergarten teachers to constantly learn by themselves to improve their knowledge and skills in aesthetic education. Training courses on adapting games, making gadgets, toys and integrating content into appropriate aesthetic education should be organized to help teachers adapt the aesthetic educational activities to various regions and ethnic minorities. 180 Innovation of aesthetic education in kindergarten in the light of child-centered approach - Fostering teaching capacity and organizing child-centered aesthetic education: The guideline for preschool education is "learning through play", so teachers must first be trained how to organize games for children in accordance with psychological characteristics of ages, and with local cultures and ethnic groups living in the locality. Children must be given the maximum opportunity to actively engage in experiential and interactive learning to apply what they have experienced in other situations. Fostering on the method of organizing preschool education activities: (i) Method of stimulating the emotional state, sensitive to beauty. Aesthetic education must take place in contact with aesthetic values in nature, in life and in art to stimulate the aesthetic sense of the child. The natural and social environment should be established aesthetically with artworks that are suitable in all aspects (content, form, expressiveness ...). Therefore, emotions and emotional expressions of children can be born, making the process of aesthetic education achieve high efficiency. (ii) Persuasion in the formation of aesthetic senses, forming the first preferences. The child’s aesthetic sense is characterized by the unity of emotion and cognition. Children need to be instructed to capture the nature of the surrounding phenomena, and to understand the value of the content and artistic value of the work. It is necessary to use a combination of speech and visual methods. Targeted observational activities should be organized so that children use all senses in perception. From there, the children will be stimulated to act and create. (iii) Practical practice. Children need to be trained through a variety of aesthetic education, ranging from easy to difficult, from simple to complex. Situations change but training needs to be repeated many times. (The process is a long, complex and individual). (iv) Method to stimulate the exploration, creation. Practical situations must be created for the child to experience in order to give rise to creative and meaningful actions in the child’s life. This helps to identify the capacity of each child and helps the child use his or her knowledge and experience to explore, create and solve problems in a way that is appropriate to the specific situation and situation. Teachers need to help children turn their initial creative activities into those that stimulate their ideas to create products reflecting the reality through their eye views. Unlike teaching art in gifted classes, teaching art in the kindergarten requires that technical terms need to be universalized to suit the characteristics of children in terms of age, concepts and knowledge. Aesthetic education must be integrated in all educational activities defectively, in suitable ways in order to exploit aesthetic education everywhere and anytime. It is essential to integrate aesthetic education in the classroom according to the topic and subject of each lesson and through activities of classroom corners and children’s performance activities. - Professional training for teachers in evaluating children’s aesthetic activities. Evaluation in aesthetic education occurs while teachers with children consider and determine the effectiveness of what the children are doing, compare the products of children and even compare those with products of artists in order to discover, to acquire, to absorb and to popularize the beauty found from the children’s ”works”. There is a need for a combination of qualitative and quantitative assessments to expose the characteristics of child development in all three aspects of the activity, including: cognition- aesthetics - experience, demonstration - emotional expression - artistic creation, and evaluation - enjoyment of arts - sharing. Assessment activities of children’s aesthetic activities need to incorporate with the comprehensive development objectives from the perspective of innovation. Firstly, innovation for evaluation purposes: the evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness in inspiring children, the degree of aesthetic sensitivities, the ability to give children believes, the ability to enhance the positive aspects of artistic activities, the ability to motivate children to participate in the activities, the ability to create opportunities for children to learn from their peers and others, the ability to 181 Dang Loc Tho help children recognize and understand the value of diversity and unique, the ability to create conditions for children to have more objective view of their performance, thereby forming the ability of self-evaluation, the ability to promote children’s progress in the process of cognition and cultural experience of art and culture, the ability to help children better understand themselves and people around through the process of expression, enjoyment and sharing. Secondly, innovation on requirements: evaluation sets out requirements to find out the difference and originality, the "style" in each "work" of children. Teachers need real goodwill and understanding of the value of artistic activities of children, because their "product" does not have to be a real work. Children’s overall development in all areas through activities is more important than the products themselves. Thirdly, innovation in content evaluation: evaluation should focus on the level of development in perception, aesthetic sensibility, artistic expression, independence, social and interpersonal ability, and the ability to use available materials, the ability to work actively and creatively in all aspects of personality including intellectual, cognitive, social, moral, aesthetic and creative. Fourthly, innovation on the method of evaluation: evaluation should be done in a coordinated manner with basic methods of observing, exchanging and analyzing of products in order to reach four levels of development such as description, formal analysis, interpretation and criticism. Children need to be led from feeling to thinking, expressing and sharing and to expressing attitudes and practices that demonstrate their aesthetic-moral behavior. 2.3.4. Opening "art centers" in kindergarten Opening "art center" (e.g., music room, art workshop) is to allow children to participate in "professional" activities in the form of gifted classes, music-art performances and art exhibitions. These activities will meet the needs of entertainment, art enjoyment, talent development, and creative capacity building for children. "Music room" is a place for children to practice singing, listening to music in various forms, playing music games.... These activities will help children not only practice their skills freely, but also feel music in a pure and innocent way and in a joyful and exciting atmosphere. 2.3.5. Exploiting aesthetic education from the family - Raising the awareness of family roles in aesthetic education. The family is one of the richest educational environments and also a major learning environment, having the strongest impact on the development of personality. The most brilliant and impressive perception of the beauty is derived from the aesthetics of parents and from good family relationships. The family is an initial and the most important environment for bringing children to aesthetic education. First of all, the family environment consists of a range of experiences available through daily activities that encourage the children to learn naturally and to form their aesthetic. This environment includes lullabies, verses, fairy tales, fables, eye signs, smile of love, diverse and rich world of objects such as curtains, pictures on the wall; arrangement of furniture in the home ... Secondly, the family environment with the frequent care of relatives will provide opportunities for young children to share experience. Sweet words, sharing of joys and sorrows, good relationships between family members and those around them... are the rich sources that make up the beauty of spiritual life for children to grow up with clear soul and strong physical strength. - Providing parents with knowledge and method training on aesthetic education. Although parents may not have been trained in aesthetic education, and may not know how to sing or to play music or to draw, but parental attitudes to preschool education are extremely important. Through the arrangements in the family, lullabies, folk songs, encourage and reassurance of their parents, the children gradually become acquainted with aesthetics. Parents need to be instructed in a proper way to make effective use of the possible conditions for coordinating with the school 182 Innovation of aesthetic education in kindergarten in the light of child-centered approach in aesthetic education for their children to participate in aesthetic educational activities. These activities include taking the children for walks, taking them to the theater to enjoy the beauty of the soul on the stage, selecting and watching films that are suitable for children’s awareness... Teachers need to know how to collaborate with children’s family to adapt educational content, to organize activities to help children discover the beauty of their family life and surrounding ones. Games to play include role-play games (e.g., playing roles as doctors, relatives, patients...), and occupational games with costumes and professional behavior of such workers as builders, drivers, shopkeepers... These activities will allow children to learn how to deal with people around them, and also to develop their aesthetic sense through daily relationship with people surrounding. 3. Conclusion Kindergarten children are very sensitive to the beauty around. This is the best period of development of aesthetic emotions that arise when children have direct contact with beauty in the arts. Aesthetic education has tremendous strength, exposing the inner world of children. Let us open the door to lead our children into the vast world of the beauty and creativity. Aesthetic education for preschool children plays an important role in the formation of their personality, the love of nature, the love of motherland and humans. It is a mean of improving intellectual, physical development, helping children develop their imagination and consolidate their knowledge through learning and playing. The content of the aesthetic education should be enriched, including various genres, and should be close to daily life. It is necessary for children to expose themselves and create their own beauty, to keep their innocence of age, and to play to express the love of beauty and their attitude toward the beauty. REFERENCES [1] Nguyen Huy Diem, 1982. Aesthetic education in general school. Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 12, p. 2 (in Vietnamese). [2] Le Thi Duc, Ly Thu Hien, Pham Thi Hoa, 2013. Music activities for preschool children. Education Publishing House (in Vietnamese). [3] Do Xuan Ha, 1998. Aesthetic education - a big debt to the younger generation. Education Publishing House (inVietnamese). [4] Phan Minh Ha, 2006. Helping children to enjoy and develop intellectually in shaping activities. 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