Aesthetics and Character Education in Early Childhood Education - Coursework Example

Aesthetics and Character Education in Early Childhood Education The early childhood education creates affirmative and encouraging impact on the academic achievement and character development of child. The benefits of education are irrefutable and undisputable. The critical evaluation on character development in childhood education is interrelated to the curriculum activities of aesthetics. Propositions development and literature review are particularized with disagreement notification. Creative thinking and learning motivation are other indispensable competencies in early childhood education. Evidence and findings are demonstrated by supporting positive impacts of childhood education. The need of early education is well documented by providing peer review views with argumentative discussions. Introduction The overall development of child can have beneficial and long lasting effects by early childhood education. Early childhood education is pivotal for academic and mental development of child. It is systematized practice of educating child at an early age. The impact of early education towards the life of every child is enormous. The component of character education is at the heart of the curriculum activity in early childhood education. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy which deals with the judgment of taste and sentiments. It is also defined as the study of sensory responsive values dealing with the nature of taste, beauty, nature and art. The growth of childhood not only affects the reasoning and emotional development, but also affect the physical, educational activities and bond with other people. The learning and thinking of children can be enriched by creating a stimulating environment. The mode of learning is diverse for every child. Effective childhood development provides opportunity for every child to maximize their potential and develop their social and physical domains. Early childhood development programs enables child to strengthen their cognitive skills, prepare from perplexing school environments, provides opportunity to socialize and develop self-confidence. The critical evaluation of art, capability to appreciate and enhancement of reflection of sense are the part of aesthetic development in early childhood education. With the improvement of sense of aesthetics, a child tends to interpret the significance of colour, taste, arrangement and patterns. Character development, learning motivation, creative thinking and aesthetics are the pivotal parts in the childhood education. Basic fundamental competencies for building positive and vibrant character development are providing opportunity for building affirmative character, creating motivation for learning and striving to build progressive mental health. Aesthetics development and early education provides a positive impact on the academic achievement of children. A recent study by multiple meta-analyses reveals that, early education has a substantial encouraging impact on children by increasing high school graduation percentile and raising achievement test marks. This research paper will describe about the aesthetics and character education in early childhood education. Literature Review and Propositions Development This literature review will briefly discuss about following four different propositions development. Aesthetics and Character Development in Early Childhood Education For more than 2,000 years, the value of education have been acknowledged and regarded as beneficial factor for development of children. But comparatively upsurge of public awareness has bought importance of early childhood education at foremost position. Further insight on importance of early age education has been proved by recent research. Research proves the swift development of child brain at an early age. Aesthetic is the study of beauty which can stimulate the senses of child in the practice of music, drama and art. The advancement of aesthetic awareness is contributed by the feel of environment, sound, colour, taste and aroma. Aesthetic education is referred by Maxine Greene as the premeditated efforts to advance encounters with arts (Furman, 2000). The education of arts has been distinguished from aesthetic education by Maxine Greene. Arts objects have been neglected by Maxine Greene. According to Maxine Greene, arts convey. The work of art is an aesthetic item which enables people to fell the sense of colour, patterns and taste. The striking nature of arts is needed to be appreciated and feel. The education of aesthetic is pivotal part for childhood development. The importance of art education cannot be denied. Both have the same prominence towards the development of child at early years. According to Friedman, children who are surrounded by attractive environment can appreciate their art and develop aesthetic awareness. The development of aesthetic awareness can encourage children to reduce the level of stress and develop positive behaviour. Children can observe the beauty in nature by observing the surrounding. Early childhood education provides opportunity for children to express their thoughts and cultivate aesthetic consciousness. The sense and knowledge of children are negligible. They require proper educational experts and tutoring to develop their skills. Hindrance and obstruction can act as a destructive diminishing factor for the development of child. According to Elliot Eisner, the engagements in the learning of arts enables children to promote subtlety, enhance the experience of learning, promote extension, facilitate dimensions of intuition and enhance the qualitative experience of children at a primary age (Squire, 2003). Elliot Eisner has not revealed the potential of an aesthetic education towards the enhancing the process of value of learning. Herz-Sommer described the importance of art learning. It enables children to enrich their learning experiences. In engagements with the artworks, adults are more inhibited than that of children. Aesthetic education enhances the learning process in broad ways. Children at an early age require care and support from elders and teachers by curriculum activities in primary and secondary schools. Children may be more puzzled and surprised by the social experience. The contribution of teachers towards children is vast. Teacher help to enhance the understanding of children buy engaging them in conversations and guiding to develop. Learning of arts seems to be easy, but it requires effective education and guidance to succeed. Character development enables children to develop their quality of intuition and behaviour (Kellert, 2002). The study of art and music id the part of character development of children. Children who are mastering the study of art, taste and music can help them in intellectual, mental and social development. Aesthetic education plays a crucial role for the development of human. The main aim of aesthetic education is to cultivate aesthetic faculties, imagination, understand the mental power and creating the skill of conveying (Lindqvist, 1996). Cultivating the philosophy of line and development of spirit and personality is the other aspect of aesthetic education. Character development of children is related to the aesthetic curriculum. Childhood education enables children to control their cognitive capabilities and fine motor skills. Character development of children at an early age includes development of ethical behaviour, empathy behaviour and moral understanding. According to Laura E. Berk, ethical behaviour and moral understanding of every child is influenced initially by adults. Childhood education provides perfect platform for children to enrich their feeling and moral behaviour. Adults hold the prime share for influencing the character of children. But atmosphere of society, collaboration with peers and influence of tutor are also essential aspects for the development of children. The art development of child can be influenced by gender differences and exposure to culture and art media (Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972). These are the beneficiary factors for the character development of children in childhood education. This resembles the fact that aesthetic education is related to character development of child. Aesthetics and Learning Motivation Newborn babies are born with incredible amount of intrinsic motivation. The motivations in infants have a great effect on the environment. If children get rewarded against their action they continue to perform those actions. The inspirations in children are quite visible if they are exposed to materials that can entertain them and in turn they get some knowledge that can help their physical and mental development. As discussed earlier Aesthetics is a part of philosophy that deals with arts, music, taste, nature, beauty and several other factors. The study of Aesthetics enhances the creativity of brain and helps in positive development that can be helpful for a child to acquire discreet knowledge in a particular subject by a mode of entertainment. According to Anna Reyner Art activities help children to develop their skills in several ways (Hidi, 2000). For an example children in kindergarten are taught to design alphabets and pronounce them. Children studying are able to catch the alphabets only with the design and the sound they hear by their teacher. The design displayed to them encourages them to draw the similar object and understand its meaning. This is a positive way for children to learn things because it helps them develop their ability to learn unknown objects by the medium of arts and designs. Music is another form of Aesthetics that help children to be motivated towards multi-dimensional perspectives. Music is commonly enjoyed by every individual but children find it entertaining when they get to learn it. Music becomes a subject that can amuse them and reduce their academic loads. Academic subjects are definitely important however according to Mei-Ju Chou; music is very important for children curriculum. Music should be incorporated in school syllabus because it helps to understand several ethical and moral values. Science alone can-not be enough for mental growth of children Aesthetics is very important for development of activities initiated by the brain (Bers, 2002). Though this argument is true but there are several other factors that are required to keep in mind before a child is exposed to the vast study of Aesthetics. Aesthetics is a philosophical subject and it should be brought to children in such a way that it can help them develop a creative thinking for enhancement of other subjects as well. For an example literature in schools should not only be taught to make children understand a story it should also be delivered to enhance their grammar and understand the use of compositions. Moreover poetry’s should be helpful for them to understand and analyze the summary behind them. Children have huge capacity to in-take various subjective matters but proper use of knowledge can only be possible if they find a way to deliver the knowledge they earn. Motivated learning involves several rational and non-rational elements; learners should try to understand the use of rational elements and develop a skill which would help to deliver proper responses when required (Blais, 1992). Infants are provided with toys which they find as a matter of amusement but toys have some positive significance that can help children to develop their ability of brain. Some toys produce several type of sound that children are fond of. This arises several questions in the mind of infants like “Where is the sound coming from? What does it mean?” etc. In-fact children try to understand the secret behind the sound or movements of toys (Brostom, 2005). This activity in the mind of children motivates them to analyze the toys they play with and it is quite common that some children might break their toy to reveal the secret behind the strange happenings with them. This motivation is very essential for children because it helps them to discover the facts unknown to them. Children are very vulnerable to changes happening beside them every-day and it is the duty of parents and teachers to make children accustomed with the environment they live in. It is absolutely true that Aesthetics play a very important role in shaping the creativity among and children and motivate them to learn things because of the suspense they find in several factors that entertain their mind. Aesthetics is an important study because it develops the thinking ability which becomes useful for children when they grow up and deal with various subjective matters like mathematics, physics, geography etc (Loewenstein, 1994). Hence Aesthetics curriculum is related to learning motivation in childhood education. Aesthetics and Creative Thinking Creativity in children arises because of a various factors that involves in progression in mental developments of them. Aesthetics plays a very important role to develop creative thinking in children. It has been observed that children prefer to play or draw and enjoy music rather than studying their course subjects. Infants also have a tendency to draw things they do not know about or play some type of games that makes them feel happy (Torrance, 1972). Spontaneous and creative-expression helps children to increase their sense of competence which helps them to make appropriate decisions in future. Aesthetics has been known well as beauty of arts, nature, music, games and many other subjects. It helps children to increase their creative thoughts and give response from a very early age. For example children who like painting have the power to express themselves through the medium in a very unique style that elders might not be able to do as per Walter F Drew (Bers, 2002). This ability of children helps them to think in a different way than other people in a society and these children can become good engineers or professional painters or architects based on their capability. The main objective behind the discussion is to bring out the reason because of which children get the ability to think differently. Children with significant interest towards arts have the habit to make decisions by themselves from a very small age. This ability among them helps them to overcome various problems and take spontaneous decisions. Aesthetics help children to deepen their understanding and ultimately they become able to handle multiple works at the same time (Hui & Lau, 2006). This ability might not be observed in most of the children however there are several children with deep focusing ability which helps them to perform multi-tasking. Aesthetics is also responsible for learning in children with a growing sense of competence. It has been observed that children who like to play have a tendency to play with their peers instead of playing alone. This is definitely a positive symptom among children. Mixing up with other children help to develop their inter-personal skills as well as thoughts grow rich among them. The reason behind development because of playing is communication in their own-way. Communicating with parents and teachers is significantly different compared to communicating with peers. Communication with peers is an amusement for children at the same time they try to inhibit some good characteristics which help to boost up the ability of creative thinking (Hocevar & Bachelor, 1989). Aesthetics is important because children can learn science, literacy and mathematics joyfully by playing actively with diverse and open-ended materials. According to Duckworth children intend to develop sense of aesthetics by analyzing the beauty of a material. For an example if a child with three other children and they play in their home with a book addressed to them; they get a chance to play as well as read at the same time. This factor increases the interest among children towards a particular subject. Children are the best learners provided they get open-ended explorations. Teachers have tremendous effect on the learning abilities of children (Runco, 1996). The approach of teachers towards their students should be in a light and joyful manner. This behaviour with children helps them to learn without fear and enhance their creative thinking abilities. It is very important to remember that aesthetics deal with a variety of materials not just drawing or playing. Different children may have different interests hence they should be give distinguished and fair chances to work towards their interests (Chien & Hui, 2010). Undoubtedly Aesthetics curriculum is significantly related to creative thinking in early childhood education. Character Development and Early Childhood Education It is highly important for the teachers to consider character development aspect in the early childhood education programme. It is also important for the parents to think about character development aspect of their kids or children before gaining academic or career development knowledge. First of all, it is important for children, their parents and teachers to understand the meaning and significance of character development (Baumrind, 1967). It is essential for a child or a kid to become a good human being rather than only a good and intelligent student. There are several important and valuable styles that need to be followed by the parents as well as teachers to enhance character development aspect of children (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). Moreover, this character development aspect can be considered as a pivotal element of early childhood education. These styles have been discussed below. Interaction Style There are three major interaction styles that have been maintained by the teachers during the character development programme for children in their early childhood education. These styles are permissive, authoritarian and authoritative (Scott, Scott & McCabe, 1991). These three interaction styles are generally identified in the teacher-child and parent-child interaction processes (Crockenberg & Litman, 1990). It is true that, there are several character traits that are maintained by the parents or teachers during the interaction or communication process in order to enhance the children’s character development aspect in their early childhood education programme (Broffenbrenner, 1986). However, the basic three interaction styles have been discussed below. The Authoritarian Style It is true that parents, teachers or several career consultants tend to develop children through authoritarian style who possess particular character traits in order to keep control over the particular authoritarian children. For example, statements like “I don’t want to hear a single word any more regarding this matter” (Baunmrind, 1993). This dialogue generally reflects the example of authoritarian character development style of the children or kids. Moreover, several ordering dialogues by parents or teachers or career developers, such as “ Do it in this way as I said so” or “ Do the similar way as you are told” (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg & Dornbush, 1991). In this type of character development interaction style, the authoritarian adults, such as teachers, parents or career developers never want to consider the views of students or kids or children. Moreover, these authoritarian adults feel frustrated when the kids tend to share their views regarding any issue or matter (Miller, Cowan, Cowan, Heatherington & Clingempeel, 1993). In sometimes, the authoritarian adults generally rely on punishment or harsh punishments in order to ensure the character development of children in early childhood education period. Most importantly, there is little scope of negotiation for the children (Pinto, Folkers & Sines, 1991). The Permissive Style In the permissive style of character development aspect, adults may become permissive in child-centred and indulgent way or the adults may become permissive in adult-centred and negligent manner. Both these forms of permissiveness actually do injustice to the kids or children in their early childhood career (Raikes, 1996). Generally, permissiveness can be linked to the behaviour of children, which is bossy, dependent, self-centred and impulsive with lower degree of achievement and self-control. Children or kids, who are permitted to act in an impulsive way, are needed to meet some level of expectations (Howes, Hamilton, & Matheson, 1994). Moreover, in this way those children or kids cannot depend on adults to set or develop limits to guide particular behaviour or traits that are left to navigate the waters of life for themselves. On the other hand, the uninvolved interaction or negligent permissive style generally appears to be specifically difficult for the kids or children to overcome in early childhood career. A three years age of child or kid may display bizarre levels of acting out behaviour or aggression. This particular aggression can be known as temper irritability (Sprunger, Boyce & Gaines, 1985). Impact or effect of this uninvolved interaction style or negligent permissive style tends to persevere over the time period. This particular character trait generally gives rise to hostile, anti-social, poor achievement and aberrant behaviour in later period of time. The Authoritative Style Last but not the least; authoritative interaction character development style is generally characterized by fairness, high-standard, involvement, induction, reasoning, both way communications, warmth and enforcing reasonable rules. According to this style, the authoritative adults are generally aware of what, when, how and with whom the kids or children are involved or engaged. The authoritative adults generally give encouragement and support to the children. They are quite open to negotiation. Moreover, these adults generally give reasons for any kind of developed rules (Howes, Phillips & Whitebrook, 1992). According to this authoritative style, children are generally given appropriate and authentic choices, are respected, are encouraged and are asked for their valuable opinions. The children are valued and participating member of the family and such is expected to presume role, responsibilities and join the fun times with other family members. It is true that several positive character traits are correlated with the particular authoritative style. These traits generally include creativity, interdependence, mature social and communication skills, leadership skills, self-control, motivation, optimism, persistence, academic competence, achievement, adequate decision making skills and interdependence. However, adults generally look after support, warmth, consistent expectations, limits and encouragement in this authoritative interaction career development style in early childhood education process (Howes, Galluzzo, Roding & Myers, 1988). This particular interaction style can be considered as the most effective and positive character development process in which the kids or children learn how to behave or communicate with other individuals within the society. Practical Applications Teachers or career developers generally apply several practical applications in order to enhance children character development aspect. Listening, reasonable standards development, explanation, negotiation, asking, offering solutions, idea generation, independence, encouragement and giving redirection are the practical applications that help children or kids to possess valuable positive traits. It is true that permissive and authoritarian interaction style cannot enhance the character development aspect of children (Steinberg, Dornbush, Darling, Lamborn & Mounts, 1994). Therefore, several schools or educational institutions generally consider authoritative and practical applications and styles of character development. It is quite important to listen to the children and understand their views. Then only an adult can understand whether he or she is going in a right or a wrong path. It is true that, children love negotiation in childhood days (Thomas, Chess & Birch, 1968). On the other hand, it is also important to control their aggressiveness or anger. Then only a child can become a good human being or socially responsible human being. Conclusion Career growth of children highly depends upon the effectiveness of early childhood education. Therefore, it is highly important for parents, teachers as well as career consultants to consider the significance of aesthetics, learning motivation, creative thinking and character development in early childhood education. It is true that, children always have knack to something others except studies in their early childhood years. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the adults to encourage and motivate them to get involved in games, arts or music in order to ensure positive career development. A child cannot grow positively until and unless he or she becomes independence to share his or her thoughts and views. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the adults to create such a surrounding environment for children, so that the children can take interest ion studies except their hobbies or passions or interests. This specific surrounding may help the children to become motivated, innovative and creative in their academic career. Character development is another important aspect that should be considered by the adults in the early childhood education. It is highly important to become a good human being rather than only a good student. Therefore, the adults should focus on several positive and effective interactions character development styles in childhood education process in order to generate positive character traits in children. Authoritative and practical interaction style should be considered as pivotal character development styles by the adults in order to enhance early childhood education of children in society. References Baumrind, D. (1967). 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(1972). Can we Teach Children to Think Creatively. The Journal of Creative Behaviour, 24(3), 17. Read More