Art Education - Essay Example

1. Sensory play is an integral part of children’s early development. Sensory play is the primary means through which children get to learn about the world around them from a young age- by touching, seeing, tasting, hearing or smelling (Kranowitz 2006). Among the proven benefits of sensory play include stimulating brain development and supporting cognitive development. As the child explores sensory play materials, for example through touch, they set the foundation for learning other skills such as identification of textures and other characteristics through touch. Particularly, sensory play with tactile toys such as playdough sets the foundation for learning through touch. They discover that it is soft, flexible and malleable and subsequently are able to identify properties of other materials with similar textures, properties or characteristics (Gainsely 2011: Kranowitz 2006). Since sensory play often involves working in close contact with other children, children refine their social interactive and communication skills and also strengthen their own motor skills which may be important for learning arts. Such sensory play may also be important in allowing children to communicate their feelings and express their emotions hence supporting emotional development. I have found that the manipulation through pressure (kneading, squeezing, pinching and shaping) of playdough is an ideal way for children to release physical energy or tension, to regulate stress, to work through emotions such as anxiety or depression hence dealing with them calmly or to express positive feelings such as achievement (Parham and Fazio 2007). In my understanding, sensory play is fundamental for learning of the arts. Since art essentially involves creation, conversion of the abstract (imagination) to the real, sensory play provides the template for children to develop the psychomotor and coordination skills needed to paint, sculpt, mould or shape materials. It helps them identify properties and characteristics such as colours, textures (smoothness or roughness) and hardness or softness of materials that they will need in art. Sensory play also provides the first real platform for children to express their creative abilities or artistic skills and emotions. References Gainsley, S. (2005). Look, Listen, Touch, Feel, Taste: The Importance of Sensory Play. Extensions (Curriculum Newsletter from Highscope) 25 (5): 1-12. Kranowitz, C.S. (2006). The Out of Sync Child has Fun (Illustrated edition).New York: Penguin. Parham, L.D. & Fazio, L.S. (2007). Play in Occupational Therapy for Children (2nd Ed.). Pennsylvania: Mosby Elsevier. 2. My favourite songs as a child were interactive plays songs such as “Old farmer McDonald”, “Making melodies” and “Head, shoulders, knees and toes.” I used to enjoy such songs since they were often performed interactively or collectively or in a group, involved a lot of innovative body movements and created a sense of camaraderie and excitement among myself and other children who were performing. The most appealing aspect of such songs was the body movements required, their interactivity and the fact that they required the participant to respond reiteratively. As a child, I also enjoyed playing with drums and shakers. I enjoyed percussive instruments since they were simple to learn how to play and hence rewarding as opposed to the rigours of learning to play more complex wind or string instruments such as flutes and trumpets. In addition, their use could fit almost any context. Nowadays, I think children are more drawn towards songs themed from children’s movies, musicals, cartoons or even from child singing stars or bands. The main reason for this change is technological advances. Since children in today’s digital age are exposed to more and more television and media in general as compared to the past, they are easily affectionate towards some of the more likeable characters they are exposed to, especially cartoons and movie characters (Marsh 2009). Songs and toys have become more elaborate and composers of these songs have also become innovative, integrating colourful backgrounds and costumes, educative or fun themes, choreographed movements and rich interactive environments which are have sensorial appeal. This in turn influences their preferences for play songs based on make-believe and such themes (Campbell 2010). A good example includes songs in the popular children’s series Hannah Montana. However, while the themes and subject matter may have changed, the common denominator still remains the interactivity and body movement. Popular children’s songs, both from my time and today, are still interactive and require a lot of body movement, responses and coordination. In my opinion, this is because children essentially remain the same and the best forum for their learning is through play, of which dance and movement in play songs is a critical part (Marsh 2010). References Campbell, P. (2010). Songs in their heads: music and its meaning in children's lives (2nd ed). New York: Oxford University Press. Marsh, K. (2009). The Musical Playground: Global Tradition and Change in Children's Songs and Games. New York: Oxford University Press. 3. There are several ways in which you could turn “The Three Little Pigs” into a sound story. First, you may create a multimedia audio story. This involves creating pictures, slides or animations representing various stages critical to the narration of the story such as the Fox’s visit to each of the three pig’s houses. Then you can record rhymes for the exchanges between the pig and each of the pigs or soundbytes for the various actions such as the wolf’s huffing and puffing which will be cued to play as each scene unfolds sequentially. A narration may be used to ties the scenes together. A second way would be to use instruments and body percussions while re-enacting the play. For example, stomping feet could be used as the wolf approaches the houses of the pigs or a tuba played as the wolf huffs and puffs and blows down the house. A popular children’s story which can be turned into a sound story is Jack and the beanstalk. There are several instruments and body percussions that can be used to make a sound story of this children’s classic. For instance, in the part of the story where the ogre or giant approaches his lair, body percussions such as stomping on a wooden floor could be used. Jack’s movements during the play as he ventures back and forth with the cow, running away from the giant to descend the beanstalk or as he chops down the beanstalk with the giant in pursuit could also be used. Instruments such as a harp, drums and cymbals could also be used in parts of the play. For example, a harp is the actual instrument that the giant plays to his golden egg-laying chicken. Drums and cymbals could also be used to enhance the sound effect as the giant arrives or even as he falls down the beanstalk to his demise. 4. The Arts have been identified as playing a crucial role in complementing learning skills such as visualisation, problem solving and creativity in other subjects such as the sciences and mathematics. Bresler (1995) discusses four different approaches to integrate arts into the curriculums in the United States. The Arts could be integrated subserviently- serving as the basic academic curriculum in its contents, pedagogies and structures, integrated co-equally- brought in as an equal partner by integrating the curriculum with arts-specific contents, skills, expressions, and modes of thinking, affectively- emphasizing feelings evoked by and attitudes towards art as well as incorporating ideals of creativity and self expression and socially integrated- focusing on the social function of the school and role in the community where arts provide the social functions of schooling through social events where arts play a key role (Bresler 1995). It is important to make the arts the focus of curriculum integration since it enhances accountability in teaching the arts in schools and helps in the development of professional standards and instructional procedures in teaching the arts (Deasy 2002). There have been positive correlations noted between the academic performance scores for students and their enrollment in arts courses in many countries. It has been shown that students in arts courses enhance their mastery of academic skills in other subjects such as math and literature (Deasy 2002). Significantly, Alter et al (2009) also demonstrate that teachers in the arts who experienced low quality education in the arts are lee likely to be confident and proficient in teaching arts themselves. Therefore, quality arts education produces quality educators which in turn can be used to enrich the wider academic experiences of learners. The issue is to ensure that teachers in the arts receive adequate pre-service training, support and assessment to realize positive learning outcomes. Creative arts also need to be allocated more time within current learning curricula (Garrett 2009: Russell and Zembylas 2007). References Alter, F., Hayes, T. & O’Hara, R. (2009). The challenges of implementing primary arts education: What our teachers say. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 34 (4): 22-30. Bresler, L. (1995). The subservient, co-equal, affective and social integration styles and their implications for the arts. Arts Education Policy Review , 96(5): 31-37. Deasy, R. (2002). Critical links: Learning in the Arts and student academic achievement and social development. Washington DC: Arts Education Partnerships. Garrett, P. (2009). Arts in Australia’s national school curriculum. Canberra: Ministry of the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Russell, J. & Zembylas, M. (2007). Arts Integration in the Curriculum: A Review of Research and Implications for Teaching and Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education, 16 (2): 287-312. 5. Teachers in the early years need to be attuned to the diverse needs of children. Arts can play an important role in helping me identify these diverse needs. From an early age, arts can help a teacher observe the diverse needs of the class by monitoring how children interact or create artistically. This can help identify students with learning disabilities as well as gifted students physically and psychologically (Macado 2009). Their participation in the arts will highlight their various strengths, weaknesses and at times even their cultural inclinations. Subsequently, it would be easier to design teaching programs that are sensitive to and respond to the various needs of the children (De Mendelez and Vesna 2009). There are various considerations factored in planning for the arts. First and foremost, however, are the curriculum requirements- do the lesson plans meet curriculum- set standards? (Koster 2011)Also, general aims and specific objectives of the sessions-what do they hope to achieve? I would also consider providing the most effective playing environment by providing a variety of and sufficient amount of materials to accommodate the children’s various diverse or unique interests and skills and finding enough space to allow the children express themselves both individually and collectively (Koster 2011: Macado 2009). For example, visually impaired or children with hearing disabilities would require customised play and work/creativity areas. I would also consider the safety needs of students with special needs or learning disabilities by ensuring that they would be accommodated. In teaching a program for diversity of children within the arts, I would emphasize on the monitoring skills required to identify children’s special interests, abilities and needs. I would emphasize on developing frameworks to assess individual children’s participation, identifying circumstances where resources should be modified to fit the overall curriculum and class specific objectives and the use of these frameworks to identify diversity needs and to design interventions or mechanisms to accommodate such needs. References De Mendelez, W. J. R. and Vesna, B. (2009). Teaching Young Children in Multicultural Classrooms: Issues, Concepts, and Strategies. New York: Cengage. Koster, J.B. (2011). Growing Artists: Teaching the Arts to Young Children (5th ed). Sydney: Cengage Learning. Macado J.M. (2009). Early Childhood Experiences in Language Arts: Early Literacy. Sydney: Cengage Learning. Mayesky, M. (2011). Creative Activities for Young Children. Sydney: Cengage Learning 6. Arts education is important in the early years due to a number of reasons. Engelbright and Schirrmacher (2010) point out that principally, arts education aids the cognitive development of early learners. Arts help children develop attitudes, characteristics and skills which will be necessary for their future academic development and participation in society and economy Arts are also essential to the cognitive development of the child.. Arts cultivate the child as a whole, gradually building literacy while developing intuition, reasoning, imagination and dexterity into unique forms of expression and communication. Art is therefore an essential ingredient of the Early Years Learning Framework as part of the Australian Government’s National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care. The EYLF has a strong emphasis on play based learning as the best vehicle for young children’s learning by providing the best stimulus for development of the brain. Besides physical exercise, one of the forms of play advocated is sensory play which is essentially the domain of the arts where children are exposed to various art materials to touch, discover, explore and create. Art therefore supports the philosophy of play based pedagogy. This is also outlined in the Northern Territory (NT) Curriculum Framework under Strong Beginnings. As a guide to quality practice for early childhood educators, Strong Beginnings essentially advocates for the philosophy and practice of the pedagogical approach of play. The integration of arts into the Australian curriculum under the EYLF is also consistent with the broader objectives of the curriculum. As Engelbrigth and Schirrmacher (2010) note, the importance of arts lies in preparing children to develop the skills needed to integrate successfully into the economy and society. This closely matches and complements the Australian curriculum’s objective to “equip all young Australians with the essential skills, knowledge and capabilities to thrive and compete in a globalised world and information rich workplaces of the current century”, according to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). References Engelbright, J. & Schirrmacher, R. (2010). Art and Creative Development for Young Children (7th ed). Sydney: Cengage Learning. Read More