Aesthetic education is to cultivate people’s ability to recognize beauty, experience beauty, love beauty and create beauty. It has always been an important way to inherit a country’s culture and is of great significance to helping people establish a correct outlook on life and values. Family aesthetic education, school aesthetic education and social aesthetic education are the three pillars of aesthetic education. At present, my country’s school aesthetic education and social aesthetic education show a vigorous development trend, but family aesthetic education still does not get enough attention from parents, and shows obvious utilitarian tendencies.
What are the functions of family aesthetic education? How should parents conduct family aesthetic education? This issue of planning will bring special and practical answers.
In his reply to the eight old professors of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, General Secretary Xi Jinping once emphasized that to do a good job in aesthetic education, we must adhere to building morality and cultivate people, take root in the life of the times, follow the characteristics of aesthetic education, carry forward the spirit of Chinese aesthetic education, and let the young generation of the motherland grow up physically and mentally. .
In 1795, the famous philosopher and poet Schiller first proposed the concept of aesthetic education. He believes that aesthetic education has a unique function, is an education that promotes appreciation and beauty, and can make people’s sensibility and spiritual world harmonious, which cannot be replaced by other forms of education.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Cai Yuanpei, a great educator in modern China and an advocate of modern aesthetic education, proposed that aesthetic education should be vigorously carried out in the family and society: “Aesthetic education should apply the theory of aesthetics for the purpose of cultivating feelings.
” Influenced by various new educational concepts, I want to do the best and give the best to my children, but I deeply feel my own limitations. When it comes to exam-oriented education and subject tutoring, many parents still have experience, ideas, and topics, but when it comes to aesthetic education and art, parents immediately surrender, step back immediately, and give way to teachers who have received professional art training.
Art classes and professional skills are important, but for aesthetic education, what is more important is the artistic environment that a family can bring to children, as well as the artistic thinking and aesthetic ability that parents help children build.
Family aesthetic education refers to the enlightenment education of beauty and art in the family led by parents, through a series of observation, communication and practice, to explore and build a deep parent-child relationship.
Art, nature, and life are all resources and approaches for family aesthetic education. From art galleries to vegetable markets, they can become the home of family aesthetic education. As long as you find a teachable moment, aesthetic education can happen anytime, anywhere.
In fact, family aesthetic education is not just a set of courses, a system, a pavilion, and an activity. Beauty education can be integrated into every moment and every detail of life between parents and children. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy, and independent thinking ability is an important value of aesthetic education. No matter when and where, in society, community, family, family, children can have unique cognition and connection to all people, things and things. .
In this process, we and our children learn from each other, appreciate each other, grow together, build a deeper and closer parent-child relationship, and create better memories, which is the core of family aesthetic education.
Ms. Frederick Reiser, director of the public development and cultural and artistic education department of the Louvre National Museum, once said in an interview that in the process of art education, they will not pay too much attention to the transfer of artistic knowledge, but especially encourage those who do not have the opportunity Parents who have been with their children for a long time bring their children to the museum to experience it. If you often travel, work overtime, and only pay attention to your child’s clothing, food, housing, transportation and homework, you need art to help us collide with our children’s hearts. In an environment surrounded by works of art, parents and children can communicate more quickly and directly. Talking about some profound and grand topics, such as views on emotions, dreams, life, and life, the two generations know each other better.
The term Empathy comes from the Greek word Emphethia, which originally means “feeling,” and was originally used by aesthetic theorists to describe the ability to feel the subjective experience of others. Aesthetic experience includes individual meaning, cognition, culture, emotion, and memory. When appreciating a work of art, the mirror neurons in the viewer’s brain will initiate an unconscious process to connect with the work, and the mirror neurons will bring The viewer’s feelings and experiences related to the theme of the work and activate the viewer’s emotions.
Empathy is never imposed on children, it is something they experience for themselves in their experience with art. Many contemporary art works are related to social issues, such as environmental protection, disasters, the world situation, and living conditions. Therefore, parents should let their children have appropriate exposure to such works and issues. Even simple discussions at home can enhance children’s empathy. Heart.
We hope that children will break through themselves, and we hope that they will not follow others’ opinions, and will not turn their backs on one point or a disagreement. To remain objective and open, then we must cultivate children’s critical thinking.
Critical thinking does not mean criticism, but refers to looking at the same thing objectively and dialectically from different angles, asking questions, expressing one’s own opinions, and finding evidence as support.
The improvement of critical thinking by aesthetic education is unparalleled, because art is a subject with no single answer, it does not like to be cookie-cutter. It is the best exercise for critical thinking to train children to make independent judgments on things that are thoughtful, well-founded, grounded, and multi-angle. With critical thinking, you have the soul of independent thinking and equal dialogue.
Today, children face an increasingly complex world, and they need to develop creativity to solve problems and challenges more than their parents. Subject education cultivates children’s concentrated thinking, and the greatest value of art education lies in cultivating children’s divergent thinking, which is the basis of creativity.
Creative thinking may seem unpredictable, but it also consists of four stages, namely preparation (brainstorming or obtaining information), contemplation (internal processing of information), enlightenment (solution), and verification (communication and evaluation). In many cases, major decisions are made not only based on data and analysis, but also driven by intuition and constantly updated by creativity.
There is no so-called “correct answer” in art, which removes the shackles of thought and becomes the basis for endless thinking of creativity. Children’s innate creativity will be diminished by exam-oriented education. If you want children to maintain fresh creativity in adulthood, parents need to consciously cultivate, encourage and stimulate children’s various perceptions and thinking styles in the family.
As adults, we are accustomed to taking “classes” as the main way of learning. When children show some artistic talents more or less, we always want to do something, such as sending them to learn piano and do handicrafts. The teachers of the hobby class asked the children to color, copy, and imitate, trying to make the results look good. But no matter how well designed these activities are, they cannot be called good aesthetic education, it is just a parental narcissism without parental involvement.
As the home base for children’s growth, we can make beauty and art a habit of children through its rich scenes. So what should we do?
1. Set up “scattered” art corners at home
Not every family has the conditions and it is necessary to set up a separate children’s art room, but we can distribute the different functional areas of the art room in various locations in the home. For example, if a child loves to draw, two separate walls are set aside for creation and display; if the child draws a lot, the whole family will tape the work to the body, and the exhibition will be held wherever they go; I want to give the child inspiration , you can put art books, replicas of famous works, natural creatures (such as flowers and plants, fish tanks), etc. on the display wall, as well as meaningful decorations (such as shells brought back from the sea, colorful seeds or from different cultural backgrounds) Facebook, etc.). Art corners are attractive and contagious, and the environment for family aesthetic education does not need to be established additionally, it is good to be as free, scattered and diverse as possible.
2. Go to art galleries like a supermarket
In museums, art galleries or art galleries, you often see adults reading introductory texts to children, but the works are ignored. In fact, this is completely putting the cart before the horse. Children themselves have unique and keen observation skills, they just need to give them some time to calm down, slow down, and look more deeply and carefully, so that they will have a psychological connection with the work.
We should go to the art gallery with our children in a relaxed atmosphere, just like going to the supermarket. For example, before looking at Picasso’s portrait works, you can look at each other’s faces with your child, and then ask the child how many colors they see? Which painting is your favorite? Which of them do you like best? Just like going to the supermarket, you ask your child how many kinds of noodles are on the shelf? Which one do you most want to eat? Why choose this one? If the child does not resist, you can explore some in-depth topics: “How do you feel when the artist paints?
” small gift. It doesn’t matter that, focus on experience and ignore harvest, don’t expect too much, such an aesthetic education environment will definitely have a subtle impact on children.
3. Feel the nature and follow the laws of
nature Various winter camps and summer camps, various small and long holiday parent-child tours, and weekend outdoor barbecue activities are lively, but after the end it is like a catastrophe. Food, bottles and paper towels are thrown everywhere, and parents are chasing their children. Feeding food, staring at children and running and jumping, is this still family aesthetic education?
Nature is the source of inspiration for art and the foundation of all beauty. Family aesthetic education should rebuild the connection between people and nature, so that people can break out of the self-centered thinking pattern and abide by the laws of nature. Children don’t like adults talking about nature seriously, they like to work and explore in nature, so what we need to do is to lead children to see the source of food, feel the change of climate, and experience the magic of nature, they will realize that nature is Beautiful is to be feared.
4. Teach children to resist “media aesthetics”
Contemporary children are immersed in the world of images and symbols every day, and the visual environment they face is diverse and chaotic. It is impossible for us to completely isolate children from the larger environment. What we can do is to help them develop the habit of thinking and establish their own aesthetics, rather than being coerced.
We can take children to “reverse simulations” to deconstruct the meaning behind the heavy information. For example, when we go home together and see an advertisement copy at the elevator door, we can ask the child: What elements did you see? What do you think this ad wants people to do? Would you like to do that? Scientific aesthetic education can help children resist the negative effects of media and advertisements, because when we study and discuss with children, we can guide them appropriately and effectively, and plant the values of beauty, justice and simplicity into the children’s young minds early.
5. Immerse yourself in it with children
In family art activities, whether parents can immerse themselves in it and enjoy it is a barometer to measure the effectiveness of family aesthetic education. If parents can feel at ease, such an atmosphere can have a greater impact on children than the artwork itself.
Although my parents are very busy and tired, they have to make time to draw some pictures, listen to some music, and smile knowingly from the books they are reading. Such moments are good aesthetic nourishment. It has been scientifically proven that children’s art activities last longer when an adult is present. The most precious contribution in family aesthetic education is actually parents’ time, not tuition for interest classes.
do you know? Aesthetics has been around since about 150,000 years ago. When life was turbulent and there was no downtime, the ancestors of mankind began to wear necklaces polished with animal bones as decoration. After thousands of years of changes, the aesthetic genes of human society have been preserved.
In fact, the growth history of each person is the history of his aesthetic experience, which is created by what he sees, hears, tastes, touches, and smells. inseparable.
Many parents equate family aesthetic education with enrolling in a class. Enrolling in a class is indeed easy, but it also means giving up. Because the parents are absent, family aesthetic education cannot be realized. There are still many parents who are very anxious about implementing family aesthetic education: “It is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. I have no artistic foundation. How can I give my children a good aesthetic?” Here, I want to correct my name: family aesthetic education is really not that grand, it does not need How professional parents become, as long as we are respectful, open and willing to experiment with beauty and art.
Every family is actually a closed aesthetic space, in which people truly show their aesthetic attitudes. The mother is the child’s first aesthetic education tutor, but she does not rely on books and theories, but on the details of life. She does not need to tell the child whether something is beautiful or not, but what kind of seeds she planted , the child will bloom what kind of flowers.
There is a word called “growth curse”, which means that no matter what, children will eventually grow up to be like us, even with different careers and choices, but the essence and nature are the same. Therefore, if we want our children to have good aesthetics, we must first awaken our talents and enthusiasm.
If you have time, take a trip to an art gallery alone. You’ll be more relaxed and curious without kids, where you’ll relive your childhood memories of art. In the spare time of busy work, you should learn to do something “useless” related to beauty, whether it is handicraft, learning painting, tea ceremony, flower arrangement or listening to a music album, when the relationship between you and art is relaxed, Only by getting closer, can a good aesthetic education atmosphere be brought to children.
Family aesthetic education does not require parents to be proficient in painting and calligraphy, but to give the child space and time to accompany him to appreciate life, nature and art, and more importantly to appreciate the child – this miracle that comes through us. We create beautiful moments with our children and preserve them through art.
Beautiful education is the dividing line between survival and life, and it is also another kind of DNA we give to children, which guides children to live a rich and meaningful life at all times.
