What is aesthetic education and its role in raising children?

The system of aesthetic education implies such a pedagogical influence on the child that contributes to the development of his ability to perceive the beauty around him, to distinguish the beautiful, harmonious from the ugly. Over time, young people should not only be able to appreciate the beauty of nature and human relationships, but also experience the need for aesthetic activity.

Aesthetic
education
is one of the areas of pedagogy, the main goal of which is to teach a person to understand and appreciate beauty.

Aesthetic education has a personal orientation and should cover the following aspects of children’s development:

Formation of needs in the field of art and artistic values.
Cultivating the ability for artistic perception, which would cover many areas of aesthetic phenomena.
Mastering knowledge to understand art, developing the ability to express one’s own judgments and views on the artistic embodiment of reality.

The concept of aesthetic education

Aesthetic taste does not develop suddenly, but over many years. It arises in the process of working on the aesthetic growth of a child’s personality, when parents and teachers try to develop creative abilities in him.

This area of education has a complex impact on the individual, permeates all areas of activity, affects the depth of thinking and feelings, life attitudes, and selectivity. It is closely interconnected with all areas of education, especially moral, since it has an emotional impact, makes one experience a range of complex feelings, acts as an organizer of spiritual growth, and a regulator of behavior.

The development of a person’s aesthetic culture is indicated by the absence of vulgarity in behavior and the ability to appreciate the poetry of high feelings, relationships, and creative work.

Children not only need to have a need for aesthetic activity, but also actively apply the acquired system of knowledge and skills in everyday life. Children's creativity trains memory, forms mental reactions, and teaches planning. The very first lessons of aesthetics, using examples of natural phenomena and the native land, give rise to the foundations of patriotism, love for loved ones, and the Motherland.

The importance of aesthetic education

Humanity began to understand its relevance since ancient times. Many thinkers and poets argued that with its help it was possible to establish a society of harmony and justice and that “beauty will save the world.”

The educational power of art lies in the fact that with its help a person is able to experience such intense feelings as joy and sadness, love and hatred, admiration and disappointment. Once experienced after reading a fairy tale or theatrical production, they are transferred by the child to real life phenomena.

Culture and literature play no less a role in the spiritual life of society than science. With their help, young people also learn about the world, develop their consciousness, and strengthen their views and beliefs.

The potential of natural aesthetic possibilities is not always realized if feelings are not “humanized” by education. Having impeccable hearing, you may not understand the beauty of a piece of music, but having excellent eyesight, you may not be able to appreciate a masterpiece of fine art or the splendor of nature.

The task of educators is to develop in students the ability to perceive and appreciate the beauty in the surrounding nature, work and even everyday life.

Aesthetic education in the family

The task of parents is to teach the child to see, hear and understand everything that surrounds him. It is necessary to develop artistic taste and learn to identify the beauty around you from early childhood. You need to try to interest the child in modeling and drawing, try your hand at singing or music.

The ability to perceive beauty, enjoy works of art, and later to create independently is born gradually. Some children show a passion for drawing, others for music; talents manifest themselves as the children become able to perceive and understand beauty.

In a family setting, it is important to thoughtfully organize aesthetic education. A child’s artistic abilities can be harmed by excessive vanity of parents who praise their child in every possible way. Inflated self-esteem becomes an obstacle to learning and stifles talent. The result is that more modest but persistent peers achieve greater creative success over time.

Means of aesthetic education

Parents need to carefully select material for comprehension. Radio and TV running for hours give superficial impressions and do not force you to think. Fiction provides vivid images and demonstrates the logic of the plot. Preschoolers eagerly listen to fairy tales and world classics; they learn the ability to read expressively through examples of artistic reading by famous artists.

Even the most outstanding works can leave you indifferent if they are not performed properly. The same applies to painting, sculpture, music.

Formation of aesthetic feelings in preschool age

Aesthetic education is not innate. It begins to form in early childhood in a social environment. Active and competent pedagogical leadership is critical to the development of aesthetic sensitivity. In the process of aesthetic development, children gradually master the basics of aesthetic culture, aesthetic perception, ideas, concepts, interests, judgments, needs, feelings, creativity and artistic activity. The dynamics of the formation of aesthetic sensitivity and the formation of aesthetic culture involves the passage of several stages directly related to the developmental characteristics of a child at a certain age.

It is advisable to consider the features of early childhood development as a propaedeutic period towards aesthetic acceptance of the surrounding world. This stage begins with the formation of sensory sensitivity and subsequent emotional “reaction” to acquaintance with the most striking qualities and characteristics of objects that surround the child. From early childhood he pays attention to everything beautiful, bright, colorful and shiny. Aesthetic perception of the environment has its own specific characteristics. For a child, the most important thing is the sensory form of things, namely their shape, color, sound, smell. Therefore, the aesthetic education of a child requires a certain level of development of sensory culture.

The child perceives beauty as the unity of content and form. Form is the unity of lines, sounds, colors. But an aesthetic child can perceive only when the perception is emotionally charged, because aesthetic appreciation is closely related to feelings and emotions. Aesthetic feelings are distinguished by the fact that they are accompanied by an encounter with the beautiful light of spiritual excitement and selfless joy. Thus, we can conclude that an important component in the formation of aesthetic feelings is the emotional reaction to the perceived object. But the full formation of aesthetic feelings cannot occur with an abstract, “passive” perception of reality.

Activities in preschool age are also important for the formation and development of aesthetic feelings. At an early age, techniques for imitation of various types of primitive games and artistic activities are formed, and a feeling of satisfaction develops not so much from performing the activity, but from the achieved result.

The development of language contributes to the assimilation of the names of a much larger number of reference signs, aesthetic qualities through comparison: dirty - clean, small - big, sad - cheerful, ugly - beautiful, etc.

It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that in most cases preschoolers cannot separate the concepts of “correct” and “beautiful”, which has great potential for the implementation of both moral and aesthetic educational tasks. In preschool age, aesthetic education of children is carried out by parents “intuitively” rather than purposefully. But at the same time, aesthetic education in the family plays an important role in the aesthetic development of a preschool child and the formation of his personality, despite the fact that parents do not have pedagogical and methodological skills. In the family, family traditions are the basis of aesthetic education, ensuring continuity between generations, the formation of aesthetic values, role models and experience. Therefore, it is also important to carry out explanatory and methodological work with parents of preschool children on aesthetic education.

In the conditions of a preschool educational institution, subsequent changes occur in the aesthetic development of the child. The child becomes more receptive to certain elements of art form, such as color, rhythm and rhyme. Children also begin to react differently to the work itself. Their motivation to evaluate a work of art is secular or subjective. Young children usually notice individual features of a phenomenon, express their thoughts briefly and sometimes use very specific assessments.

The place of aesthetic culture of education in society

Aesthetic culture is one of the elements of public culture, one of its oldest forms, which arose in the era of primitive man. Only over time did it acquire a somewhat independent meaning, but even now it appears in the form of a kind of philosophy, reflecting a person’s rich attitude to the world, his desire for perfection and ideal.

Since ancient times, the idea of beauty has been interpreted quite broadly: health, wealth, and everything that was useful were considered beautiful. Beauty was considered not only from the point of view of aesthetics, but also ethics, economics, and a perfect object or state was recognized as beautiful.

In our society, there is a clearly visible gap between the social significance of aesthetic culture and its real state. Traditional cultural and moral values are replaced by rational and logical ones, which leads to a lack of emotionality in relationships, rudeness and cynicism, and a primitivization of life guidelines.

Depending on a specific era of life, ideas about beauty may change. The concept of beauty is rather inherent in external form. The beautiful does not depend on time and carries within itself harmony, perfection, and humanistic spiritual components.

The modern busy, overpopulated world is educationally untenable. It produces only educated consumers, and the principle of aesthetic education presupposes the creation of conditions for development, the creative disclosure of each individuality.

Methods and means

In pedagogy, many methods have been developed to help develop a person’s taste. However, so far none of them can replace the personal example of loved ones. The psychological and moral environment in which a person lives and grows is also important. By personal example, the student learns the following things:

Communicate;
Take care of yourself;
Treat yourself and others.

Other methods are closely related to the means by which the effectiveness of education is achieved. We list the most popular of them:

Conversations;
Creative workshops;
Classes in clubs, sections;
Visiting exhibitions, theaters, museums;
Participation in festivals, competitions of intellectual and creative content;
Home creative evenings.

We have already said that the success of aesthetic education largely depends on when it was started. The sooner a child begins to comprehend the beauty of the reality around him, the faster he will form the correct aesthetic ideals, which he will strive for throughout his life.

Play is the second most effective opportunity to educate a harmonious personality who knows how to appreciate beauty. Being part of the game scenario, its protagonist, the child accumulates correctly formulated aesthetic impressions and delves into the rules of moral behavior. The game prepares the individual to “enter” the life arena. The development of speech helps to form an idea of the richness of language and culture and instills the need for reading.

Participation in holidays, concerts, exhibitions is the next link in the development of taste through direct participation in the creation of beauty. Visiting theaters, museums, exhibitions, and concerts improves the inclinations of taste, forms and improves the aesthetic ideal.

Objectives of aesthetic education

The ability to notice what surrounds people, be it a twig, a bug, the sound of a waterfall or the singing of a bird, is the basis for the education of aesthetic feelings, which is not limited to art. If a child loves nature, the harmony of which is incomparable to that created by man, he will be able to enjoy a piece of music or painting.

Aesthetic education also manifests itself in everyday life. A child’s personality is influenced by the house in which he lives, the way his parents eat, dress, and communicate. Competent speech, a beautifully set table, neatly dressed and combed parents - all these are components of upbringing, which is not a simple sum of knowledge. The ability to draw and play the violin is also important, but the main thing is to see the harmony around and participate in its creation.

The goal of developing a personal culture is to cultivate in it:

perception, the ability to find beauty in natural phenomena, art, relationships;
feelings that give an emotional assessment of everything that surrounds;
needs, the need for aesthetic experiences, contemplation and analysis of beauty, participation in its creation;
tastes, the ability to analyze everything that surrounds for compliance with aesthetic standards;
ideals, ideas about the beauty of nature, the beautiful in man, art.

Methods of experiencing beauty

Personal example is recognized as the most effective method of aesthetic education. Educators and parents lay the foundation and pass on to their students the most important criteria of artistic consciousness. Along with personal example, which includes a style of behavior, a manner of communication, a set of moral qualities, and appearance, the methods include:

conversations;
lessons and additional classes in clubs, studios;
participation in excursions;
trips to theaters, museums, exhibitions, work at festivals and competitions, matinees, evenings;
creative homework.

Aesthetic education in a preschool educational institution

Aesthetic education of preschool children

It has long been known that for the harmonious development of personality, a child must be comprehensively developed. Aesthetic education provides an integrated approach to personal development; it includes labor and moral education. It permeates all spheres of a person’s life: the depth of his thinking, the subtlety of feelings, the nature of selectivity and attitude, etc.

Aesthetic education is a purposeful, systematic influence on a person with the aim of his aesthetic development, that is, the formation of a creatively active personality, capable of perceiving and appreciating the beauty in nature, work, social relations from the standpoint of an aesthetic ideal, and also experiencing the need for aesthetic activity. Aesthetic education is the process of developing a person’s aesthetic attitude to reality. With the emergence of human society, this attitude developed along with it, embodied in the sphere of material and spiritual activity of people. It is associated with their perception and understanding of the beautiful in reality, their enjoyment of it, and the aesthetic creativity of man. In other words, aesthetic education is a purposeful, systematic process of influencing a child’s personality in order to develop his ability to see the beauty of the surrounding world, art and create it. It starts from the first years of children's lives.

Aesthetic education is a very broad concept. It includes the education of an aesthetic attitude towards nature, work, social life, everyday life, and art. However, the knowledge of art is so multifaceted and unique that it stands out from the general system of aesthetic education as a special part of it. Raising children through the means of art is the subject of artistic education. Aesthetic education is closely related to all aspects of education. The relationship between aesthetic and moral education and development is revealed by the fact that ethical and aesthetic ideas are associated with positive and negative human experiences. For example, the joy that overcomes a person when perceiving beauty is very similar to the feeling of pride when committing a moral act. On the contrary, disgust and contempt are caused not only by ugly actions, but also by their figurative reflection in one form or another of art. The educational power of art lies in the fact that it makes a person deeply experience a wide variety of feelings: delight and indignation, sadness and joy, anxiety and peace, love and hatred, and treat similar phenomena in real life accordingly.

The educational significance of all types of art in the formation of the foundations of patriotism is great: children are imbued with love for their native nature, native land, city, are proud of the results of the work of their parents, and gradually become familiar with the concept of the Motherland. Also, aesthetic education is closely related to labor education. By transforming this or that material into a useful thing, a person rejoices, feeling his increasing strength. In the process of artistic and creative activity, memory is improved, especially visual and musical. Thus, in drawing, children reflect what is stored in their visual memory. In the process of aesthetic and artistic activity, mental operations are also improved: synthesis, analysis, comparison, mental abilities and the ability to plan one’s activities are developed. This promotes mental development, which, in turn, ensures the child’s full aesthetic education.

In the process of implementing aesthetic education, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: systematically develop aesthetic perception, aesthetic feelings and ideas of children, their artistic and creative abilities, and form the foundations of aesthetic taste. It is important that the teacher’s work is built on a scientific basis and carried out according to a specific program that takes into account the current level of development of various types of art, in compliance with the principle of gradualism, consistent complication of requirements, and a differentiated approach to the knowledge and skills of children of different ages.

Aesthetic education presupposes, first of all, the presence of an aesthetic ideal, an idea of the perfect, perfection in art and reality. For example, one person may see the aesthetic ideal of art in a generalized and perfect reflection of life itself and human relationships in it, in the depiction of its progressive tendencies aimed at improving people and society. Another can see it only in the perfection of forms, artistic techniques of expression by the artist of his subjective experiences. The aesthetic ideal is socially determined and represents a social pedagogical phenomenon. An aesthetic ideal can also express an idea of the perfection of human beauty, human relationships (ethics), and labor (technical aesthetics, design).

So, the tasks of aesthetic education of preschoolers, based on its goal, can be presented in two groups.

The first group of tasks is aimed at developing children’s aesthetic attitude towards their surroundings. The following is provided: to develop the ability to see and feel beauty in nature, actions, art, to understand beauty; cultivate artistic taste, the need for knowledge of beauty.
The second group of tasks is aimed at developing artistic skills in the field of various arts: teaching children to draw, sculpt, design; singing, moving to music; development of verbal creativity.

The named groups of tasks will give a positive result only if they are closely interconnected in the implementation process.

The leading methods for solving problems of the first group are demonstration, observation, analysis, and the example of an adult. Showing as a method of education is used during initial acquaintance with the subject of aesthetic reality. It is important for the teacher to determine the object of the display and create conditions so that the children’s attention is focused on what they are shown and asked to listen to.

When using these methods, it is very important that the teacher knows how to show his feelings, his attitude, and knows how to express feelings. The expressiveness of the intonation of the poem, sincere admiration for a beautiful thing, genuine grief when encountering negligence in clothing, sloppiness, a bright emotional manifestation of one’s feelings by an adult serves as an active method of influencing a child, since it is based on a feature of childhood - imitation.

To solve problems of the second group, practical methods are required as leading ones: demonstration, exercise, explanation, method of search situations. These methods are discussed in detail in the methods of visual activity and music education.

The general principle for selecting methods is to find methods and techniques that would support children’s desire to create “works of art” with their own hands (sculpt, draw, craft, decorate), and participate in various types of artistic activities. Creative tasks are useful; they and any manifestation of creativity must be combined with teaching the skills of artistic expression. If a child does not have drawing skills, he will not be able to create something creative, despite the conventional understanding of this term in relation to preschoolers. That’s why direct teaching methods are needed: demonstration, exercise, examination of objects, description. In these cases, learning becomes one of the factors that stimulate creativity, and creative tasks give learning a developmental character.

Artistic taste is inextricably linked with the aesthetic ideal, as part of aesthetic education. It is also a social phenomenon and is influenced by social class relations. Artistic taste is the developed ability to feel and evaluate perfection and imperfection, unity or opposition of content and form in art and life. Like the aesthetic ideal, artistic taste can be present in children at different levels, thereby largely determining the level of aesthetic education.

An important sign of aesthetic education is the developed ability to admire beauty, perfection in art and life. Closely related to the element of admiration is the general ability to deeply experience the feelings generated by an aesthetic object. The emergence of a range of sublime feelings and deep spiritual pleasure from communicating with the beautiful, a feeling of disgust when meeting the ugly, a sense of humor, sarcasm at the moment of contemplating the comic, feelings of anger, fear, compassion that arise as a result of experiencing the tragic - all these are signs of genuine aesthetic education.

Aesthetic taste is manifested in the fact that a person receives pleasure, spiritual pleasure from meeting true beauty in art, in life, in everyday life. Aesthetic taste is a broad concept; it includes not only understanding, enjoying deep, beautiful works of art. But also an understanding of the beauty of nature, work, life, clothing. Education plays a big role in the formation of aesthetic taste in children. In classes, preschoolers are introduced to classic works of children's literature, music, and painting. Children learn to recognize and love true works of art accessible to their age.

Getting acquainted with a folk tale, with the works of S.Ya. Marshak, S.V. Mikhalkov, K.I. Chukovsky, listening to the works of P.I. Tchaikovsky, D.B. Kabalevsky and other composers, children begin to become familiar with the beauty and richness of artistic words, music. All this gives them true pleasure, is remembered and forms the foundations of artistic taste. By instilling in children the basics of aesthetic taste, we teach them to see and feel the beauty of the world around them, and to cherish it. It is better to keep a flower in a flowerbed, but in order for it to bloom and bring joy to others, it must be looked after. Cleanliness in the group, which creates comfort and beauty, must be maintained, not littering, and putting away toys and books. Thus, in the process of education and training, the tasks of aesthetic education in preschool age are carried out.

Aesthetic education of children is carried out by familiarizing children with the aesthetics of everyday life, with the beautiful in work, in nature, social phenomena, and the means of art. Teaching a child to feel and understand the beauty of life is a big and difficult task that requires long-term work by adults. To implement the tasks of aesthetic education of children, certain conditions are necessary. First of all, this is the environment in which the child lives and develops. It has an impact on the child that can hardly be compared with others in its strength and significance. If the environment is aesthetic, beautiful (not necessarily rich), if the child sees beautiful relationships between people, hears beautiful speech, etc., then from an early age he will accept the aesthetic environment as the norm, and everything that differs from the norm will cause he has aversion. The aesthetics of everyday life includes many details. This is the aesthetics of the environment: the things that surround the child and which he uses, toys, clothes of the baby and the people around him, the design of the premises, etc. Beautiful things “please the eye”, evoke positive emotions and a desire to preserve them. The “white tablecloth” theory is quite fair: if we want to cultivate not only neatness, but also the need for an aesthetic environment, we must exclude non-aesthetics as such. From the first years of a child’s life, it is important both at home and in a preschool institution to pay attention to the aesthetics of everyday life.

The concept of “everyday aesthetics” also includes the beauty of everyday relationships between people who surround the child. It is very important what kind of speech he hears, what intonations. It is necessary that it be correct, figurative, rich in intonation and friendly. The aesthetics of everyday life is also a person’s appearance. Carelessness, untidiness in clothing, awkwardness in the selection of colors, inability to find your own style - all this is contrary to the law of beauty. The aesthetics of everyday life is an indispensable condition for the aesthetic education of a child, the background that reinforces or destroys his or her ideas about beauty. Three rules: to live in beauty, to notice beauty, to support and create beauty around oneself - make the aesthetics of everyday life a means of aesthetic education of a child.

Nature is a powerful means of aesthetic education. It is in it that you can see harmony - the basis of beauty: a variety of colors, shapes, sounds in their combination. Nature itself is a condition for the comprehensive education and development of a child. It becomes a means when an adult purposefully uses its “educational potential” and makes it visible to the child. The teacher reveals to children the world of nature, helps them see its beauty in a drop of dew on a bud, and in the interweaving of grasses, and in the colors of the sunset... You just need to see this beauty for yourself and find words that are accessible to the child’s heart. Works of art about nature will provide him with invaluable help in this, which he must know well and skillfully use. In education using the means of nature, it is necessary not only a passive contemplative, but also an effective principle (to protect nature, to help it).

Social life, the work of people with whom the child constantly encounters, is also an important means of aesthetic education. The well-coordinated work of builders makes children want to create a good building, act together, and be attentive to each other. Descriptions of the work of sailors, pilots, teachers, and doctors not only introduce preschoolers to these professions, but also make them want to imitate them. All this is reflected in their games and contributes to the education of moral and aesthetic feelings. Therefore, the teacher thoroughly prepares for conducting excursions, during which children receive and accumulate the sensory experience they need. Excursions, when properly prepared and conducted, broaden the horizons of preschoolers, teach them to see, compare, generalize, which forms the basis for the development of creative imagination and abilities.

A multifaceted and inexhaustible means of aesthetic education is art: fine art, music, literature, architecture, theater, cinema. The early introduction of children to real high art contributes to the emergence in the child’s soul of a truly aesthetic perception of reality. Each type of art reflects life in its own way and has its own special impact on the child’s mind and feelings. From the first years of life, children are accompanied by oral folk art and children's literature. A fairy tale occupies a special place in their lives.

Not everything can be expressed in words. There are shades of feelings that can be expressed more deeply and fully in music. Music sharpens emotional responsiveness. The child needs it. “Childhood is just as impossible without music as it is impossible without games, without fairy tales,” V.A. was convinced of this. Sukhomlinsky. A condition and means of aesthetic education is the artistic activity of preschool children, both organized by the teacher and independent. Fine art is necessary for a child. It gives him rich visual images. In artistic activity, as a rule, there is a reproductive factor and a creative one. Both are necessary and interconnected - a child cannot create without learning to reproduce.

All of the above-mentioned means of aesthetic education - everyday life, nature, art, activity - are effective both on their own and in conjunction, but oversaturation is just as harmful to development as a lack of emotional impact. We must search and find the golden mean.

Aesthetic education of children in a preschool institution is carried out in different forms depending on the principle of guiding their activities, the method of uniting preschoolers, and the type of activity. The teacher manages the development process of children. Children themselves love artistic activities, and often engage in them on their own initiative. It cannot be said that independent artistic activity is completely carried out without the guidance of an adult. It's just that the nature of this guide is indirect. The teacher takes care of the child’s accumulation of experience and impressions, which will later be reflected in independent drawing, modeling, stories, and musical activities; teaches visual arts and techniques.

Independent artistic activity arises on the initiative of children to satisfy their individual needs: make a gift for mom, make a toy for playing, etc. The teacher’s task is, without violating the child’s plan, to help him if such a need arises. It develops children's independence using hints, drawing attention to a subject, object, questions, suggestions, assessing the results and level of independence, fiction, and fantasy. Independent activity can be individual in nature, and sometimes children unite in groups of two or three and, having discussed their idea, together prepare a concert, draw scenery, make attributes for the game, organize a theatrical game, etc. Signs of independent activity are the child’s attention to the means expressiveness in music, movements, drawing, speech and the ability to transfer what has been learned into one’s own new activities and apply it to solve new problems.

Independent artistic activity is closely related to the work that is carried out purposefully and in various forms by the teacher. These could be organized classes on speech development, visual arts, or music. They are included in the mandatory “grid” of weekly classes, conducted systematically according to pre-developed content and in order of increasing complexity. The teacher organizes excursions into nature, to monuments, to a museum, to a festively decorated street, etc. His task is to think through the content of the excursion, taking into account the laws of children's perception and educational tasks. It is necessary to determine and study in advance the location of the excursion, the method of placing children around the object of observation, since it is very important not only to impart new knowledge to preschoolers, but also to evoke aesthetic feelings in them.

One of the forms of children's activities that contribute to aesthetic education is theatrical games and dramatization games. These games are held under the guidance of a teacher. Holidays and entertainment occupy a significant place in the pedagogical process of a preschool institution and in the lives of children. Entertainment as a form of work with preschool children is held once every two weeks. The entertainment content is varied. These can be themed literary and musical evenings. Entertainment that combines different types of arts is useful for aesthetic development. A variety of material is selected - literary, musical, and visual on the same topic. Such evenings of entertainment bring joy to preschoolers, introduce them to national culture, and cultivate aesthetic feelings. Aesthetic education of preschool children can be organized in different forms, and these forms have their own qualifications.

The level of aesthetic education in different children, depending on their living conditions and upbringing, is not the same. In the general process of education, teachers strive for an optimal level of aesthetic education. In other words, the main goal of aesthetic education must be seen in the child organically combining the presence of an aesthetic ideal and genuine artistic taste with a developed ability to reproduce, admire, experience, judge and artistic and aesthetic creativity. The weakest point in the aesthetic education of schoolchildren is the area of aesthetic ideal and artistic taste. This fact makes the child’s aesthetic education insufficient and limited.

Measuring aesthetic education can be carried out by different criteria: psychological, pedagogical, and social. The area of measurement by psychological criteria of aesthetic education includes, first of all, the child’s ability to adequately recreate artistic images in the imagination, their reproduction, as well as the ability to admire, experience and judge. It is relatively easy to judge these psychological phenomena by how and how much the child communicates with aesthetic objects of art and reality, how much his mood changes and develops in accordance with the artistic and aesthetic essence of the work, how he evaluates this work and his own mental state generated by it. Aesthetic education is characterized by bringing performing skills to automatism and focusing on the creativity of a new image. Finally, the social criteria of aesthetic education must include the presence of broad interests in art, and identify the needs for communication with the aesthetic phenomena of art and life. But not only that. Aesthetic education in the broad social sense of the word is manifested in the entire complex of behavior and relationships of the child. His actions, work activity, relationships with people in public and personal life, his attitude towards his clothes and appearance are all obvious and convincing evidence of the degree of a person’s aesthetic education.

Defining aesthetic education helps make the work on the aesthetic formation of a child’s personality more specific and focused. Thus, aesthetic education is very important for the comprehensive development of a child. The basics of aesthetic education are laid with the participation of adults immediately after the birth of a child and continue to develop for many years. Family, kindergarten and school play a very important role in aesthetic education, so parents, educators and teachers should try to create such an atmosphere so that the child develops such aesthetic feelings as a sense of beauty, cleanliness, neatness, and so on as quickly as possible.

Bibliography:

Return to roots: folk art and children's creativity. Educational and methodological manual / ed. Shpikalova T. Ya., Porovskoy G. A. − M.: Humonit. Vlados. – 2000. – 168 p.;
Lykova, I. A. Program for artistic education, training and development of children 2-7 years old “Colored palms”. – M.: “Karapuz-didactics”, 2007. – 142 p.;
Torshilova, E.M. Naughty, or peace to your home: Aesthetic education of schoolchildren / E.M. Torshilova // Preschool education. − 2001. − No. 9;
Aesthetic education in kindergarten: A manual for kindergarten teachers / Ed. N.A. Vetlugina. – M.: Education, 1995;
Aesthetic education and development of preschool children: Textbook for universities / E.A. Dubrovskaya, T.G. Kazakova, N.N. Yurina, etc.; Edited by E.A. Dubrovskoy, S.A. Kozlova. − M.: Publishing House, 2002. − 256 p.

Means and methods of aesthetic development

The basis of a child’s cognitive motivation, his ethical attitudes, and attitude towards others and his homeland lies in his active practice. The productivity of aesthetic education depends on the degree of connection with objective activity. The development of personality occurs the more successfully the earlier it is included in creativity.

Play is the most productive way to develop creative potential. Through play activities, the child is involved in communication, masters elements of culture, and accumulates aesthetic impressions. During the game, preparation takes place to enter the world of art, to turn it into a means of understanding everything that surrounds.

Speech development classes form an understanding of the diversity of languages and cultures of the native country, awaken a love of reading, and provide communication skills. A special place is occupied by trips to the theater and expressive reading clubs.

Classes on the surrounding world instill love for nature and patriotism. A special role is assigned to the school museum; the formation of the traditions of the educational institution requires attention.

Extracurricular activities to study the culture of the peoples of Russia , holding events and holidays together with parents, participating in folk games and theatrical performances, rituals provide an opportunity to comprehensively solve the problem of aesthetic development of children and at the same time their spiritual and moral education.

Art lesson planning becomes especially important. They continue organically during extracurricular activities. The children successfully apply the knowledge acquired in art lessons in real creative practice in classes in drama clubs and fine arts groups.

Closely connected with this educational area are trips to theaters and cinema, excursion trips, and communication with cultural and artistic figures.

note

The life experience of children at each stage of development is quite small. They will not soon be able to distinguish aesthetic phenomena from the general mass. Introducing creativity fosters a child’s aesthetic needs, the ability to enjoy art, awakens interest in it, and develops aesthetic taste.

Goals and objectives

The goal of aesthetic education is simple and complex at the same time: to teach a person to see beauty in all its manifestations, analyze and evaluate what he sees, and take an active part in its creation.

The tasks of raising an aesthetically developed personality are also multifaceted. They are conditionally divided into 2 groups.

Group 1 of tasks works in the following direction:

Forms taste and a creative attitude towards the surrounding nature;
Develops the ability to feel, hear, see beauty in nature, art, literature, and people’s actions;
Fosters the need to contemplate beauty and excellent artistic taste.

Group 2 of tasks is aimed at developing the skills to create beauty in art and everyday life.

Only the close interaction of these tasks will allow achieving high educational results.

Public health and aesthetic education

The current educational system is untenable. It is in the interests of the state to replace it with one that will allow each individuality to reveal itself to the fullest, will help children determine their passions in art, science, and choose their favorite craft.

Clubs and development groups should include no more than 5-7 people, starting from the age of 5. Being away from parties, the younger generation will develop in a cultural environment, learn to feel and think.

The thinking and speech of many modern children are undeveloped; they are not able to express their feelings and experiences. The little ones need to start with music and dancing, and learn to read poetry. Older children need classes in ballet, theater, and art studios, familiarity with rhetoric, chess, astronomy, and the study of biology, archeology, and anthropology.

Where does a creative society come from, competent mentors capable of raising a moral person with a broad humanitarian outlook? We need enthusiasts, armed not only with theory, with developed programs, and with clear ideas about the goals of aesthetic education. The process is long, but inevitable, otherwise society faces degeneration.

Just as one cannot force one to love, one cannot force one to understand beauty either. The Hermitage with the Russian Museum, art books should not be on the agenda every Sunday. Children can be “filled” with knowledge. But the goal of aesthetic education cannot be a set of knowledge. This concept presupposes, first of all, the ability to see and create beauty around oneself.