Humans grow by being influenced by rhythmical movement, e.g. mother's heartbeat, bloodstream, breath, and voice, etc. since they are in the mother's womb, and live with internal rhythm, e.g. emotion, intelligence, as well as body after birth. Besides,...
Humans grow by being influenced by rhythmical movement, e.g. mother's heartbeat, bloodstream, breath, and voice, etc. since they are in the mother's womb, and live with internal rhythm, e.g. emotion, intelligence, as well as body after birth. Besides, there are outside rhythm, e.g. natural phenomenon, change of season, other people, objects, situation, etc. exist in the world and humans make efforts to regulate toward a positive direction by recognizing internal rhythm and outside rhythm and living in harmony with them. This way, we can say that our life has rhythm, and the reason of regulating it in balance not to break it is to live more healthy and happy life. Adults are more easy to recognize the brokenness of rhythm and try to keep balance, however children have the periodic characteristic that is difficult to keep the balance of rhythm and harmony by recognizing their own rhythm. Therefore, educators close to the children with regard to their life and growth are required to exert efforts to assist them to grow in healthy rhythm.
However, we can often find lots of cases which do not consider children's internal and outside rhythm in current early childhood education, e.g. education mainly with knowledge, gifted and talented education, early education which does not consider children's interest, etc. Also, even the teachers who teach the children implement education of rhythm without exactly recognizing the meaning of rhythm in early childhood education, which phenomenon is regrettable. The reason of this is considered that the opportunity to recognize the importance of it has been insufficient, since the attempt of deeply considering the meaning of rhythm in early childhood education has been insufficient, because the research on rhythm in the early childhood education so far has mostly been performed from the viewpoint of the 20th century's educationalists' rhythm teaching method.
Hereupon, this research aimed at investigating and considering the meaning of rhythm in early childhood education from more wide viewpoint by escaping from the viewpoint of music education to mention Korean traditional infant care which includes the educational content suitable for the energy of the nature and the stream of season among the various viewpoints related to rhythm and the importance of rhythm in their childhood, and searched for the meaning of rhythm in Syto Kimiko(齋藤公子) and Rudolf Steiner's education, who practised the rhythm in the early childhood in their education and research the implication of rhythm in early childhood education by analyzing the examples which utilized rhythm in reality.
This research was performed as following procedure. As the research method, literature research was implemented, and as the general performing process, the research was divided into problem definition, data collection, data analysis, and result deduction.
The meaning of rhythm included in Korean traditional infant care can be searched in the philosophy of life, the energy of universe is rightly connected with human energy. Baby blanket care, which shares rhythm with mother, traditional play according to season and term, natural play device which contains the energy of nature, traditional tone, etc., show that the educational content was made on the basis of the rhythm of the universe and the nature.
The meaning of rhythm which Syto Kimiko considered could be searched in the Sakura Sakuranbo rhythm movement which she suggested. Sakura Sakuranbo rhythm movement, which is the physical exercise activity to express with body along with the music is a program music, is a program made based on the evolutionary biological philosophy, i.e. human development is performed in the order of the universe and the nature and the system, which can be said to be an attempt to match with children's basic development rhythm. In terms that it intended to maintain children's development rhythm healthily, it could be confirmed that it emphasized the importance of the rhythm of childhood.
The meaning of rhythm which Rudolf Steiner could be searched in Waldorf's childhood education. Waldorf childhood education makes spatial rhythm be naturally infiltrated and recognized through the stream of a day, week, month, and a year, which are the life of the children. Children can get emotional stability through the rhythmical life to which their life assigned the principle of order. In terms that this emotional stability can be the basis to have a healthy life either in quantity or quality, the importance of rhythmical life in childhood could be confirmed.
In conclusion, the implication of rhythm in early childhood education based on the above investigation can be summarized as follows.
First, rhythm education has the characteristic to be performed by using play, exercise, and expression. As the method to educate rhythm, which is invisible, the method of rhythm education could be investigated that it has been performed through ‘play’, which considers children's interest, ‘exercise’, which promotes children's physical and emotional development, and ‘expression’, which is easy to express one's thought or feeling with language or gesture.
Second, rhythm education promotes children's growth and development toward a positive direction. The basis of rhythm education is to compose children's physical and mental rhythm healthily and stably, so that it has a significant meaning that it can develop children's mind and body toward a good direction.
Third, rhythm is inherent in children's life itself. Human has his own intrinsic rhythm, and intends to have balance and harmony not to break the rhythm in the system or the universe and the nature. Rhythm is inherent in breath, natural phenomenon, season, daily life, etc., which are children's life, and it could be recognized that a true rhythm education is to create a rhythmical life atmosphere to desirably form body, spirit, and mind by considering this rhythm in childhood.