The purpose of this study is to investigate how early childhood teachers understand the art experience area in the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old children and how they operate the Nuri Curriculum in practice. It also aims at examinations of difficulti...
The purpose of this study is to investigate how early childhood teachers understand the art experience area in the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old children and how they operate the Nuri Curriculum in practice. It also aims at examinations of difficulties and requirements by putting the Nuri Curriculum in action. This study intends to help early childhood teachers more efficiently and effectively carry out the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum at the institutions for preschool children.
To work out the end of the study, subjects are created as follows:
1. How much do early childhood teachers understand the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old children?
2. How is the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum being carried out?
3. What are the difficulties and the requirements of early childhood teachers in practice?
The subjects in the study were 220 teachers selected at random in Pusan. 10 of them were individually interviewed for detailed research on their difficulties, requirements and suggestions as to improvement.
The answer sheets from 217 respondents were gathered. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were analyzed through Windows SPSS 14.0. The interviews were recorded and the recorded data were transcribed and categorised according to the frequency of words and sentences, and then classified conformably to contents.
The findings are formulated as follows:
First, early childhood teachers show high-leveled perceptions of characteristics, aim, detailed contents, categories of contents and teaching principle of the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old children. They, who give one or two classes a week, highly perceive the importance and necessity in the respect of the huge effect of the art experience in early childhood on the development of artistic sensitivity, imaginative power, ingenuity and education for the whole man as the Nuri Curriculum says. Nevertheless an actual practice of such a composite content-category of the art experience area will formally be considered as typical kind of arts, e.g. fine art, music and dance, and become showing expression activity.
Second, early childhood teachers think familiarity and importance of their personal art experience high. Especially when they plan and work out the Curriculum of the art experience area in action, they believe their personal experience is decisive to do good. But the main reason for the poor execution of the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum is verified to be caused by their insufficient experience on art itself.
Third, in the preparing stage before the enforcement of the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old kids in 2012, early childhood teachers in charge took the training course. But they all pointed out many problems. In detail the training courses were so short and theory-oriented, and performed in the large class with pictures that they only could bring about many difficulties for the teachers to apply to a real field in the classroom.
Through the results and arguments above this study concludes:
In general early childhood teachers pretty well understand the characteristics, aim, contents, value and importance of the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum. But real operational state of the art experience area is not to carry out any art experience of children manifoldly or abundantly because of the difference between the purpose of Nuri Curriculum for the art experience area and contents of teaching-learning materials prepared for the execution, poor personal art experience of teachers resulted from the contemporary working conditions, shortness of time and money, and parents always asking visible results, expressions without appreciation or observation. In order that the art experience area of the Nuri Curriculum for 5-year-old children successfully executes rich art experience of children and teachers together, the government, or two ministeries should prepare for the execution of the art experience area in the Nuri Curriculum a unified system supporting development and spread of practical materials guiding teachers for both kindergartens and day-care centers, efficient training courses for teachers to improve understanding professional concepts and practical techniques of art, and various offers for improving of the teachers' personal art experience, as they ask.