In 2017, the Hong Kong Government’s Education Bureau made a significant change to the kindergarten curriculum, with the aim of respecting children’s uniqueness in terms of art and creativity. This change reflected the inadequacy of the curriculum’s artistic and creative components. There is a longstanding need to equip kindergarten teachers with content knowledge and pedagogies to provide children with meaningful arts experiences. However, bachelor’s programs in early childhood education do not provide sufficient training in visual arts for teachers, which can hinder their ability to create and implement an integrated creative arts curriculum. Taking a global perspective, we recognize the importance of masterpiece appreciation as an element of visual arts education; nonetheless, it is also crucial to consider contextual factors when designing a local early childhood curriculum. This chapter introduces a 1-year program in early visual arts education, showing how this program was designed and implemented to enrich teachers’ competencies in early visual arts. This program provided hands-on experiences in studio art-making activities and theoretical applications related to the visual arts curriculum and instruction design. The program’s core content included visual research to investigate material physicality, masterpiece appreciation to enhance art knowledge, and curriculum design to integrate visual arts into the story-based early childhood curriculum. The program facilitated teachers in (1) consolidating concepts related to aesthetic and creativity development in the early years, (2) identifying the elements and media of early visual arts, (3) demonstrating techniques and attitudes for visual arts making and appreciation, (4) acquiring the knowledge and skills for designing and implementing early visual arts activities, and (5) applying the fundamental principles in early visual arts classrooms. The kindergarten teachers finally integrated masterpiece appreciation into the story-based curriculum at the different class levels. At the teachers’ level, this study inspires practitioners to be aware of the gap between global knowledge and local practice in early visual arts to motivate them to be proactive in designing glocal visual arts activities for children. At the institutional level, this study calls for a culturally responsive teacher training program in early visual arts to educate future teachers. This chapter offers new insights and tips for teacher educators on planning and conceptualizing a creativity-fostering curriculum in early visual arts education. Balancing artistic creativity with the limitations and constraints faced by teachers, these visual arts teaching strategies are viable and socioculturally suitable for Asian preschool settings.

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From Exploration to Integration: Visual Arts Media in a Teacher Education Program in Hong Kong

  • Suzannie Kit-Ying Leung,
  • Keung Hung

摘要

In 2017, the Hong Kong Government’s Education Bureau made a significant change to the kindergarten curriculum, with the aim of respecting children’s uniqueness in terms of art and creativity. This change reflected the inadequacy of the curriculum’s artistic and creative components. There is a longstanding need to equip kindergarten teachers with content knowledge and pedagogies to provide children with meaningful arts experiences. However, bachelor’s programs in early childhood education do not provide sufficient training in visual arts for teachers, which can hinder their ability to create and implement an integrated creative arts curriculum. Taking a global perspective, we recognize the importance of masterpiece appreciation as an element of visual arts education; nonetheless, it is also crucial to consider contextual factors when designing a local early childhood curriculum. This chapter introduces a 1-year program in early visual arts education, showing how this program was designed and implemented to enrich teachers’ competencies in early visual arts. This program provided hands-on experiences in studio art-making activities and theoretical applications related to the visual arts curriculum and instruction design. The program’s core content included visual research to investigate material physicality, masterpiece appreciation to enhance art knowledge, and curriculum design to integrate visual arts into the story-based early childhood curriculum. The program facilitated teachers in (1) consolidating concepts related to aesthetic and creativity development in the early years, (2) identifying the elements and media of early visual arts, (3) demonstrating techniques and attitudes for visual arts making and appreciation, (4) acquiring the knowledge and skills for designing and implementing early visual arts activities, and (5) applying the fundamental principles in early visual arts classrooms. The kindergarten teachers finally integrated masterpiece appreciation into the story-based curriculum at the different class levels. At the teachers’ level, this study inspires practitioners to be aware of the gap between global knowledge and local practice in early visual arts to motivate them to be proactive in designing glocal visual arts activities for children. At the institutional level, this study calls for a culturally responsive teacher training program in early visual arts to educate future teachers. This chapter offers new insights and tips for teacher educators on planning and conceptualizing a creativity-fostering curriculum in early visual arts education. Balancing artistic creativity with the limitations and constraints faced by teachers, these visual arts teaching strategies are viable and socioculturally suitable for Asian preschool settings.