What is the main purpose of art education in ordinary primary and secondary schools?

In recent ten years, China's art education has made remarkable achievements. Since the promulgation of "Art Teaching Syllabus for Primary and Secondary Schools", the basic art education system based on the characteristics of China has initially taken shape, especially with wide coverage and complete system (syllabus, curriculum, teaching materials, etc. ) art education in primary schools is gratifying. However, compared with overseas developed countries and regions, although there are advantages and disadvantages, we have to admit that there are still gaps in many aspects. This article wants to talk about some superficial understanding.

First of all, from the purpose and task of art education.

The purpose and task of art education in primary schools in Bavaria, Germany (promulgated in 1985) is to provide children with the opportunity to paint freely and stimulate their rich imagination; Let children be happy in their own artistic creation and develop their creative ability in many ways; Teachers should guide children to pay attention to and observe consciously, and give play to their expressive ability (painting language and expression mode) on the basis of being familiar with the tools, materials and skills of production; Visit churches and museums to give children a chance to see real works of art; Let the children decorate and perform various forms of games in the annual festival celebrations.

Japan's Ministry of Education (implemented in 1980) has newly formulated the guiding spirit (purpose and task) of art learning in primary schools: ① to cultivate children with perfect human nature; ② Cultivate children's aesthetic taste of loving nature and society; ③ Try to explore every child's creative intelligence and independent thinking skills; ④ Create a relaxed, lively and full campus life atmosphere; ⑤ Teaching students in accordance with their aptitude while respecting universal moral principles; ⑥ Choose teaching content and adjust teaching time; All schools seek more flexible education, that is, to formulate appropriate, feasible and creative educational methods according to the different situations of children in different regions.

The aims of art education in the Outline of Fine Arts Teaching for Primary Schools promulgated by the State Education Commission 1988 are as follows: ① Primary art classes should enable students to master simple basic knowledge of fine arts and simple modeling skills; ② Pay attention to cultivating students' noble aesthetic taste and patriotic feelings in teaching, and strengthen the cultivation of morality and will; ③ Gradually improve students' observation ability, image memory ability, imagination ability and creativity.

Judging from the teaching purpose of the syllabus, art education in Germany and Japan pays attention to the cultivation of quality, human creativity and evaluation ability, the formation of personality, and the interconnection with other disciplines. Art education is regarded as an important part of holistic education, through which harmonious people can be obtained, and life fun, art practice and social services can be unified. In addition to the development of intelligence and talent, art education in primary schools in China mainly emphasizes the imparting of knowledge and the mastery of skills, especially the aesthetic education with patriotism as the theme under the political premise. This shows that China's primary school art education is based on the national foundation and national conditions, and is gradually changing to quality education.

Second, from the perspective of curriculum and teaching content arrangement.

Germany and Japan generally attach importance to art, and the art class hours in primary schools are 2-4 hours per week, which is more than that in primary schools in China (there is no guarantee), ensuring children's learning time. Art has a completely equal position with Chinese, mathematics and other disciplines in school education. Painting, three-dimensional production and daily necessities production account for a large proportion. Germany has also incorporated stage performance and layout (comprehensive art) into the study of art plastic arts. The arrangement of teaching content is very extensive. There is no unified teaching material in Germany, and teaching suggestions are only published in the form of outlines. In the lower grades, there is no separate art class, and the choice of content is almost the whole country. Although Japan has art textbooks, it also shows great autonomy and flexibility. The teaching content should focus on prompting, enlightening and guiding, and pay attention to cultivating students' ability of observation, imagination, practice and creation. Taking the first grade of primary school as an example, the excerpts are as follows:

Bavaria, Germany: ① learning content-drawing with colored pencils or chalk (people and things that children meet); The purpose of learning is to stimulate imagination and creativity. Examples of topics-me and my cone-shaped paper bag (German custom, every freshman brings a colored cone-shaped paper bag on the first day of school); The person I like; Our street; Children on the 30th; A witch with two noses; Traveling in the valley, I met a dwarf; Slim Hans; Fat Edith. For example, the teaching of The Witch begins with reading or telling, and then performs with puppets. Children imagine all kinds of witches, such as weather witches, and describe them; Later, the children painted; Finally, read the picture together.

In addition to the above, there are two stage scenes; (3) printing with tubular pigments; ④ Basic knowledge of watercolor painting; 5 color painting; ⑥ Look at the pictures, etc.

The contents of primary art teaching in Japan include: modeling games (playing with sand, making up, etc. ), the three-dimensional performance of painting (clay sculpture, paper model, etc. ), making and using articles and decorative works. Textbooks rarely introduce the necessary knowledge of painting and production, but use homework (works) and short and vivid words to inspire and guide students to think, imagine and create. Topics include: sumo painting, buying juice, arriving in the flower country, greeting cards, invitations and so on.

Taking People's Education Publishing House as an example, the contents of art teaching for first-year students in China are: knowing the basic shape and color; Draw something similar to this shape in life, such as a square handkerchief, a round balloon and a triangular flag, make flowers, Caiqi Yang, clay animals and so on. Some provincial textbooks, such as the first book of art for nine-year compulsory primary schools newly compiled in Hunan, also contain local art contents such as tearing, pasting, folding and cutting. Under the guidance of the syllabus, the arrangement of teaching materials is perfect and comprehensive, which is superior to foreign countries to some extent. However, the arrangement of art class is classified as the last of the "three small doors" (sound, body and beauty), and most schools (especially rural primary schools) can't complete the teaching task. China's primary school fine arts can only be an intermittent adjustment of Chinese and mathematics courses, and the curriculum setting and implementation are in contrast with the syllabus textbooks. The basic art education in our country should be implemented from the teaching conditions.

Third, from the perspective of teaching conditions.

Germany and Japan are countries with developed economy and advanced science and technology, and they have the ability to support education in many aspects, which is fully reflected in the art education in primary schools. Schools in Germany and Japan have specialized labor and art teaching. Teaching facilities are quite complete. In addition to the necessary painting tools and materials, there are also various tools of woodworking and artistic modeling machinery to facilitate students to make craft items with different materials. All kinds of specimens and sketch teaching AIDS are readily available, so that students can take them as needed and devote themselves to the study of art. The art teaching conditions in some schools are incomparable to those of domestic professional painters. Teachers in both countries are very busy and have high status. Teachers must obtain higher vocational diplomas and licenses to become art teachers. The campus environment and off-campus environment of most schools pay attention to the edification of art, and students can often visit museums, art galleries and exhibition halls to enjoy high-quality works of art.

China's economy started late and investment in education was low. Compared with the teaching conditions in Germany and Japan, it is shabby. Art teaching in primary schools in large and medium-sized cities is not perfect, teachers' quality is low, and venues and equipment are lacking. In addition, the quality-oriented teaching of art in primary schools in China is still very weak.

Fourth, from the teaching form of the course.

Classroom teaching in German and Japanese schools is completely open. The teacher just put forward the task and gave some inspiration. Many times, they let students get their own place and enjoy themselves, let students make progress in success, learn lessons from failures and sum up experience. Teachers are the organizers and preparers of activity courses. Only when students have difficulties and need help can teachers give them help, which truly reflects the students' dominant position.

In our country, most primary school classes adopt rigorous lesson preparation, step-by-step implementation of teaching procedures, pursuit of classroom initiative, and guarantee the completion of teaching tasks, mainly led by teachers, and most students only passively absorb. Attending and watching classes pay attention to the form, regardless of the actual effect. Many excellent classes are only evaluated in various forms, such as singing opera and using a lot of props. Just be detailed, comprehensive and stable. Classroom teaching is still subject to many restrictions, teachers work hard and scholars work hard.

The openness, constraint, flexibility and mechanization of classroom teaching have a far-reaching impact on students' lifelong study and work. In the short run, basic teaching in China is good, but in the long run, all kinds of abilities, including learning ability, are worse than those of foreign students. Many students who enter a higher school have not mastered creative learning methods, but obtained them through a large number of intensive remedial classes or "hard work", resulting in a situation in which some students have high scores but low practical ability. German and Japanese students are bold, capable and enterprising.

Fifth, from the teaching effect.

Art education in Germany and Japan has ensured the popularization and implementation of art education and even art education with national attention and favorable conditions. The overall artistic quality of students is higher than that of our country, which makes all citizens have elegant and civilized artistic taste in their work and life, and innovate, seek differences and create in their work and career. Due to the social system, German and Japanese pupils' choice of subjects for further studies and employment also directly affects the improvement and development of artistic literacy. After all, there are very few talents who enter art colleges or engage in professional art, which does not affect the purpose of national art education. For example, Professor Takumi Fujisawa of Japan and China Everbright University said: "The purpose of our subject (art) education is not to train people who understand art knowledge and master related skills, let alone to train painters, sculptors and pattern designers, but to gain comprehensive harmonious ability through art education in general education, not those who are intellectually unbalanced."

The effect and present situation of art education in China are extremely unbalanced. Large and medium-sized cities are better than rural areas, and coastal areas are better than inland and remote areas. Some of them won gold medals in international painting and production competitions, and a large number of painters and artists emerged. The good side of basic education is incomparable to other countries in the world. Of course, this is also due to the departments and families that have the conditions to carry out off-campus training and education. It is a special phenomenon of education in China to expect one's own success from childhood. However, problems such as poor school buildings, lack of professional teachers, lack of teaching equipment and lack of money for school-age children still exist objectively, which is worrying. It must be difficult for China's art education to face different regions, different nationalities, different economic conditions and different educated people.

To sum up, the planning ideas and prospects of art education in China are good. Compared with foreign developed countries, there are still some gaps in educational purposes, teaching contents, teaching conditions and teaching effects. With the rapid development of economy, China's basic art education will rank among the advanced countries in the world in the near future. This point has begun to be reflected in the new boarding schools that have emerged in the past two years, which has given us hope. With first-class facilities, first-class teachers and first-class management level, Lushan International Experimental School in Changsha, Hunan Province has carried out the overall reform experiment of primary and secondary education and teaching. Among them, there have been major educational reform measures in aesthetic education and achieved good results. The introduction is as follows:

1. Improve art teaching facilities and create good learning conditions. The school has a special art classroom, special desks, plaster models, drawing boards, photo clips, physical projectors, modeling lights and so on. Tools and materials such as paper, pigments and brushes used by students for painting are distributed by the school as needed. This is not only convenient for teachers to guide, but also beneficial for students to practice.

2. Hire professional teachers to teach and improve teachers' professional level. The school selects excellent teachers in the whole province and even the whole country, among which the requirements for art teachers are very high. All employed art teachers must have a college degree or above, have professional expertise, have more than three years of art teaching experience, have certain educational and teaching achievements, and must pass the trial teaching and trial teaching assessment. For formally employed art teachers, the school regularly organizes study tours to help them accumulate experience, broaden their horizons and improve their professional level.

3. Increase teaching hours to ensure students' training time. Ordinary classes have enough art classes stipulated by the State Education Commission, and each class has two class hours per week. The school arranges two classes in succession, which saves the time of preparing before class and cleaning up the equipment after class, which is convenient for teachers to teach systematically and ensures the training time of students. The art class of the art intensive class is arranged for 6 class hours per week, plus 4 extracurricular activities, so as to organically combine inside and outside the class.

4. Improve teaching methods and improve teaching quality. The teaching content is based on the provincial primary school art textbooks, referring to other textbooks and books, which flexibly enriches the teaching content of children's imagination painting, memory painting, hand-made and three-dimensional composition. Teaching methods are mainly based on inspiration and game activities, focusing on cultivating students' observation, imagination and practical creativity.

5. Carry out colorful activities and optimize the teaching environment. In art teaching, schools often hold exhibitions and organize painting competitions at all levels to promote students' learning motivation. At the same time, we should pay attention to the influence of hidden education on students' aesthetic education, and change the contents of team newspapers, class magazines and publicity windows regularly; Portraits and aphorisms of great men are posted in teaching rooms and corridors; Exquisite murals or famous paintings are hung in meeting rooms, activity rooms and halls; The school motto, vows and huge slogans are embedded in the white wall ... which give students the edification of beauty and the enlightenment of love. It is in this atmosphere that students' ability to discover beauty, appreciate beauty and create beauty is greatly improved. In the past two years, more than 20 works of art by students have been published in provincial and municipal journals, and more than 1 10 have won prizes in competitions above the municipal level.