Ideal And Reality: On The View Of Knowledge And Curricular Structure Of Art Education In The Elementary And Middle Schools

Under the background of art curricular change in the elementary and secondary education of China the dissertation dialectically studies view of knowledge and curricular composition of art education in the elementary and middle schools, with Chinese traditional mode of thinking applied, which combines dualistic-varying and acting-by-the-mean-with-duality-at-command. The study aim at helping art education practitioners understand the relation between reality and ideal that, they should meet in the process of art education reform and development. Thus they will negotiate reasonably when there appear new view of knowledge and curricular ideas. They won't be too complacent and conservative to accept any change and development, and they also won't be too ideal to transcend the feasibility of reality. The dissertation is made up of the following six sections:(a) Probing into developmental rules and adjusting-and-controlling strategies of art education. In view of the importance of discussing the rules of historical development the author acknowledges the significance of investigating the developmental rules of the things and believes that understanding the rules of development of art education can help us to negotiate specific problems. Using for reference the thinking mode of Chinese traditional dualistic-varying the author demonstrates that things develop in spiral, and describes the process of art education changing between romanticism and rationalism both in USA and China, thus ascertaining the development tendency of art education in China. On the basis of this the author propose to forwardly adjust and negotiate the rales, namely get to an overall balance. The treating of the specific problems in the following text is based on this idea.(b) Putting forward an intuitional method to understand art education of different levels from T structure. The author thinks that education in all disciplines includes two side aspects, namely noumenon of discipline and educational function, which form a T structure. They supplement each other, and neither should be overemphasized at the expense of the other. Art education in different levels emphasizes particularly on different aspects. On the ground of this the author reckons art instruction in the compulsory education stage in China asgaining-a-superficial-understanding-tlirough-cursoiy-observation, and that in the ordinary high schools as going-deep-into-the-realities-of-life, and then brings forward the pertinent countermeasures.(c) Discussing the relationship between ordinary knowledge and art education in the elementary and secondary schools. The author believes that everybody should possess some ordinary knowledge as a social member. Because it is the foundation of both social intercourse and special knowledge development, besides it is also the fountain of pleasure. In comparison with special knowledge ordinary knowledge is characterized as relative superficiality and refers to ordinary citizens. It includes discipline's developing thread on the whole, basic structure relation and main knowledge. Then at this angle the author expounds what fine art specifically connotes as ordinary knowledge on the premise of acknowledging that fine art can be regarded as ordinary knowledge.(d) Reflecting structurally on the art curriculum in the elementary and secondary schools and analyzing what should be mostly concerned in the current reform. From the viewpoint of multiple intelligences by the famous American developmental psychology expert Mr. Gardner the author analyzes the unity and diversity of the curriculum, advances that unified curriculum has priority in the compulsory education stage while the diverse curriculum claims precedence in the ordinary high schools. On the basis of this the author works over some main issues on curricular change respectively in the stages of compulsory education and ordinary high school.(e) Analyzing dialectically the effect of a...