| Nowadays the kindergarten is not as playful as it should be. Young children are found to be pushed to learn academic skills, especially in Taiwan where the educational system is test-oriented and the acquisition of higher education is regarded as the ladder to higher social status and economic advancement. A concern is that countries influenced by Confucius emphasize the cultivation of skills at the expense of learning through exploration and play, thereby hindering the development of imagination and creativity.; In this study, the researcher worked as an ethnographer to compare children's play and symbolic representations in two kindergarten classrooms with different philosophies and structures. Also, investigated were Taiwanese parents' and teachers' perceptions of the purpose of kindergarten education and their attitudes toward play, imagination, creativity, and learning through transformations among multiple symbol systems. Data collection strategies included participant observations, artifact reviews, home visits, interviews, questionnaires, and administration of structured narrative tasks.; Parents of the two schools showed conflicting views of education. For parents from the Exploratory Learning School (the school with a more open-ended curriculum), most important were enabling children to be independent thinkers, to have curiosity, and to develop competency in expressing ideas. In contrast, parents from the Efficient Learning School (an academically-oriented school) reported as most important were children's learning of academic skills and being prepared for the elementary school. Many of these parents avoided public kindergartens for their children because they heard from friends or relatives that children in public schools played all day long without learning anything.; Indoor play time was not available in the Efficient Learning School shaping children's play and learning behaviors. Nevertheless, some resilient children weathered risks of being punished by seeking and creating opportunities to play. In contrast, the Exploratory Learning School had a richer play environment; still, teachers' role in children's play was limited to a stage-manager. Despite this, children exhibited complexes of rich play behaviors indicative of a close relationship among children's constructive play, social interactions, constructive competency, creativity ideas, and social-dramatic play.; Interviews and home visits revealed that parents were rarely involved in children's play. However, more parents from the Exploratory Learning School had been invited by the children to pretend together, possibly suggesting school influence.; With respect to the benefits of children's learning through transformations among multiple symbol systems, few parents seemed to understand the value of such kind of learning experience. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
