The Meaning Of The Theory Of Aesthetic Education In The All-round Development Of Human Beings

The education of aesthetics is also known as the aesthetic education. It is aconcept as important as morality, intelligence and physique.Its meaning can beinterpreted in both narrow and broad senses. Since the aesthetic education in Chinahas been discussed over a century, in a broad sense, it refers to the function of all thethings that may influence, affect, and cultivate people. It also includes theeducational activities of shaping significance that the school, society and familyconduct to the educatees. From a narrow perspective, aesthetic education is parallelwith the moral, intellectual, physical and labor education. In this era of socialdevelopment, the developing method of taking economic construction as the centermakes people more and more single-faceted. People pay less attention to theaesthetic ability and aesthetic awareness. However, with the further development ofsociety, people have realized the important role of aesthetic education in the"superstructure".Aesthetic activity is essentially a practical activity, so it has a specificcharacteristic different from other practical activities. Beauty, as one of the humannatural forces, is related to sensibility. The so-called taste, receptivity and creativityhave a profound connection with beauty and are usually related to how to improve aperson’s mentality, mental attitude towards life, the cultivation of personality and soon. Moreover, the specific aspects of aesthetics, such as social beauty, technicalbeauty, scientific beauty, etc, play an important role in the edification oftemperament, intellectual development, the cultivation of will, and the training andimprovement of personality. Therefore, from the perspective of the overalldevelopment, the aesthetic education is an important part which cannot be ignored.From the perspective of human needs, aesthetic education is connected with various human needs and satisfactions. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,needs can be divided into: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness needs,the need for love and esteem needs. They are known as the “lack of needs”, meaningthe absence of these needs will affect the human survival and development. In otherwords, these needs are necessary factors for the survival and development of humanbeings. In addition to the needs mentioned above, there are self-awareness needs,understanding needs, aesthetic needs and self-actualization needs on the top ofMaslow’s pyramid of needs. They are also known as growth needs, indicating theyplay a positive role in human perfection. According to Maslow, aesthetic activity isclosely related to self-improvement. It is a kind of peak experience and can reflectthe value of the aesthetic subject. Therefore, aesthetic education is an indispensablepart of the comprehensive development of human being.In conclusion, this thesis will first make the necessary interpretation of theproblems and developing direction of aesthetic education in reality, exploring thephenomena that people’s understanding of aesthetic education is not profound andscientific enough, people do not pay enough attention to the importance of aestheticeducation and people hold biased opinions. The author will put forwardcorresponding means and methods for improvement based on the practice ofaesthetic education. Secondly, the thesis will explore the origin of the aestheticeducation from the perspective of comparing the West with China, analyzing itsnascent, beginning and developing stages. The author will discuss the developingdirection of the Chinese aesthetic education combined with scientific Marxistaesthetics. Thirdly, the focus of this thesis will be placed on the transcendence ofaesthetic education, explaining how aesthetic education, as a kind of faith, cantranscend and replace religion and demonstrating the importance of aestheticeducation from the aspects of cultivating the mind, and beautifying the soul. Fromthe teleological perspective, the thesis concludes that the goal of aesthetic education is to foster free, independent and modern talent of comprehensive development.Finally, the thesis will demonstrate that Chinese aesthetic education is an importantpart of the construction of spiritual civilization and the construction of qualityeducation. The aesthetic education plays an important part in elevating public quality,achieving comprehensive development of the society, and promoting modernization.The aesthetic education has attracted the attention of more and more people on thebasis of completing the transition to market economy.