7.3: Guiding Principles

The following guiding principles relate to the importance of teaching, knowing their children, and providing instructional activities that tap into the children’s prior knowledge and experiences. Exploration in the arts is important, and creative expression is more authentic when not dictated by adult expectations. Adults need to scaffold this process of exploration, providing structure to activities, mediating potential problems, and inspiring and encouraging children’s progress. In this manner, adults can make the arts rewarding to all children, including those with special needs.

Figure 11.6: To bring the arts to children with disabilities, you may need to make accommodations, such as this tray for a wheelchair.[1]

Beyond helping to build artistic skills, reflection and modification are important to the creative process. These opportunities in the arts also build skills such as problem solving and critical thinking; the arts bring parallel opportunities for developing language/communication, mathematics, and social and interpersonal skills. In the same vein, the arts have applications in many disciplines and aspects of social–emotional development. Observant teachers can capitalize on the arts to foster the development of the self, identity, and emotional outlet.

Figure 11.7: Using tools with playdough is an opportunity to problem solve and explore cause-and-effect. [2]

The arts can be pursued even with meager budgets and free materials. Children benefit from high-quality learning experiences and materials—both as vehicles to encourage exploration and as symbols that demonstrate adult care for children’s welfare.

• The arts are inclusive of and can be enjoyed by all children.
• The arts are a language that is common to all and foster understanding between children from different linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as between children of differing abilities.
• The arts promote dispositions for learning, and regular experiences in the arts during the preschool years cultivate lifelong engagement in arts-related activities.
• Children make their own meaning. Original, imaginative expression is a natural occurrence when children engage in the arts, which adults scaffold in an appropriate environment.
• Children are capable of creating original art in all its forms.
• Children learn about human connections, beauty, and appreciation of the arts.
• The child’s work is play, and experiences in the arts should be offered in play-oriented approaches.
• Children are active learners who thrive when challenged appropriately. An effective curriculum includes a broad range of methods, experiences, and definitions of success for all children, teachers, and preschool settings.
• Arts experiences for preschoolers are more about process than product. What is important is being engaged, not the end result or product.
• The arts reinforce the integrated nature of learning. Because children learn holistically, the arts should be presented in an integrated way with other learning domains.
• Cultural competence is approached through art. The arts can help children reflect on their own cultures and origins as well as those of others.
• The arts motivate and engage learners. They are a means to explore, take risks, communicate, and define personal perspectives and preferences regardless of culture, developmental status, or ability.
• Since children have a propensity for imitation, more than anything else, a teacher who is enthusiastic about the arts can potentially inspire children from any culture, language, or ability to become excited about art-making.
• The arts offer a unique means for families to connect and interact. They have songs, stories, games, and many other talents to share.[3]

References

[1] Image by Sgt. Teri Hansen is in the public domain

[2] Image by U.S. Airforce is in the public domain

[3] The California Preschool Curriculum Framework, Volume 2 by the California Department of Education is used with permission