Building a ＂Building＂ of Creative Education Based on Children

■ Entering the kindergarten affiliated to Northeast Normal University

Chen Heqin pointed out: "There is a strong desire to create in children’s nature. As long as we pay attention to induction in education and let children practice and explore, we will cultivate creative ability and make children become outstanding talents that meet the requirements of the times." Therefore, it is very important to cultivate children’s creativity.

In 2001, our garden put forward the idea of "three natures and children-oriented", with the core of keeping children’s interest, caring for their curiosity, stimulating their imagination and tapping their exploration ability, which started the exploration of creative education. In 2015, the concept of "creative education" put forward by Northeast Normal University once again strengthened the pace of creative education in our park. After nearly 20 years of thinking and practice, creative education has taken root in the kindergarten attached to the East Normal University, and the personality qualities of children in our kindergarten, such as active thinking, being good at exploring and having a wide range of interests, have gradually emerged.

"Three natures" is the foundation of creative education.

Creative education must follow children’s nature, personality and the law of physical and mental development. Specific to my garden, it is to follow the concept of "three natures, children-oriented"

Curiosity, inquisitiveness and fun are children’s nature. To be natural is to guide and help children, protect their curiosity and stimulate their exploration spirit on the basis of asking questions and having fun. Personality refers to the sum of a person’s unique, stable and essential psychological tendencies and characteristics. Paying attention to individuality means respecting children’s differences. Mind refers to the temperament, character, quality and moral character expressed through people’s inner activities. Cultivating mind is to guide children to learn to communicate.

Based on this, we should consider the "three natures" of children when organizing all activities, because it is the starting point of "creation". In order to fully arouse children’s curiosity, we pay attention to the expansion of children’s life experience. For example, we regularly and irregularly organize children to go hiking, go to farmland to pick, visit natural museums, visit aviation museums and so on. In order to respect children’s personality and cultivate children’s mind, teachers should not only pay attention to developing children’s originality, but also guide them to pay attention to cooperation. Take the construction game in my garden as an example. When designing a "dream city", from discussing how to draw drawings, how to plan urban layout, to the final selection, operation and construction of materials, teachers ask children to think independently first, and then decide the construction scheme by themselves. When children build buildings one by one, their creative desire is met as never before.

Different age groups focus on different creative quality cultivation.

Children in our garden are divided into small classes, small classes, middle classes and large classes. Children of every age will show different characteristics of creative development due to the characteristics of physical and mental development, so the creative quality of children to be cultivated also has its own emphasis.

Children in small classes (2-3 years old) and small classes (3-4 years old) have strong imitativeness, more specific thinking, and their creativity is in its infancy. Based on this, we are committed to creating an environment for children to arouse their creative interest. For example, in regional games, teachers will ask: What if there is no food that customers want to eat in the supermarket? How to build a small castle with materials in your hand? Children solve specific problems through their own imagination and thinking, and initially cultivate their creative consciousness.

The children in the middle class (4-5 years old) have gradually strengthened their ability to understand things, can independently express all kinds of things in life, and have rich and vivid imagination. Based on this, we aim at the cultivation of children’s creative thinking. The children have many questions: Why did it rain yesterday and not today? Why does sugar disappear in water? Wait a minute. We guide children to compare things according to observation, so as to find the similarities and differences between things. At the same time, children’s motivation to explore has increased accordingly.

Children in large classes (5-6 years old) are flexible, fond of learning, inquisitive and diverse in expression. Based on this, we focus on cultivating children’s creative potential with the help of comprehensive game activities. Teachers turn result education into problem-driven process education, so that children can understand "what else could it be" in games and operations. In this way, children can actively explore and experience the fun of creation.

Starting from five fields to carry out creative education practice

Based on the development goals of the five major areas in the Guide to Learning and Development for Children Aged 3-6, the core goal of creative education is to cultivate children who are interested, curious, imaginative and dare to explore, and these goals are integrated into the five major areas, with regional games, theme activities, construction games, reading activities, social practice activities, young children’s connecting activities and sports activities as the main organizational forms.

Health field pays attention to the cultivation of children’s will quality. Good will quality is the foundation of children’s future creative development. Based on this, our park and the teachers of Physical Education College of Northeast Normal University jointly carry out dynamic basketball and Chinese Wushu activities, and jointly carry out activities such as doll football with Changchun Sports Bureau, so that children can get professional guidance and temper their strong will.

The language field pays attention to the cultivation of children’s imagination and reading interest. Therefore, in language teaching, we highlight the value of "creation", and create riddles, children’s songs, picture books and dramas … all kinds of creative activities always guide children to think and imagine, which greatly improves the tension of language courses.

In the social field, children are focused on solving problems together through cooperative inquiry and developing creative thinking. Therefore, when organizing activities, teachers mainly guide children to learn cooperative inquiry. For example, when a major festival comes, teachers completely hand over the tasks of program creation, prop production and game performance to children, asking them to give full play to their creative imagination and cooperation ability.

The field of science pays attention to cultivating children’s exploration spirit and divergent thinking. Our garden will cultivate children’s curiosity, observation ability, information acquisition ability and inquiry ability into scientific activities. Science teachers guide children to acquire new knowledge through observation and operation through rich materials, vivid situations and common but mysterious phenomena.

The field of art mainly cultivates children’s creative potential in the process of discovering beauty, feeling beauty and creating beauty. Teachers guide children to compose lyrics for songs, choreograph dance movements according to music, and create theme paintings, story paintings, poetry paintings, audio-visual paintings, etc. The development of these activities has enabled children to break through the traditional art learning boundary to a certain extent, which is conducive to their artistic creation potential.

Multi-evaluation based on the common development of teachers and children

Scientific evaluation of creative education is an effective means to deepen creative education, promote the development of children’s creative ability and improve the quality of teaching. Based on the principles of motivation, process, development and flexibility, we have carried out diversified evaluation and exploration of creative education.

The evaluation of creative education focuses on achieving the goal. In order to evaluate children scientifically, we decompose the goal of creative education. Through in-depth analysis of children’s works and observation of children, teachers evaluate the development of children’s creative abilities such as perception, memory, understanding, analysis and synthesis, and finally form a "creative footprint-children’s growth file book", which makes children’s creative achievements concrete.

The evaluation of creative education focuses on the process. Starting from collective teaching activities, game activities and life activities, we determine the evaluation indexes of children and teachers respectively, focusing on the evaluation of creative education process.

The evaluation of creative education focuses on development. We emphasize that all evaluation indicators should take into account the cultivation of children’s creative cognitive ability, creative emotional characteristics, creative skills and creative personality qualities, and pay more attention to the future.

The evaluation of creative education focuses on teachers. Teachers are both evaluators and evaluators. We invite experts to train teachers on the application and practice of observation to help them master scientific evaluation methods. At the same time, we have also compiled the "Evaluation Form of Kindergarten-affiliated Teaching Activities" and the "Parent Satisfaction Questionnaire" to supervise teachers’ creative teaching activities.

Times are changing rapidly, and only those who can create can adapt to the future society. The mission of education is to cultivate talents for an unknown world. Creative education is to cultivate children to adapt to the future society on the basis of following children’s nature, enlightening children’s minds and publicizing children’s personality.

(Author Guan Di is the assistant director of the kindergarten affiliated to Northeast Normal University)

Expert comments

Cultivate a fertile ground for creation

Wang Xiaoying

Creation is human nature, and it is also a unique comprehensive ability. Mr. Tao Xingzhi once pointed out: "Everyone is a creator, everywhere is a place of creation, and it is always the time of creation." Although preschool children’s minds are immature, they contain rich imagination and creativity.

The kindergarten affiliated to Northeast Normal University adheres to the concept of "three characteristics and children-oriented", infiltrates and integrates "creative education" into every detail of kindergarten education life, and actively explores effective strategies to carry out creative education in different age groups and different fields with children’s creative training as the core, providing practical examples of creative education in kindergartens. Based on the concept of "keeping nature, paying attention to individuality and cultivating mind", they stimulate children’s creative interest, tap children’s creative potential and cultivate children’s creative personality, thus cultivating a fertile ground for children’s creation.

(The author is a professor in the Department of Education, Northeast Normal University)

Children in the future should be armed with creativity.

Hong xiumin

Life is a hundred years, and it is based on childhood. Cultivating children’s creativity from an early age is extremely important for their future development. The kindergarten affiliated to Northeast Normal University adheres to the concept of preserving children’s nature, paying attention to children’s personality and cultivating children’s mind, takes the creative cultivation of children of different ages as the core, organically integrates the concept of "creative education" with five major fields, pays attention to the presentation of key experiences in different fields, and uses scientific and rich research methods and solid and effective practical strategies to construct creative education courses in an orderly manner, creating a team of high-quality teachers with sustainable development and creating a kindergarten environment with collaborative development.

In the past 20 years of continuous exploration and practice, the young people attached to the East Normal University have deepened the theoretical connotation of creative education, accumulated vivid theoretical research and practical cases, and achieved fruitful results, which has positive reference significance for today’s kindergarten creative education and curriculum research.

(The author is a professor in the Department of Education of Beijing Normal University and director of the Institute of Preschool Education.)

China Education News, 4th edition, December 23, 2018.