The findings from this research on the teaching children’s art in Taiwanese kindergarten provide support for previous theories and research on early childhood art education. The following findings are based on the results from this study and support other research that has examined teachers’ attitudes toward and beliefs about the role of children’s art in stimulating their learning and developments.
Finding 1: Teachers’ Educational Degree and Their Interpretation of Children’s Art
The first finding of this study is that the teachers’ highest educational degree earned has a relationship to their interpretation of children’s art. The kindergarten teachers who had higher education degrees had a lower score on the statement that
‘foreign cultures (e.g., American culture: Disney; Japanese culture: Pokemon) influences children’s drawing.’ In other words, teachers who have lower degrees agree more with this statement. This finding is a surprise; it maybe due to the elder kindergarten teacher who received junior college degree will be lack of learning art education theory or art education practical training. Thus, they let students draw at will, and the students are strongly influenced by mess media. Then, they copy images from Japanese and American Disney cartoon and present on their artworks. Besides, it might be the counterparts had more a comprehensive learning and understanding of children’s nature stemming from their college years. From Piaget’s (1972) cognitive development theory, one may assume that a normal child may change his/her graphic expression through excessive learning or coping once approaching the Formal
Operational stage. In Goodenough (1926), Harris (1963) or Koppitz’s (1983) studies about children’s person drawings, it is beyond the age 8 that culture influence becomes more noticeable.
Currently, early childhood education in Taiwan emphasizes domestic cultural education. According to the researcher’s observation since 2002, younger teachers who obtained higher education degrees learned these notions and taught their children more native culture than before. Therefore, this new education trend is reflected in Taiwanese children’s drawings.
Finding 2: Teachers’ Years of Teaching and Their Interpretation of Children’s Art
The second finding from this study is that the level of teaching experience is related to the teachers’ beliefs about the interpretation of children’s art. Teachers with the least teaching experience had higher scores, and teachers who had more teaching experience disagreed much more with the statement that ‘teachers need to teach art history before engaging in an art project.’ This is another surprise finding. This result is possibly related to Taiwan’s teacher education system. In 1990, in order to improve the quality of early childhood educators, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan set up a four-year early childhood program in the Taipei Municipal Teacher College. Since that time, pre-service teachers have had more opportunity to study art courses in early childhood education programs. But it wasn't until 1985, with the Getty Center’s publication of Beyond Creating, that Discipline-Based Art Education was imported to Taiwan. Teachers who had 1-10 years of teaching experience learned DBAE theory in teachers’ colleges during that period, so they valued this theory more than other teachers did. Additionally, a Kaohsiung City teacher suggested that it would be more efficient to introduce art history and aesthetics by telling art stories than by using more conventional instructional techniques. Therefore, this researcher believes that if Taiwanese early childhood teachers adopted the DBAE approach for teaching art, they would have to make some adjustments to fit the children’s needs.
Finding 3: Teachers’ Ages and Their Interpretation of Children’s Art The third finding from this study is that the teachers’ ages have a relationship to their interpretation of children’s art. Teachers who are older had a higher score on the statement that ‘physical growth is demonstrated in his / her visual and motor
coordination in his / her artwork.’ The following is some historical background:
Lowenfeld’s art theory was popular in Taiwan in the 1960s. Some of the older Taiwanese teachers had heard about his art education notions at that time. However, according to the researcher’s descriptive data, only five teachers in this study had been exposed to Lowenfeld’s art theory. The researcher believes that the older
teachers may have intuitively learned to observe how children express their visual and motor coordination in their drawings from their long teaching experience and thus
agreed with Lowenfeld’s approach to teaching art.
Finding 4: Teachers’ School Districts and Their Interpretation of Children’s Art
The fourth finding is that the kindergarten teachers in Kaohsiung County had much higher mean scores (3.02) than the kindergarten teachers in Kaohsiung City (2.85). This also indicates that Kaohsiung County teachers agree much more with the statement ‘boys have more talent in art than girls’ than did the Kaohsiung City teachers. This result does not support the work of Goodenough (1926), Harris (1963), and others who believe that girls are superior to boys in mental growth through art.
The researcher in the present study believes that this agreement stems from traditional concepts in Taiwanese society. In traditional Taiwanese society (e.g., Kaohsiung County), the boy is always cherished (more than the girl) because he has a
responsibility to care for the family. Thus boys need to be academically successful to ensure that they can enter college and have a successful career. Some parents believe that if their sons can participate in the gifted art classes in primary and high schools, they will have a better chance of entering renowned colleges. Thus, they spend a great deal of money to send their sons to art cram courses. Under these circumstances, the boys’ art capacity might be better than the girls’. In addition, it is popular believed that art talent has little to do with one’s IQ or a child’s mental growth which is the main concern in Goodenough or Harris’s studies. Based on the researcher’s
observation since 2002, girls do also have superior performance than the boys in the mentioned drawing tasks in Taiwan. It might be the quality of “expressiveness” in children’s drawings mistaken for “art talent” by Kaohsiung public kindergarten teachers. Moreover, gender difference is obvious in how parents educate their kids at home. There used to have more requirements for girls than boys in their behaviors in Taiwanese culture. Boys as are more “natural” and physically more aggressive/active, turn their energy into drawing with expressive quality and “talent”.
Finding 5: Teachers’ Concepts of Art Education Theory and Their Interpretation of Children’s Art
The fifth finding is that teachers who had learned about Lowenfeld, DBAE, or a combination of both methods showed the most significant difference (p<0.05) in
valuing children’s art from those who had not learned about either approach. First, teachers who had learned about the Lowenfeld art approach agreed more with the statement that ‘art is an effective way to develop creativeness and imagination.’ This finding supports the results of Huang’s (1992) study that art is good for Taiwanese children’s imagination, creativity, and art appreciation. Chung (1993) also claimed that art education in Taiwan is gradually making progress toward adopting the child-directed approach in conducting art activities.
Second, teachers who had learned about the DBAE theory preferred the statement that ‘teachers gain experience and knowledge of children’s art by talking with children.’ Greer (1997) stated that art criticism “seeks to inform and educate people about art by providing insights into the meaning and significance of artwork”
(p. 24). In Taiwan, “art appreciation appears to be commonly used as a way of evaluating young children’s artwork” (Lai, 2000, p. 223). Most of the teachers believed that the art process is more important than the art products because teachers can observe the children’s attitude toward learning and gain an understanding of them.
Third, teachers who had learned both theories support the statement that ‘a more child-directed approach is best for young children’s art education.’ Both Lowenfeld’s art theory and the neo-DBAE statement support the notion that children’s art has its own value. In Lee’s (2004) study of art education in kindergartens, the majority of the teachers also agreed that untutored childhood expression is creative. However, Lai, in her interviews (2000), found that some “teachers thought there should be stages of development, from teacher-directed to the nonintervention approach, since the latter is ideal but not as appropriate for young children of this age” (p. 210). Some teachers who participated in this study also indicated that some useful skills (i.e., cut, paste, and tear) still need to be taught in art class. A Kaohsiung County teacher who follows a teacher-directed perspective also suggested that children should imitate others’
drawing styles in the beginning and then develop their own style from this foundation.
The researcher believes that child-directed art education, accompanied by teachers’
guidelines, would be the appropriate way to teach children’s art in Taiwan.
Finding 6: The School Districts and the Teachers’ Attitudes toward Cultural Impact
The sixth finding is that the teachers who work in Kaohsiung City and the teachers who work in Kaohsiung County revealed significant differences in interpreting cultural influence on children’s drawings. According to the statistical results, Kaohsiung County teachers agreed much more with the statement that
‘domestic culture (i.e., Aboriginal, Hakkanese, and Taiwanese) influences children’s drawing’ than did Kaohsiung City teachers. The researcher believes that this result is related to the social and humanistic environment, because Aboriginal and Hakkanese villages are located in Kaohsiung County. Conversely, Kaohsiung City is the major industrial city in Taiwan, and children who live there would not find it easy to relate to these traditional villages. In addition, the Taiwanese government has been
promoting aboriginal culture in recent years and has held many activities in the countryside. Thus, Kaohsiung County children would have more opportunities to attend these domestic cultural activities.