First, the origin of the curriculum
The appearance of each course includes the local social and economic background, the relevant ideological basis and the personal efforts of the founders, and these three courses are no exception.
Montessori course
Montessori (1870— 1952) is the most influential preschool educator after being born in wrobel, Italy, and the first female doctor of medicine in Italy. 1896 after graduation, he worked in the treatment of children with physical and mental defects and mental illness, and gradually put forward the view that education and training are more effective than medical treatment for disabled children, denying the popular "intellectual fatalism" at that time. 190 1 year, Montessori began to devote himself to the research of normal children's education, and gradually formed his own educational thoughts on the basis of extensive study of relevant theoretical knowledge and reading related works. 1907, Montessori founded the first "Children's Home" in the slums of Rome, formulated a set of teaching materials, teaching AIDS and methods, and systematically carried out educational experiments, which achieved great success and attracted the attention of the world, and finally formed the Montessori method that influenced the early childhood education in all countries of the world.
Reggio course
Reggio Emilio is a beautiful and rich town located in the northeast of Italy with a population of about 654.38+0.6 million. Here is the hometown of Italian art and architectural treasures, full of renaissance-style humanistic art atmosphere. There is a tradition of political liberation, democracy and independence, residents have a strong sense of democratic participation and public community, and there is a good tradition of mutual assistance and cooperation. After World War II, this small town was also devastated. Parents sold everything and built a hopeful preschool for their children. Educator Maraguchi was surprised when he heard the news and established the first Reggio school with them. Under the leadership of Maragucci, Reggio School has gradually formed advanced educational concepts and methods, such as emphasizing cooperative democracy and advocating children's independent thinking and judgment ability, which has aroused widespread concern.
Waldorf course
Waldorf School was born in Germany after the First World War. Its original intention was Emile Mott, the manager of Waldorf Riel Tobacco Factory, who wanted to build a school for training free people for the children of his employees. Rudolf steiner, a famous European cultural figure, anthropologist and educator, accepted the request and established this twelve-year Waldorf School, which is not controlled by the government and advocates freedom and openness. The school was very successful and was well received by all walks of life at that time. It is regarded as a model of future education. Among them, preschool curriculum also has a far-reaching impact.
Second, the concept of curriculum
Montessori course
Montessori's curriculum view is divided into two aspects: children's view and education view. In the view of children, Montessori thinks that children have innate "inner life potential", and children have a kind of conscious and unconscious feeling ability, which can actively obtain various impressions and cultural patterns from the outside world and selectively absorb them as part of his psychology, called "absorption heart"; There are various "sensitive periods" for children's psychological development. Children will show special interests and hobbies in certain things or activities in sensitive period, such as feeling, movement, walking, language and so on. And learning is particularly easy and fast, which is the best opportunity for education; In addition, the development of Montessori's psychology of harming children has stages and continuity, and each stage has different characteristics and corresponding educational tasks and methods. In the view of education, Montessori believes that education should promote the positive development of individuals and human society, and the social function of education must be realized by influencing the development of individuals; Schools should create a free working and living environment for children without direct intervention from adults. Everything in this environment should be suitable for children's age characteristics and physical development, clean and orderly. [ 1]
Reggio course
The concept of Reggio curriculum holds that children, like adults, are members of society and participants in society and culture. They have great potential, curiosity and natural artistic talent. Reggio believes that knowledge is formed through social construction, and the goal of education is not simply to impart knowledge and information or copy ideas, but to promote children's thinking; Knowledge can take many forms. Children should be encouraged to express their plans, ideas and understandings in "one hundred languages", including painting, music and sculpture. At the same time, Reggio emphasizes the concept of cooperation, and advocates that schools should contact with society through various relationships and master knowledge as a whole. In addition, education should create an environment containing educational information and resources to promote and stimulate children's learning. [2]
Waldorf course
The development of Waldorf school is deeply influenced by Steiner's personal thought. Steiner believes that every child is unique, a whole composed of body, mind and spirit, which is constantly growing and changing. He emphasized that education should begin with understanding children's nature. Steiner divides the development of 0-2 1 year into three stages, with a cycle of seven years, in which childhood is about 0-7 years old. During this period, children's growth presents plant characteristics, mainly giving birth to physical self. Everything in nature should conform to children's nature and adapt to the education of "heart". The principle of education should be imitation and example. [3]
All three courses pay attention to the influence of society and culture on children, and all think that education should respect the laws of children's physical and mental development. Everyone advocates that children learn in a real environment, and children's knowledge is constructed in the process of interacting with others and society. But the theoretical basis of each course is different. The theoretical basis of Montessori curriculum spans many disciplines, but mainly focuses on medicine, physiology and psychology, emphasizing children's development in critical period, with a certain "scientific" color; Reggio curriculum is more influenced by humanities and arts, cooperation tradition and so on. Although it also has the basis of constructivism psychology, it is more humanism. Waldorf's curriculum is influenced by Steiner's anthropology, which promotes human spirit, consciousness and spirituality. The concept of freedom, autonomy and openness in "heart" education is fascinating, but it is always a little far away, with some mysterious and religious meanings.
Third, the content and implementation of the course.
Montessori course
Montessori's courses are divided into five categories, and the specific contents and implementation methods of each category are as follows:
1. Social moral education course
This kind of course aims to cultivate children's morality, discipline and social cohesion. Montessori believes that children are born with good "moral seeds" and moral development is based on character. If children can move freely in a suitable environment, their character can develop normally, smoothly and rapidly. Regarding discipline, Montessori believes that real discipline is an active discipline, not static, passive and obedient. If a child can be his own master and effectively control his behavior when he needs to obey the rules, then he is disciplined. Children are born with the tendency of unity, but only in a free and orderly environment can children spontaneously use this tendency to generate and develop cohesion.
In order to promote the formation of these three varieties, educators must correctly distinguish between good and evil things and arrange children's environment reasonably. For example, it is necessary to control the number of activity materials of "Children's Home" and let children develop the habit of respecting others and waiting in turn; Teachers should not interfere too much with the contradictions between children, so that children can practice how to deal with interpersonal relationships correctly. In the process of children's free activities, we should implement the concept of "work", because work can exercise children's muscle coordination and control ability, help cultivate children's independence and willpower, and promote children's obedience. All these are conducive to children's sense of discipline, morality and group order. In addition, in the process of education, teachers should also strictly supervise children to prevent freedom from becoming laissez-faire; Abolish preaching, rewards and external punishment.
2. Natural Sensation Education Course
Montessori believes that children are the greatest spontaneous observers of nature, and their body and mind are in close contact with nature by engaging in agricultural labor, planting plants and raising animals. Sensory education is the most distinctive part of Montessori teaching method. Sensory education can be subdivided into general sensory education (touch, heat, pressure and three-dimensional sense), visual education, hearing education, taste education and smell education. Montessori completed these educations through a series of teaching AIDS, most of which adopted tactile training. For example, the concepts of height, thickness and size are formed by observing and touching the cylinder group; Touch the temperature sensitive plate to feel hot, warm, cold and warm; Feel the intensity of noise through the sound tube; Feel sour, sweet, bitter and salty through the taste bottle.
3. Health education courses
Montessori cares about children's health and advocates free experience activities, rhythm exercises and muscle control exercises. The focus of its curriculum implementation is formal training specially designed for training the functions of various parts of the body. She also pays attention to children's mental health and explains the reasons and manifestations of children's psychological differences. Health education courses are mainly divided into nutrition and health and physical exercise-muscle training. In nutrition and health, Montessori curriculum advocates breastfeeding, children's reasonable diet and proper sleep. Physical exercise-muscle training is carried out through various exercises of upper and lower limbs, floor exercise, educational gymnastics and breathing gymnastics.
4. Art education courses
Montessori believes that the direct purpose of children's art education is to make children's innate aesthetic sensibility and understanding fully and freely displayed. The course content includes music, art and environmental design. Music and art mainly adopt the method of letting children learn and operate, while environmental design is undertaken by educators. By creating a clean and beautiful environment, through as many artistic equipment and decorative materials as possible, children's interests and emotions are stimulated.
5. Language education courses
Montessori attaches great importance to early childhood language education, including writing and reading. The former is oral education, while the latter is written education. She believes that writing is mainly a psychological movement mechanism, while reading is purely an intellectual activity. Writing can prepare for reading, so writing precedes reading. In the writing part, Montessori designed a series of exercises, including mastering and using writing tools, establishing the vision and spelling of letter symbols; In the reading part, let the children read the names of things in the form of games, such as writing a long sentence on the card, "Close the blinds, open the front door, wait a while, and then restore the windows and front doors to their original state", so that the children can complete these actions by reading the sentences.
It should be pointed out that although Montessori's curriculum can be divided into these five fields, they do not exist in isolation from each other, but are interdependent and interpenetrating.
Reggio course
Different from Montessori education, Reggio education does not clearly define the course content, nor does it have a fixed "teaching material" or a pre-designed "educational activity plan". Their courses are generated in teaching, and the course content can come from the surrounding environment. The topics that children and teachers are interested in are generally around children's interests and abilities. The focus and highlight of Reggio course lies in its unique teaching methods, which mainly include the following points:
1. Schema teaching
As the core part of Reggio's early childhood education law, schema teaching has attracted extensive attention of experts and scholars. It advocates that children establish the content or theme of learning from familiar life, and then explore relevant programs in groups. This teaching method encourages children to have meaningful interaction with people, things and things in the environment. The general procedure of scheme exploration is as follows:
First, determine the theme of the program. Usually, the theme of the program comes from children's daily life and experience, and the choice of the theme should be decided by teachers and students according to children's interest ability, teachers' experience and educational resources inside and outside the school.
Second, prepare the program theme network. Topic net is a radial figure woven by many sub-topics related to the theme, which integrates various materials into the sub-topics below the theme. The establishment of subject network can clarify the scope of exploration.
Third, implement the plan. Any program must first set goals and evaluate children's knowledge and interest in the program. In the course of the program, we should emphasize group learning and ask group members to actively communicate and share with each other. Teachers should record and analyze when talking and discussing with children.
Fourth, make plans. In the exploration of the scheme, the children constantly discuss, plan and formulate specific schemes. The performances of the program can be varied, and children are encouraged to use "one hundred languages". Teachers will not directly understand and interfere with children, but provide help when needed. Parents should also actively cooperate to help their children find information. Parents are also evaluators of program exploration results.
In the whole project exploration, children not only give full play to their initiative, but also cooperate with each other. In the process of continuous discussion and presentation, children can improve their cognition, understanding and imagination.
2. Cooperative education
Cooperation is a fine tradition in the small town of Reggio, and cooperative education is also an important feature of Reggio education. In Reggio, preschool education is not equal to preschool education, and schools, families, government and society all have certain responsibilities for preschool education. Cooperation includes cooperation between teachers, cooperation between teachers and children, cooperation between children, cooperation between parents and communities and so on.
In reggio preschool, the relationship between teachers is equal. In their work, they cooperate closely and discuss together to help build a culture that belongs to children. In the cooperation between teachers and students, children are active and capable learners, while teachers are collaborators and co-learners; Cooperation among children is the most important part. Many children of the same age study in groups of 4-5 people. Every child has the opportunity to fully express himself, and must also learn cooperatively through mutual understanding and coordination. Parents and community are indispensable factors in early childhood education. In Reggio School, parents can participate in policy discussion, child development, curriculum design and evaluation of preschool schools in various forms. The main form of community participation in early childhood education is to set up an advisory Committee to cooperate with other education departments to take charge of the management and development of early childhood education.
Waldorf course
Waldorf education believes that the first seven years of life are mainly physical growth. Before the age of seven, children learn mainly by imitating things and people. Therefore, to present the best natural environment and materials to children, adults should show noble sentiments to children. In early childhood, this educational task is mainly accomplished by four means: first, create a beautiful, kind and harmonious environment and atmosphere for children, present beautiful things to children, and hide and isolate ugliness and evil; The second is to set an example for children. Adults should be cautious in their speech and behavior, and at the same time, adults should purify their hearts. The third is to carry out regular thanksgiving education activities; The fourth is to integrate gratitude and kindness into daily teaching activities, and regard goodness and beauty as the eternal central theme in literary and artistic activities.
Children's life and activities in Waldorf kindergarten are based on the principles of rhythm, regularity and repetition. In a day, a week or even a year's life, teachers adopt the strategy of alternating reception and release to arrange children's activities. Collection is an organized and quiet activity arranged by the teacher. Release is an activity chosen and carried out by children themselves, with action as the main factor. Usually, teachers will manage their children's lives by collecting them on Monday, releasing them from Tuesday to Thursday and collecting them on Friday. In spring, teachers put more money, but in summer, teachers receive more money. In autumn, they will release more, in winter, they will collect more. According to the seasonal characteristics, they will alternately use the means of release and collection to make children's lives full of rhythm and rhythm. Take children as one of the components of nature and make them fully harmonious with nature. [4]
It can be seen that the three courses are child-centered and set the course content and teaching methods based on their own curriculum ideas. Montessori curriculum has designed the content and teaching in detail, classified the content of children's curriculum, formulated corresponding teaching methods, and produced a large number of teaching AIDS. It feels like a "laboratory" with many human factors. Reggio curriculum starts from the perspective of "social person". The course content and teaching are people-oriented, paying attention to the relationship and cooperation between people, and including all influential people who participate in early childhood education as much as possible to jointly promote the growth of young children. Waldorf preschool education pays attention to "nature" and "mind" and opposes all human factors in the curriculum content. The course teaching focuses on activities close to nature and advocating truth, goodness and beauty.
Fourthly, the evaluation of curriculum.
Nothing is perfect, and there is no perfect course. These three famous early childhood education courses all have their own contributions and shortcomings.
Montessori course
1. Contribution
First of all, the establishment of Montessori's educational thought and curriculum has aroused people's attention and practice to early education, changed the mainstream views of "fixed intelligence theory" and "predetermined development theory" in the past, and proved the important influence of education on children's medical life with practice.
Secondly, Montessori had an insight into the development of children's psychology, made a scientific inquiry based on physiological psychology and experimental psychology, and put forward the concepts of "sensitive period" and "social cohesion", which were verified in Children's Home. The curriculum produced on this basis is the exploration and practice of science pedagogy. Montessori curriculum shows the secrets of childhood to the world by guiding and observing children's "work" in various curriculum fields.
2. insufficient
The Montessori curriculum, which came into being at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, will inevitably show some shortcomings due to the limitations of the times:
In the process of sensory education, Mongolian curriculum is based on functional psychology, training all kinds of senses in isolation, without considering their internal relations and logical relations. Training methods are also mechanized and formalized, and fixed procedures and methods will deprive children of their freedom to some extent.
In terms of art education curriculum, Montessori curriculum pays more attention to the instrumental value of art than the ontological value, which is not conducive to the development of children's artistic creativity.
As far as language education curriculum is concerned, Montessori curriculum ignores the very important learning method in language learning-communication. In addition, it overemphasizes authenticity, opposes children telling fairy tales and ignores the value of imagination.
In the process of social moral education, children's learning is generally carried out independently, lacking training in social life and social relations.
In terms of health education courses, it is a bit too free for children to sleep completely at will, which is not conducive to the development of good work and rest habits. Some dietary arrangements are not reasonable enough, such as letting children eat raw eggs and inedible cheese.
Reggio course
1. Contribution
Reggio preschool education sprouted after World War II, and people are eager to change the status quo and establish a democratic society. it
The free, open and respectful education mode conforms to the trend of historical development. The emphasis on "interactive relationship" and "cooperative participation" in the course is conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of teachers, children and parents, and provides various opportunities and ways for children's development. This new preschool education curriculum has promoted the development of preschool education thoughts and times in the world.
2. insufficient
Reggio has no unified educational goals. Although it is beneficial to arouse the enthusiasm of teachers and students, the specific teaching situation is easily influenced by subjective and objective factors. In addition, Reggio course is mainly suitable for small class teaching, which requires high quality of teachers. In practice, various conditions and the close cooperation of teachers and parents are needed. In a word, there are many factors that are difficult to strictly grasp in the implementation of Reggio course, which makes the teaching effect uncertain.
Waldorf course
1. Contribution
Waldorf curriculum has no unified educational syllabus, but only gives a general teaching goal, emphasizing education according to children's nature. Such a course is conducive to the formation of children's good qualities such as kindness and gratitude. The educational method of being close to nature and attaching importance to the meaning of educational life has the meaning of "love" and "care", which is conducive to the development of children's body and the construction of a beautiful mind.
In real life, compared with the other two courses, Waldorf can survive in a harsh environment. It doesn't need too many environmental settings, so it is naturally its classroom. Opposing psychological training also lightens teachers' tasks to some extent.
2. insufficient
Waldorf's curriculum is somewhat sacred, and there is no denying that its beautiful educational goals are desirable. However, words such as "soul", "harmony" and "life" are always a little vague in specific courses, and it is difficult to grasp them accurately. The practice of completely denying academic training in teaching has also been questioned by many people. In a word, Waldorf's curriculum relies too much on Steiner's anthropological theory. Education is complicated, which is related to many factors such as social background. Single concept guidance is not conducive to the effective implementation of education, which is also the main reason why Waldorf education is still in the "non-mainstream education" in preschool education.
Montessori course, Reggio course and Waldorf course are all courses that represent and care for children. Although there are differences in their concepts, contents and implementation, each course has its greatness and is worth learning and learning from. At the same time, we should maintain a rational attitude, objectively evaluate its advantages and disadvantages, and avoid copying. After all, every course is produced in a specific environment, and in the final analysis, it should be applied in a specific environment.