1. The creation of three environments embodies three different curriculum ideas.
Take a look at the traditional kindergarten environment in China: the outdoor is an open field, and the field is clearly dotted with dots to facilitate children to train neatly here. The interior is an open space, and its design idea is to arrange tables and chairs according to the class size, because more than 30 children in the class will sit in a row at the same time, which is convenient for collective teaching; The arrangement on the wall has prompted the teacher to teach and motioned the children to practice; Toys and materials are in the toy cupboard next to them, and the goals and contents of education are presented at the appointed time in the lesson plan. In such an environment, collective activities are orderly and free activities are noisy. Obviously, this is a teacher-centered curriculum model with collective teaching as the organizational form, which emphasizes uniformity and standardization, and emphasizes individual response and obedience to the collective (authority).
Look at today's reforming kindergarten environment in China: outdoor venues add modern flavor, and large-scale combined sports equipment and plastic venues make the playground more magnificent. The indoor low cabinet is divided into multiple activity areas, and each activity area is fixedly displayed with rich materials, which is convenient for young children to operate selectively by individuals or groups. If the corner is around, make room in the middle, if the corner occupies half, make room in the other half, so as to keep the position of collective teaching. Here, we are glad to see that the intention of education is objectified as much as possible, the goal of education is hidden in the environment and materials, and it is realized in the complementarity of individual operation and collective teaching.
The environment of several kindergartens seen in Germany: the outdoor environment is basically flat lawns, tents, wooden houses, stone steps, wooden stakes, large sand pools and movable wastes and natural objects, which are primitive and simple. The activity room is basically divided into areas of different sizes by cabinets, wooden frames, screens and curtains. These areas have no fixed learning function, and children can move learning materials at will. Apart from regional space, there are few special spaces to accommodate formal class teaching. The so-called collective activities, that is, sitting together and discussing problems everywhere, have short time and little space. Obviously, this is a form of free activities for individuals and groups. This course advocates the independent and free development of children. Teachers deliberately create the environment, but the interaction between children and the environment is natural.
2. The embodiment of kindergarten environment and curriculum characteristics
In the preschool education reform in China, there are many personalized kindergarten courses with the characteristics of games, emotions, sports, art, mathematics, science and technology. These kindergartens have made great efforts in the characteristics of their own courses, so that they can come up with very mature curriculum plans and research results-activity design or teaching materials. However, there is always some regret in admiration, because the ideas and new educational concepts corresponding to the characteristics of the course are mostly implemented in the design of activities and the compilation of teaching materials, and the ideas of the course are only in the hands of teachers themselves. Entering these kindergartens, it is difficult to distinguish different curriculum characteristics only by kindergarten environment without the introduction of the curriculum plan by the director and the explanation of the on-site activities by the teacher. If a new teacher enters the park without some training, it will be difficult for her educational work to be immediately reflected in the concept of the curriculum.
After visiting nine kindergartens in Germany, I thought that if I watched too many kindergartens, I would lose interest because I was similar. However, every new kindergarten will usher in a new look, and the characteristics of kindergarten-based constantly bring people unexpected insights. There is a kindergarten that is completely family-oriented. Each class (they call it a group) looks like a big family, with a big high table, a small low table, an attic, a half-separated board shop, sleeping and moving, and various daily necessities and school supplies. Another kindergarten is full of challenging facilities. There are all kinds of facilities in the special sports room that need difficult sports skills in our opinion, and children play skillfully on them. The corridor is also a facility that can be used to drill and climb the height of the base. The indoor part is divided by shelves and curtains, which makes the indoor space larger and convenient for children's big muscle activities. The outdoor part is a large area of sand, stones, boards and stone piers. At first glance, it is a kindergarten featuring sports. Another school is obviously a mixed-age educational institution with a long age span, because each activity room has different equipment and supplies suitable for the youngest (such as toddlers), middle-aged (such as children) and older (such as primary school students). The motto on the wall is "the little ones come in, the big ones go out", which means that every child comes in as a little brother or sister in the class, and when he goes out, he has grown into a big brother or sister in the class. Another distinctive kindergarten is concentrated games, which are concentrated games for two months a year. Usually, courses are implemented with theme activities as the main line, and the creation of environment should conform to the theme. Two months, all children's free activities. During this period, the teacher did not intervene, and the children's freedom was like playing in a children's paradise. At this time, children can accompany each other freely, choose activity rooms freely, move movable materials freely and play at will. The environment changes with children's wishes. Teachers just observe and monitor in different places and give them some advice and support.
It also reflects the characteristics of the course. I feel a big difference is that it is very encouraging to hear that our kindergarten introduces the curriculum with new ideas, new ideas and new practices. However, after listening to the introduction, I saw that the environment and activities were similar. How to reflect the characteristics can only be chewed with a set of research results, many of which are the same, and some are still difficult to swallow. When I visited Germany, I felt that they didn't make a big fuss on the theoretical basis, and they didn't make great efforts in compiling teaching materials and designing activities. These characteristics have been reflected in the creation of the environment. Asked what they are based on, a director said simply, "It is what children like and what we think is worthwhile."
Therefore, we believe that the environment should attract people's attention to induce people's behavior, and should be able to make people infected in its environment subtly. As for attracting attention, what is it? How to induce human behavior? What qualities do people have? This is the meaning of curriculum thought in the environment.
Second, the general principles of kindergarten environment creation
Kindergarten environment is the place that can best reflect kindergarten teachers' educational ideas and creative work. No matter what kind of curriculum scheme and kindergarten-based characteristics, according to the modern educational concept, the creation of kindergarten environment must follow a common concept: respect-meeting the needs of young children; Trust-let go of the child's hand; Development-give children a challenge.
The so-called meeting children's needs means that the planning and layout of the environment is from the perspective of children, considering their age, interests and development needs; Letting go of children's hands means that the use of the environment should give children more freedom of choice, reduce unnecessary restrictions and reduce excessive protective measures; Challenging children means that the environment must make children often have various problems, constantly arouse their curiosity and drive them to explore endlessly. On this premise, we sum up four basic principles of environmental creation from the experience of many kindergartens.
1. Standardized layout conducive to development
After visiting two kindergartens, an education supervisor put forward the following opinions on the creation of classroom environment in these two kindergartens:
Kindergarten A's classrooms are rich in toy materials and wall columns, and the layout is suitable for children's interests. The contents of various development fields can be reflected in the environment, but the classrooms in each class are the same, and the environmental layout of each classroom is basically the same, with no personality. The director said: "I have stipulated the basic requirements for the environmental layout of each class. Some materials are purchased by the garden, and teachers in each class are consciously allowed to learn from each other and encourage innovation and imitation. "
The classroom in kindergarten B is completely personalized. Some classrooms are separated, some classrooms are open, some classrooms are characterized by the use of waste materials, some classrooms are extremely rich in structural materials, and some classrooms are very eye-catching. You can always find new environmental protection ideas from different classrooms. The director said: "I advocate teachers' continuous innovation and encourage each classroom to have its own uniqueness different from other classrooms." "
Here, I appreciate the standard practice of kindergarten A very much. We know that the environment has the significance of inducing behavior, and the objectification of educational intention means that our curriculum objectives, contents and basic requirements for children in the whole park will be hidden in the standardized environmental layout, and children's behavior and quality will be subtly influenced by the interaction between children and the environment. The advantages of doing this are: first, it reduces the subjectivity of teachers' educational behavior and satisfies children's active learning according to their own needs. Second, the standard layout of each class environment is fair. When we create a rich environment conducive to children's development, we can make children benefit more from the benefits of the environment and less from teachers' preaching, which will reduce the unfairness of early childhood education to some extent due to the differences in knowledge and ability between teachers.
The standard arrangement contains the inspirational words and famous sayings of educators corresponding to the curriculum in this park, which can not only inspire teachers' educational beliefs, guide teachers' educational behavior, but also publicize our educational ideas to parents. It also includes playing teaching AIDS of the same age and necessary columns on the wall of each class, such as birthday table, weather forecast, window of home, work bar, clock, calendar, wall chart and so on. This will play a positive role in the development of children and the communication of family relations. In addition to standardizing the layout, teachers should be encouraged to explore constantly. Every time a class teacher has an idea worth popularizing in the whole park on environmental design, it will be affirmed and become a new norm of park environment creation, so that every child can benefit from the creative work of each teacher.
2. It is conducive to the stimulation of various experiences.
Children's all-round and harmonious development can only be realized in rich and diverse environments, and individuals can be triggered.
Activities in different fields, thus stimulating children's various experiences. The so-called rich and diverse environment, on the one hand, shows that the provision of materials should be widely involved in all fields of development and presented in the form of activity areas, including physical experience (scientific exploration area), mathematical concepts (puzzle area), artistic expression (art area), interpersonal communication (social area), sports skills (outdoor games), language expression (reading area) and so on. On the other hand, the materials in various fields should be rich enough to stimulate the integration of children's experience in various fields. For example, the material in the field of art design should be extremely rich, and various experiences such as space, quantity and the relationship between things can be obtained at the same time in the performance activities of structural modeling, and opportunities for cooperation and creation can be given to gain experience in interpersonal communication. In the construction of outdoor environment, we should not only consider the exercise of sports skills, but also integrate all the experience of individual development into the exercise of big muscles. For example, if you put a set of large-scale combined sports equipment in the big sand pool, you will certainly be able to observe the various experiences of children in various development fields and see the individualized development of each child according to his own interests and characteristics.
3. It is beneficial to meet the needs of individuals at different levels.
To make every child develop at his original level, our education must adapt to the individual differences of each child's original experience and development speed. However, it is difficult to do this through teachers' organizing activities and collective teaching, and this ideal is best realized through children's independent activities in the environment. So what kind of environment can be conducive to different levels of demand?
In the past, we always advocated creating environment and materials according to the needs of different ages, that is, creating environment and materials according to age classes, so we especially pursued the differences among small, middle and large classes. This pursuit actually ignores two theoretical premises in the environmental design thought, one is the individual difference of the same age, and the other is the potential role of the same environmental material in the development of children of different ages. Therefore, what we advocate is to create an elastic environment, that is, the creation of this environment can be suitable for the active activities of individuals of different ages and levels of development within a certain age range (such as 3-6 years old, not too big). There are two examples to illustrate this point: one is the inspection and evaluation of kindergartens in a certain district. One question raised by the director is that there is no difference in the teaching materials of different age classes, and many teaching materials in primary schools, middle schools and large classes are the same. The director's answer is: "Why do you only see the materials and the age of the children, but you can't see the relationship between children of different ages and these same materials?" Secondly, I see children in mixed-age classes moving in the same environment. Children of different ages have different effects on these materials, and each child is active in his recently developed field. Take beads as an example: there are grasping, scooping, clamping, imaginary substitution, classification, bouncing, and many different levels of play. )
4. It is beneficial to children's creative use.
In order to objectify the educational intention and hide the educational objectives and contents in the environment instead of presenting them in the form of preaching, teachers have tried their best to create an environment suitable for education. However, teachers create the environment according to the requirements of education. Do children have the freedom to use the environment creatively according to their own needs? This is the key to whether the environment can effectively promote children's development. We believe that the environment should be a "working life". Just as a child's body and mind are changing at any time, the environment will also change in the child's psychological changes. This requires that the creation of the environment must be colorful. Teachers should not only constantly revise the environment to respond to children's needs, but also let children change the original intention of teachers in activities, adjust the environment according to their own experience, and let them become the protagonists in the environment created by teachers.
The freedom to use the environment for children is the game environment, which can be manifested in two aspects: one is the freedom to choose the material (the teacher should tell the children how to play as you want), and the other is the freedom to use the material (the teacher should tell the children how to play as you want). Regrettably, in our goal-oriented environmental arrangement, children have become slaves to the environment. Children "have the freedom to choose the materials they use, but not the freedom to decide their own actions." Once the goal of the environment is determined, the environment begins to regulate children's behavior, but it is difficult for children's behavior to transform the environment. For example, children choose a certain material, but the specific play of this material has been limited by the material itself. Mosaics and puzzles are highly structured materials, and there is only one way to play a material. Or the structure of the material itself is not high, but its operation requirements have been limited by the teaching objectives, and the clips can only be one-to-one corresponding, and the buttons have to be arranged and classified for calculation. Although this is also necessary in some specific teaching moments, as the overall requirement of environment creation, we should pay more attention to children's creative use of the environment, that is, we believe that in a low-structured environment, children's potential is infinite and their development is the most full and personalized.