A. A. Batalov

Philosophy, Art and Health of a Child

 

Children`s studies at musical and choreographic schools, their participation in puppet shows and other stage actions, their literary and fine art creative work are warmly supported by scientists and practical educatianal specialists. Studies of artistic creative work are estimated as effective means of upbringing and education and meeting child`s own inner needs a handicapped “open” society if it is necessary.

Scientifie works on this topic solve several tasks simultaneously: theoretical basis of necessity of support on artistic creative work with a view to having medical and social rehabilitation of a child; working - out programmes and technologies of work with children at schools and at home; analysis and generalization of practical experience of teachers and parents.

The first task is perhaps, the most difficult to perform. Here as it happens often, the practice is over-riding the theory. For example: It is known that modelling studies, drawing and composing tales are obviously favourable for children. However the mechanism of their effect is not clear enough or it is explained in a way one can hardly agree with. First of all it refers to definition of  “the most important task” for adults (school teachers, speech therapists or parents) in working with children, especially with younger children.

The opinion that the basic teaching aim in working with preschool children is to train them for entering school, for school education is widespiead. For instance, A. S. Belkin supports this idea in his rather (rich in content) interesting course of lectures “Age pedagogics”. He defines it concretly in the following way. It is needed he says, to have a schoolchild physically prepared for the future educational demands of school. With the same views it`s necessary to develop his or her individual psycological features and skills for social interaceion.

Some authors agreeing with this “the most important task” try to comprehend: why doesn`t it accomplish what it sets out to accomplish? Not calling the aim into question they look for the sources of failure in wrong technologies where children are trained for school by school methods at specially organized studies which don`t differ from school classes.

Concerning this point G. Kravtsov writes that “ classes” removed play activity from child in pre-school establishments. And as for children it is known that it takes the central place among the other forms of their activity (10).

Well let`s imagine that “mini-lessons” are removed and powerful potential of play is used in full measure to develop intellect, emotions, willfull features of a child (including a child with health problems) to  prepare him of her for school. Is the aim of adult`s activity defined correctly?

Some circumstances make us doubt this. Firstly, as an outstanding german teacher of the 19 th century A. Diesterweg noted, it is useless to teach a child something now that the child will need in the future. The child lives for “the here and now”. The motivation of all his or her actions is purely topical, children always act in “today`s time band” (This is a modern paraphrase of advice for adults of a famous british philosopher of the 15 th century Thomas Carlyle).

In other words, for the sake of appearance the child will agree with the adult that it`s necessary to prepare for a future studiy at school. But if the child performs all offered activities for this purpose with obvious desire, with his or her own accord then the true motive of his or her zeal is right here, in this situation. May be the child wants an “important” adult to like him or her or to mix with the same age children or to play with interesting things.

Secondly when the teacher working with a child lays a special emphasis on the child`s training for future study, that is to say for future joint activity with the teacher a suspicion will arise unwillingly:

Does the teacher think of the child only? Doesn`t he care for his professional group`s welfare. Isn`t he anxious about handing a “semi-finished, easy-to-treat product” to his colleagues. Here a pertinant question is appropriate. Is the aim “to prepare from children somebody for samething” compatible with modern humanitarian pedagogy? Isn`t it a consumer`s approach, a cynical approach? Isn`t it a spreading of a cold scientific “social-and-role” view onto children`s lives? By the way, such famous scientists as R. Merton, T. Parsons and others were the original authors of this view. (See 9. P. 10).

The thesis that we should help a child, especially “an unusual” child to prepare him or her for educational activity and to life in class as a particular social microcosm is of no contraversy. What is doubtful, however, is whether it is the main aim of an adult or not? It appears not. If we accept humanitarian understanding of a child, even of younger age, as an understanding of a man not of 30% or 70%, but 100% then we have to regard child`s motives and interests with absolute seriousness.

All authors even those who are anxious about thechnologies of preparing schoolchildren from babies agree with the fact that play for preschoolsholdren is not the means but end in itself his. It is suffice to apply this acknowledgement on other spheres of child`s life to define adults “most important task” properly.

A child draws not to win a competition to a class of a famous painter in future. A child sings not to train his voice for entering a conservatoire in 10 years... After all a child is living this moment not to master a role of a first year school child in 2 - 4 years. Every “now” of a child`s life is valuable in itself for him. And no matter what reckonings an omniscient adilt would have on a child.

So the main task of an adult is to help a child to live every day of his unique and his one and only childhood to it`s full value. And if we teach a child something that something in the first place should be joy of life. According to this it was a good reason of an intelligent russian pedagogist A.V. Sukhomlinski to call his school “a school of joy” and not a school of intended politicians, engeniers, lawers or economists, (By the way many modern systems of “spiritual healing” urgently ask people to refuse artificial exciting remedies but to find a support in theirselves and in the joy of life).

According to this the estimation of the results of joint child-adult activity should not boil down to the measuring of volume of the skills acqiured by a child.

This estimation at first should reflect the “quality of life” in that period of time when the child was under the control of an adult.

Children with handicapped development start to realize their lagging behind other children of their own age in this or that sphere of life at a certain time. Their real phisical or mental difficulties in communication with their own age group or “strange” adults are only aggravated by these unwilling joyless “findings”. And as a result the propability of pessimistic moods and depression increases. This means that they need the school of joy and the taste of life more than ordinary children. And the tasks of forming special skills and abilities necessary for secondary school are secondary.

There are no differences in principle of approach to a child with development problems and ordinary one. Of course, there is a considerable difference in pedagogical technologies details. A. I. Mescheryakov, who in cooperation with I. A. Smolyanski had worked out a method of training and instructing children with congenital blindness and deafness which struck the whole world with it`s effectiveness said the the following.

Without specialized pedogogical help such children will remain handicapped. With a great many nuances of specialized forms of pedagogical help, with all indubitable differences between therapeutic and corrective pedagogy and general pedagogy their main task is one and the same - to help a child to live with joy, to live here and now, to live a real human life.

Blind and deaf from his birth, a pupil of Mescheryakov and Smolyanski school, A. V. Suvorov, became a research worker of Scientific Research Institute of general and pedagogical (teaching) psychology. He underlines this unity of “the most important task” standing before every adult and every child. In his article “Courage of understanding” he cites the lines from a letter sent to him by a famous philosopher E. V. Ilyenkov: “I understood perfectly that the problems you had faced aren`t specific at all... Blindness and deafness do not create any problem, not even a microproblem which wouldn`t be universal. Blindness and deafness just intensify a problem. (23. P. 72).

The most important task of an adult playing with a child or teaching him or her reading, counting, writing or doing with the child physical excersises developing coordination, strengthening muscles is not composed of themselves though they are necessary and important. The task is not to force the child to treat himself and his life as the means, not to force him to refer life “to the future”.

Children accept willingly the attitude to  life as an end in itself by force of either child`s egocentrism or instinct of self-preservation so characteristic of every age.

A married couple, Robert and Jean Bayard in their book “Your behaviour with your fidgety teenager” have perfectly formulated regulations necessary for adults to realize the given most important task. It is particularly necessary for those adults who act from a position of authoritarianism (A few years ago extracts from this book were publishesh in “Uchitelskaya Gazeta”). Here are some of the regulatious:

n   You and your child are people having equal human rights.

n   Your child is a competent and worthy person.

n   You are the same competent person and there is no such situation where you`d be helpless.

n   You are responsible for actiors You take.

n   Your child is responsible for the actions he or she takes.

Of course it is not supposed to absolutly suit every situation, for example, a 2-year-old child and, say, his or her mother is aged 20. The authors tell us about (according to child`s maturation) transmission of responsinlity for his/her own actions and finally for his/her own life.

One more problem demanding theoretical clearance is: What is the reason of using lessons of artistic creative work in the process of medical and social rehabilitation of children with development problems?

Gnosiological analysis of didactic theories has shown that authors use one of the three methodological approaches: naturalistic stucturalistic, or functionalistic. (See. 18.)

Corrective and treating pedagogy is not an exception. Considering the relationship between art, on one hard, and psychophisical status of a child (or an adult) on the other, scientists mostly attract their attention to how these or those physiological, at best nervous and psychic, parameters of the organizm change under the influence of sound, colour, rhythm etc. So they incline towards the naturalistic approach.

In  this respect a book by N.A. Agadjanyan “Know yourself, Man!”, in particular its 9-th chaptar - “Art and health”, is very demonstrative.

Describing the affects of music on man, the author builds the following scenario. The rhythm of musical compositions affects us through auditory perception of the rhythm of biological currents of the brain. Biological currents having changed their rhythmics affect our emotional status, and this changes the activity of the endocrine glands. Finally it leads to a general change in a person`s condition and feeling. The author makes a “strong” conclusion: 1. “It is possible to say that music affects not the fibres of the soul but the biological currents of the brain”. 2. It is possible to say that music influences not the man`s soul but the biological currents of man`s brain (1. P. 271)

Being a physiologist N.A. Agadjanyan draws readers attention to the fact that listening to musical compositions is accompanied by different chanhes of activity in the cardiovascular system. According to his words, for example adagio and allegro from the 3-d Brandenburg concerto of J.S. Bach reduce pulse and increase the volume of blood supply in vessels. And the 9-th symphony of Brukner affects the heart and vessels of listeners in the opposite way. The author notes that some musical compositions affect indices of acididy of gastric juices etc.

If we limit ourselves to such an understanding of relations between art and man`s condition in this way the tasks of teachers and educational specialists will be rather simple. We should select works of art, genres and devices of artistic creation which contact with would normalize such and such psychophysiological indices - posture, articulation, exitability etc.

Let`s say again that such tasks are also acceptable and should be acted out. But the most important task is not confined to them and the main place on the tree of aims doesn`t belong to them.

We must proceed from the fact that there are at least two main tendencies that take part in forming and perfecting all forms of child`s activity.

One of them is that higher psychic functions. Functions are formed on the basis of simplicity. And they are formed one by one in a certain order with a certain interrelation. For instance, to form speech abilities, functioning of auditory, motor and optic analysers is required. Defect of one of the simple functions may cause a difficulty in forming a higher functional system. That`s why the activity of teachers and adults, directed to normalization of indices of each simple function even with the help of artistic creative work of a child, is really useful and necessary.

Movement from simple to complex, gradual creation of foundation of higher psychic function, from simple phisiological and nervous and psychical functions, pedagogical correction of their formation are the first, the most used schemes of explanation and practical use of aesthetic and artistic education in work with children.

This scheme is effective. It satisfies common sense by the idea that simple is followed by complex, by the idea of step-by-step complicating of the tasks for children.

It is attractive because it`s probably easy to give an expert estimation of results of activity by control and even by quantitative estimation of the level of development or recovery of this or that simple function.

But having this understanding the main question is still unclear: What is the role of the creative character of works of art or other corresponding creative works of children? You see that colour, rhythm, sound etc. can effectively influence man regardless artistic activity. For example, the colour of walls of hospital wards or study rooms, or work places affects a person`s state of mind. But the question is what is art for?

For more profound comprehension of its connection with psychophysical state of a man with his self - consciousness and his own attitude to life we should turn to the second tendency and its scientific explanation. The psychological science of our country of the Soviet period (Vygotski L.S., Galperin P.Y., Zaporozhets A.V., Leontyev A.N., Luria A.R. and others) fruitfully worked out another variant of correlation of simple and complex psychic functions. At least three  conformities to natural laws were elicitted.

The first conformity to natural laws: many complex forms of attention, memory, intellect don`t grow inside the individual, but have a social derivation. At first they appear as a forms of mutual activity of people (i. g. Adult and child) and then they move into the world of an individual. The function which at first was divided between people and was used as a way of communication now “rolls up” and becomes dialogue between a man and his alter ego, with his inner voice. It becomes a way of organization not collective but personal inner life.

In a communicative environment a complex form may appear before a child in whole form and before all simple preconditions are formed in the child. Here complex is followed by simple.

The second conformity to natural laws: drawing subjects of material and spiritual culture to realize complex psychic functions a person can compensate to a certain extent those required simple functions that are not fully matured. Due to such mediators between man and environment the person gets a possibility to go from unwilling processes and actions to conscions managing of  them. For example with the help of marks on a palm or knots in a handrerchief or something else, bad memory becomes less commonplace and under the control of man.

In other words the development of higher psychic functions of man is defined by not only their organic basis and simpler psychic functions. There is a great importance of culture here.

The third conformity to natural laws: as a child grows the correlation of simple and complex functions changes. In early stages complex form is defined by simple, in later stages complex form “draws” simple functions behind itself, and promotes their completion, and in case of their failure it can promote the development of compensation mechanisms. (14).

The given conformities to natural laws can be seen in all higher forms of activity, including aesthetic understanding and artistic creative work. Art is not a parasitic flower in a child`s complicated process of finding psychophisiological norms. Art does not polish the whole, formed man. No, art as one of the most complex forms of man`s activity together with other higher functions can “pull” simple functions which lag behind.

This is achieved by forming some general non-specific skills.

Practice of treating pedagogy proved the high importance of conformities to natural laws mentioned above. The achievements of a Hungarian school of conductive pedagogy of doctor A. Peto`s; who treated children with infantile cerebral paralysis and the achievements of the Russian school of Mescheryakov - Sokolyanski, which worked out a technology of education and instruction of blind and deaf children have had a great effect it is an interesting fact that the formation of both schools was at the same time 50`s - 60`s.

It is difficult to say how spontaneously, how consciously these schools orientated themselves to those conformities to natural laws. As it has already been mentioned practice sometimes overrides theory. A. Married couple, K. Akosh and M. Akosh, - the successors of A. Peto, establish the fact that the founder of conductive pedagogy worked out a system of practical methods of successful correction of children developing suffering from I. C. P. But he didn`t create the theory of this system.

These followers of A. Peto filling this gap came to the conclusion: “A drasticly new way of thinking is the basis of successful practical application of conductive pedagogy” (4. P. 182-183). The authors included here same general aims and directions compulsory for every adult following A. Peto`s system, no matter if it is a teacher, a doctor or a parent.

These aims and directions are suited to much just mentioned in the conformities to natural laws. But there are some very interesting additions. Here are two of them.

The system of A. Peto like the school of blind-deaf-and-dumb pedagogy of our country, comes from a principle of cooperation, mutual and separated activity of an adult and a child. But in conductive pedagogy there is an underlined important nuance. But the followers of school of authoritarian pedagogy don`t pay any heed to this nuance. An adult should never force a form of activity on to a child especially when the child obviously doesn`t have any desire or even the child resists. But an adult shouldn`t slavishly follow a child`s whim. The way out is to catch, tacfully, barely noticable impulses and inducements of a child and then bind the given activity with this feebly express of motivation.

And one more urgent direction: at first an adult must unremmittingly comment the majority of activities with word`s or songs that are right at the time and then as a child masters his/her speech they must comment their activities by theirselves. Especially those activities which are the most difficult for a child.

There is a suggestion that this direction is aimed not only at development of verbal comment as means of emotional support, willing memorizing, getting face and throat muscles free etc. We suppose that the reason is as follows: this is the  route to some of the most important, for man, non - specific skills. Verbal commenting works for reflection and the reflection in its turn is nearly the most important feature of man`s activity.

Since the 20-s, in our country and abroad so called “activity” approach has been thoroughly worked out and widely used: in psychology, pedagogy, linguistics culturology, acsthetics and other spheres. Accumulated theoretical experience has led to the necessity of deeper compehension of man`s activity in general.

Philosophic analysis revealed in this some moments that are rather important for different specialists, including representatives of treating and corrective pedagogy.

It is shown that general and initial “cell” is man`s “the I” in which and from which all empirically given forms of man`s activity and all man`s abilities develop.

It is underlined that in comparison with other living beings a human being can consciously differentiate the form of activity from it`s content. If a person is not able to draw the line of difference, other people do it for him or her. In this case the disabled person has to use the ready form unconsciously. He or she acts in “the passive voice”, like a mechanism working according to a given programme, or like a domestic animal acting at masters command.

Man`s activity proper is the self - activity. An individual gets the form transforms it to his perception and makes it his rule or standard. This is the way the individual creates his or her “the I” (See 15.)

The chosen form of action is realized by a child through different means: drawing, word, movement, modelling, melogy, doll, miming etc. This non-specific ability to differentiate the forms of subjects of nature and culture, the forms of his or her own life activity, is really good for a maturing young man. It lets a child with development problems come into “open” society quickly and with excellent results.

How to help a child to develop this precious ability?

Solving the other pedagogical problems we should remember that the frontal attack is of little effectiveness. The formerly described form of task is abstract. The child won`t understand it because it has no connection with any element of the child`s world. It is quite another matter if the task is reservedly dissolved in a really interesting action. And if it appears before a child not as an unintellegible, scientific formula but as a part of bright and sensible forms.

These should be the forms that are contemplaited and created by a child not under compulsion or for reward but, instead, for no particular reason.

Classes of artistic creative work and child`s play meet the requirements of non-utility, imagery and figurativeness, freedom of activity.

Without going into differences between them we should say that both culture spheres help in developing a child`s ability of reflexion. Both awaken a child`s intuition, that “misterious” ability of every normal person. An official school guided only by unemotional thinking doesn`t at present use this ability.

The role of art should not boil down to tasks of development normalization of simple psychological functions. An ability to differentiate content and form of activity, an ability to work with form of action without assistance, an ability to transfer the mechanism of reflexion on his or her self and to cope with a child`s egotism, an ability to use intuition (“to see”) - all these, which are  the main point, are non specific “side” products of artistic education and child`s creative work, non specific preconditions for child`s healthy development.

Sensitive and literate adults should constantly keep them in their minds and consciousness and work at them tactfully but persistently.

 

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