Introduction to Art and Culture

Introduction to Art and Culture

Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, concepts and sensations.

As directresses effectively we need to provide experiences and engage with children from diverse backgrounds. Trough the sensorial material, we bring children to explore based on his personal experience. By the exercises, the child having different stimulations, and will be open to receive more and more stimulation and will learn arts of his own culture and compare with other cultures and by all the experiences together, will be able to create his own art.

As facilitators, we are in the classroom to provide experiences for the children, bringing him to have contact with different areas of art, and this elements start by the sensorial materials, that are also, experienced on his everyday in Montessori settings and their life.

The elements of arts, such as line, shapes, forms, colors and textures, already presented and experienced in sensorial, will expand into the art subjects.

Maria Montessori highlight the importance of the development of imagination, and the prepared environment aid this development, stimulating their senses and open a door to their imagination. Children are able to form mental images, concepts, sensations, and as we can read the book “The absorbent mind”: “If a child can imagine a fairy and a fairyland, it will not be difficult to him to imagine America”.

Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge.

Art might be the place where the child first comes to concentrate. Because all children love to draw and colour, they may be drawn to concentration and might put in great efforts in their personal art.

Creative writing can also be connected to art. The child can draw his own pictures to a piece of writing or draw and then write about the drawing. Art is communication, self steam and expression, and also helps to improve the language, once a child is more confident, they can express better themselves.

Arts also come to express events, values and a society of people and time. Culture is an exceptional way to the child learns about the history of art and culture.

Based on their absorbent minds, giving art to the child, we can explore and bring their creative path, based on experiences; they can absorb and bring to their lives.

As Jacqueline Harding writes,” When children imagine and pretend they break through an important mental barrier. The ability to be creative and imaginative allows the brain to make connections between one area of learning and another. The part of the brain responsible for imagination is located in the frontal lobes and also helps to facilitate reflection, empathy, play and creativity”

Children are explorers and curious, and curiosity have a important place in their minds, to explore places, objects and what else we can stimulate and present, that way they can make sense of the world, by the learning process.

One of the best ways to training their imagination by the storytelling, using the words that children are familiar with and also introducing new words and experiences. With children and their evolution, nothing is more important than their imagination to help with the growth of thought processes and creativity, it is impossible to learn without imagination.

Imagination is the power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality. It is a creative ability or mental capacity for experiencing, constructing and manipulating mental images. Imagination is responsible for the fantasy, original and perceptive reflection. Children that are able to escape from it all and be mentally in another world are more possible to be able to think "outside of the box". Curiosity and explore thinking holds important place child’s minds because it facilitate to provide them with the will to explore objects and places that they do not know.

The ability to imagine is a unique human experience and deserves to be nurtured and encouraged. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that the development of the child’s imagination and creativity are inborn powers within the child that develops as his mental capacities are established through his interaction with the environment.

In the period of three to six old it’s just perfect because they are in their best period of absorb, just because they are like little sponges and creating their little or big world. For increase their vocabulary and reading, for sensorial impressions and for classification (observing the cycles in life, nature) and satisfying his sensitivity for order.

Fine arts and what it covered under this concept

"This means that a child's hand becomes a means of communication, and, as we see, just as a child is continuously speaking, so he draws. He expresses himself with his vocal cords and with his hand, showing latent tendencies of which he himself is still unconscious."

Maria Montessori, the Discovery of the Child p 283, Chap 20

Maria Montessori did not believe that inspiration came from the ‘divine’; she believed that beauty could be found in nature and that nature itself should be and is the most infinite source of creative inspiration.

The Montessori Method helps students to develop strong problem solving skills and indirectly develop creativity. Her personal belief was that creativity was a reflection of the natural world. Where creativity is usually associated with art making, Montessori’s methods prove that this is not always the case. Problem solving has an essential function in developing creative solutions, something that the Montessori Method produces. Arts integration works a key role in learning in the Montessori Method. Montessori did not like students drawing abstractly or from their imagination, and she highly valued artistic impressions of nature.

Her emphasis was on the module of the whole ability that then culminated in the child's skill to express ideas and wishes. Maria Montessori observed that this particular skill was part of the child's spiritual development and that the environment should provide opportunities for creative expression respecting their own pace.

And what is covered under this concept?

Drawing and Representative Art:

Montessori believed in an indirect method for teaching art and drawing. The work that the young child does in practical life, sensorial, maths, language and culture, all indirectly prepares him for writing and also for drawing. It prepares his means