Browsing by Author "Halmetoja, Minna"

Objectives: The objective of my research was to describe the experiences and insights of pre-school and primary school teachers concerning visual arts as a content and subject area. The objective was also to describe and understand children's opinions of visual arts' teaching. In addition I observed the differences and similarities of teachers' and children's opinions. Methodology: My research was a qualitative research with characteristics of hermeneutical research tradition. I pursued an understanding research method while observing my research phenomenon, visual arts, in pre-and primary school teaching. Theme interview was the main information gathering method. I experienced the theme interview to enable natural and i conversation-like approach to the research topic. The research material was gathered from Kivistö-Aviapolis and Tikkurila areas in the city of Vantaa. I interviewed four pre-school and four primary school teachers, and four pre-school and four primary school aged children. Four municipal daycare centers and two primary schools participated to the study. Findings and Conclusions: The preschool teachers experiences concerning visual arts focused on the playful manner by which to learn and combine visual arts to the other content areas. Primary school teachers on the other hand integrated the visual arts to other subject areas such as environmental education. Primary school teachers experienced that time pressure made the teaching of the visual arts difficult. According to my research, there is not enough time to teach visual arts in every day settings. All of teachers who participated to the study experienced creativity and the development of imagination as the main content of the visual arts. Despite of this, visual arts manifested more as producing of visual art than as experience seeking activity in the pre-and primary school teaching. The usage of visual media was scarce in the teaching. According to my results, over half of the teachers do not use visual media in their visual arts teaching and therefore do not help the children to understand and interpret visual language. The opinion that visual arts' position has been diminished was shared by all of the teachers. Hence more time and hour frame was hoped for. Pre-and primary school children experienced the visual arts as a pleasant subject and study area. Children liked to work in a way that enabled them to use their creativity. The research results for the children show children's' holistic way to learn and gain experience in various learning environments.