Aesthetic Education of Students in High School in the Present Period

Aesthetic Education of Students in High School in the Present Period 

Dr. Thieu Van Nam

Deputy Director, Department of Education and Training of Kien Giang Province, Vietnam

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.903SEDU0187

Received: 25 March 2025; Accepted: 29 March 2025; Published: 30 April 2025

ABSTRACT

Aesthetic education is one of the important contents in general schools, because it contributes to comprehensive biological education in the current period. By exploring and expressing beauty through art, students are equipped with the necessary skills and awareness to develop and apply positive values ​​in daily life. The article focuses on clarifying the formulas of aesthetic education, the issues of concern in doing aesthetic education in general schools today; at the same time, proposing some solutions to improve the implementation of aesthetic education in schools.

Keywords: Education; Aesthetics; High school

INTRODUCTION

In the context of globalization and increasingly deep integration, cultural education in general and aesthetic education in particular is one of the important tasks of the education and training sector.The Resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the Party affirmed: “Culture is the spiritual foundation of society, the goal and driving force for sustainable national development” (Central Executive Committee of the Party, 2014) and “Developing culture for the perfection of human personality and building people to develop culture” (Central Executive Committee of the Party, 2014).

Comprehensive education of personality, the ability to adapt to modern society while still preserving the identity and traditional cultural character of the nation for students has become a mandatory requirement of the educational program. Thereby, helping students have a positive foundation to have a suitable and proactive integration mindset, instead of being caught up in the integration process, starting from being passively influenced by foreign cultural expressions, or becoming self-deprecating of their own national culture as backward, trivial… “General Education Program 2018” has been implemented in general schools since the 2020-2021 school year. The purpose of the program is to focus on the simultaneous development of learners’ qualities and abilities. Forming and developing key qualities (patriotism, compassion, diligence, honesty, responsibility) and core competencies. Core competencies include general competencies and specific competencies such as science, physical education, aesthetics, etc. In the teaching and education program from grade 1 to grade 12, there are arts subjects (Music, Fine Arts) and from 2018 onwards, local education content has become a compulsory subject in the program structure. The focus is on reviewing and introducing students to general issues about culture, history, geography, economy, society, environment, etc. of the locality, in order to equip students with knowledge about the place of residence, foster love for the homeland, country, etc.

THEORETICAL BASE AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Aesthetic education is a focus in educational programs in many countries (Japan, China, France, England, etc.), required as a compulsory subject, on par with basic subjects such as math, literature, physical education, science, etc

In Vietnam, the issue of aesthetic education is raised in conjunction with the general education reform programs. Previously, these contents were often integrated into the subjects of music, fine arts, handicrafts, and civic education. Its position was less respected than that of basic subjects. However, nowadays, associated with the requirements of educational reform and comprehensive capacity development for students, the role of aesthetic education is increasingly emphasized. Many textbooks and monographs on aesthetic education have been published and taught at all levels, but it can be seen that most of the published studies are mainly from the perspective of aesthetics or educational management, paying little attention to the artistic element as a material and means for aesthetic education. In the article “Value system with solutions for art education in high schools and universities”, author Huynh Quoc Thang (2023) said that art education includes education in art perception and practice, while “art aesthetic education” and “art and cultural education” are one of the contents and orientations of education on personality, ethics, lifestyle, scientific knowledge, profession and civic awareness.

Overall, aesthetic education in schools will be increasingly promoted on a national scale in general and in each locality in particular. According to the Summary Report on the Decision on Investment Policy for the National Target Program on Cultural Development for the 2025-2035 period sent by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to the 15th National Assembly (No. 167/Ttr-CP dated April 17, 2024), the following specific targets are set: “By 2030, 100% of students in the national education system will have access to and participate effectively and regularly in art education and cultural heritage education activities” and “By 2035, 85 educational institutions nationwide will have enough classrooms for Music, Fine Arts and Arts subjects”.

To study the problem, the author uses the main approach combining pedagogy, art and cultural anthropology to clarify the historical-cultural aspects of the nation, cultural traditions that have an impact on aesthetic education consciousness as a result of cultural transmission behavior. Flexible use of many research methods including:

1. Research methods of art and heritage studies. The purpose is to clarify theoretical issues, aesthetic and artistic laws; historical-cultural and artistic values ​​in the system of cultural heritage and national cultural traditions.
2. The research methods of pedagogy and anthropology contribute to the awareness of the importance of aesthetic education in preserving and maintaining traditional national culture as well as educating aesthetic awareness associated with cultural traditions for high school students. Choosing to research on these aspects helps us analyze, evaluate, and explain the research problem in the multidimensional nature of aesthetic education, art in general and aesthetic education in high schools in particula.

AWARENESS OF AESTHETIC EDUCATION

Aesthetic education plays an important role in orienting aesthetic values, educating beauty, aesthetic taste, and cultivating aesthetic feelings for learners. The basic content of Aesthetic Education is cultural and artistic education and cultural and aesthetic education (The Hung, 2006). In addition, the issue of Aesthetic Education contributes to stimulating the desire to live, ideals of life, forming motivation, learning attitude, lifestyle, working spirit, promoting physical activities, sports, cultural and artistic activities, social activities of students to achieve the values ​​of truth – goodness – beauty (Tran Thi Ha Giang, 2021). The General Education Program – Comprehensive Program also clearly defines: “Students aesthetic abilities include musical abilities, artistic abilities, and literary abilities; each ability is demonstrated through the following activities: (1) Recognizing aesthetic elements; (2) Analyzing and evaluating aesthetic elements; (3) Reproducing, creating, and applying aesthetic elements” (Ministry of Education and Training, 2018a).

Nowadays, in the trend of globalization, international integration has opened up many opportunities for students to approach and enjoy beauty, enjoy art as well as contact and exchange with other cultures in the world; students’ ability to learn and absorb is very fast, so in the process of contact, it is inevitable that they will quickly receive cultural values ​​that are not suitable for social norms and cultural traditions of the nation. The crisis of aesthetic capacity, the change in aesthetic tastes in a part of students such as: the phenomenon of worshiping foreign cultures; the easygoing concept of love and marriage; following the trends of “showbiz”, “hot girls”, “stars”, eccentric “trendy” fashion with skimpy fashion, tattoos, hair styling trends with offensive shapes; teenage communication language with difficult to understand words; The trend of promoting the individual ego in the media has a strong impact on young people, leading to individualism, selfishness, extremism and emotional callousness. The phenomena of following the above trends are becoming more and more popular, sounding the alarm bell, creating “virtual fevers” about cultural values, ambiguity about aesthetic tastes, gradually forming a virtual lifestyle, living indifferently, pragmatically, etc. Thus, it can be seen that the perception, enjoyment and evaluation of cultural values ​​and aesthetic emotions are changed due to the lack of a solid cultural background, distorting the values ​​of Truth – Goodness – Beauty according to the traditional understanding.

Therefore, establishing criteria and standards of traditional aesthetics in the trend of social development as a basis for building training programs or teaching methods is an urgent issue.

ISSUES ARISING IN AESTHETIC EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS TODAY

In general, countries around the world pay great attention to the issue of aesthetic education for students. In Western countries, art is taught as a compulsory subject from primary school with the nature of diversifying choices depending on students’ talents and interests (performing arts, visual arts, some types of artistic/aesthetic physical education and sports). In Vietnam, the policy of art education in schools is clearly expressed in the spirit of Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW of the 8th Central Conference of the 11th term of the Communist Party of Vietnam (November 4, 2013): “Developing education and training is to improve people’s knowledge, train human resources, and nurture talents. Strongly shifting the educational process from mainly equipping knowledge to comprehensively developing learners’ abilities and qualities…”. In this Resolution, “comprehensive development and best promotion of the potential and creativity of each individual” and “development of learners’ capacity and qualities, harmonizing morality, intelligence, physical fitness, and aesthetics…” are the highest goals of Vietnamese education. Meanwhile, Article 2 of the Education Law clearly states the goal of “comprehensive development of Vietnamese people with morality, knowledge, culture, health, aesthetics, and career…”. The Education Law also clearly stipulates the role and responsibility of schools in art education and aesthetic education. Article 30 of the 2019 Education Law states that “primary education (and secondary education) must ensure that students have a foundation for comprehensive development in physical, emotional, social skills, etc.; have initial understanding of singing, dancing, music, and fine arts”. Reality shows that the initial implementation of this special education program is still full of confusion. To raise awareness of the issue of aesthetic education through cultural heritage in current general schools, especially the implementation of the new general education program related to the subjects of Music and Fine Arts, in parallel with renewing awareness, it is necessary to promote the following solutions:

Raising awareness of national cultural and artistic education:

The school is responsible for providing students with basic knowledge and understanding of the traditional cultural capital of the nation in their homeland; Forming and developing in students the skills to access and exploit knowledge and traditional cultural capital of the locality to absorb, learn and apply in current and future activities; Educating on cultural traditions, fostering national consciousness, enhancing the attitude of respecting national cultural heritage and responsibility for the development of the community and homeland, forming in students pure, noble, loving and attached feelings towards the community, etc.

In addition, the school needs to focus on raising awareness of the innovation of the general education program, in which the subjects of Music and Fine Arts have been included in teaching throughout all levels of general education. At the same time, each teacher needs to clearly understand that building school culture must be closely linked to national cultural and artistic education. From there, each teacher, through teaching their subjects and organizing educational activities in school, helps students raise awareness of preserving and promoting traditional cultural identity as well as local ethnic arts.

Aesthetic education and cultural heritage educat:

In addition to basic theoretical knowledge of art studies (scales, modes, styles, schools), the content of Fine Arts and Music subjects also needs to supplement knowledge of traditional national culture through types of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, knowledge associated with local cultural traditions.

Cultural heritage is everywhere. Heritage is right around schools. Wherever there is a community, there is heritage. Students live right in the environment of heritage, right next to/with heritage. That is the village communal house, the temple or the house of their ethnic group; that is the terraced fields or the rocky fields; that is the folk knowledge about weather, cuisine, production, crafts, customs and practices. Students can easily access historical witnesses and their memories, that is the village elders, village chiefs, veterans, etc

There are many ways to teach aesthetics and cultural heritage in schools. Depending on the conditions and subjects, different forms of heritage education should be encouraged. In the city, it is advisable to focus on museums and historical and cultural relics. In mountainous areas, remote areas, border areas, and islands far from relics, tangible and intangible heritages (people who hold knowledge and folk arts), natural heritages (forests, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, etc.) around the school become an endless and lively source of exploitation for schools and students. Each of these subjects has its own way of exploitation, but they all have one thing in common: creating experiential activities, helping students actively explore the form and content hidden within those heritages.

Training and improving the capacity of teachers to teach and learn about aesthetic education:

Organize training and coaching to improve professional and technical capacity for teachers to meet the requirements of implementing the “2018 General Education Program”, focusing on the content of art education through cultural heritage for students at all levels. Regarding training content, pay attention to improving professional and technical capacity on integrating and integrating cultural heritage education into subjects and educational activities; providing skills on teaching through heritage, museums and practical experiences. Provide training for teachers in ethnic boarding and semi-boarding schools on organizing teaching and educational activities in schools, in which the task of building school culture is linked to preserving and promoting the cultural identity of the local ethnic group. Provide training for teachers on teaching planning skills, building learning topics in the direction of developing learners’ capacity, orienting learners to the life close to them.

Take advantage of the support of local artists and artisans:

The school mobilizes forces to help and support facilities to build a library system, trees, and a green, clean and beautiful landscape. At the same time, take advantage of the support of artists and artisans in compiling local educational materials, teaching Music, Fine Arts and teaching through heritage. The Department of Education and Training and the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the locality direct relevant agencies, units and organizations to coordinate to effectively bring cultural heritage into schools. Create favorable conditions for students to visit and study at museums and historical sites, provide resources for teachers to access and use effectively in teaching. Mobilize funding sources to purchase traditional musical instruments and learning materials as well as build libraries and school tradition rooms.

DISCUSSION

In the education and training career in Vietnam, knowledge about national culture is a basic part of the content in some subjects at the general level, and is even built into some specialized majors in professional schools. Currently, besides the terms “traditional culture” or “cultural identity”, “cultural heritage” is used more frequently in the mass media and schools in the subject of local history. First of all, it is necessary to consider artistic heritage as one of the types of cultural heritage. Article 1 of the Law on Cultural Heritage of Vietnam stipulates: “Cultural heritage is a spiritual and material product with historical, cultural and scientific value, passed down from generation to generation in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”. Thereby, it can be seen that art is a field of creative forms of conveying human thoughts in social life. Artistic creations that have timeless value, exist and continue to be passed down through many generations will of course become cultural assets, cultural heritage. Artistic heritage, as mentioned, is a type of cultural heritage, within this scope including visual arts, literature, and performing arts that exist in two forms: intangible/intangible (literary works, art, oral literature, folk performances) and tangible/tangible (architectural works, relics, antiquities, national treasures). Vietnamese artistic heritage resources are understood to be all linguistic artistic heritage, visual art heritage, and performing art heritage (honored or not honored) created by Vietnamese people. Artistic heritage resources are not only art forms with cultural and historical values ​​passed down through generations of Vietnamese people, but also include artistic materials, creative methods, and even artistic details that make up those forms of heritage. Currently, in general education, the artistic heritage of Literature is selected and included in part of the curriculum of some compulsory subjects such as Vietnamese in primary school, Literature in middle school and high school. Works such as “Binh Ngo Dai Cao”, “Hich Tuong Sy”, “Truyen Kieu”  are at the same time literary works but also intangible cultural heritages of the Vietnamese people. The elective subjects are Music and Fine Arts, which are taught throughout the three levels of general education. In these two subjects, knowledge about traditional music (folk songs, folk dances, musical instruments, folk music), folk fine arts (Dong Ho paintings, Hang Trong paintings, village temple sculptures) are expressed. Thousands of tangible heritages of fine arts still exist, such as the system of statues in communal houses and pagodas, architectural cultural heritage complexes such as the Amitabha Buddha statue at Phat Tich Pagoda, the Thousand-eyed and Thousand-armed Bodhisattva statue at But Thap Pagoda (Bac Ninh), the Tra Kieu dancer statue at My Son imbued with the aesthetic spirit of Champa culture and fine arts, … Vietnamese fine arts are not only the pride of the Vietnamese people but also an important part of the world’s cultural heritage. When talking about the artistic value of lacquer paintings and Vietnamese lacquer paintings, author Trinh Quang Vu noted: “Lacquer products and lacquer paintings leaving Vietnam become messages of a country with thousands of years of civilization, creating a good impression with international friends” (Trinh Quang Vu, 2002, p. 301). These unique cultural heritages have been compiled, selected, introduced and passed on to students by teachers. This is the content of education on national historical and cultural traditions in schools. The educational goal of the subject program is also the goal of educational innovation of the Ministry of Education and Training today. Students not only receive modern scientific knowledge but also understand the cultural traditions of their ancestors.

CONCLUSION

Aesthetic education in general schools plays an important role in the context of implementing the “2018 General Education Program” associated with building school culture. Aesthetic education through cultural heritage is included in the teaching/educational program through integration in subjects and educational activities. Through teaching subjects such as Literature, History, Geography, Economic and Legal Education… teachers have integrated appropriate content to enhance students’ understanding of the culture of local ethnic groups. The subjects “Music” and “Fine Arts” are taught at all three levels. Local education content is compiled from basic issues of local culture, history, economy, society, literature, art, and environment.

Aesthetic education for students in general schools today helps students acquire knowledge easily, not dryly, abstractly, forming skills, techniques, improving aesthetic and artistic activities, contributing to enriching the aesthetic life of students, creating interest in the learning process, meeting the spirit of Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW of the 8th Central Conference, Session XI on “fundamental and comprehensive innovation of Education – Training”: “Helping children develop physically, emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically, forming the first elements of personality…” (Central Executive Committee, 2013).

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