Industrial civilization and capitalism that stress development and competition have affected child rearing as well, producing side effects that learning and knowledge-centered achievement are overly accentuated. Preschoolers are bound to start receivi...
Industrial civilization and capitalism that stress development and competition have affected child rearing as well, producing side effects that learning and knowledge-centered achievement are overly accentuated. Preschoolers are bound to start receiving education at an early age, and they are forced to develop their special talent at such an early age as well. Now it's desperately required to come up with a new educational paradigm that could take the initiative in early childhood education.
The purpose of this study was to make a comparison of ecological early childhood education and Buddhist early childhood education in an attempt to lay the foundation for creating a new educational paradigm. Ecological early childhood education had already been launched, and Buddhist early childhood education was philosophically based on Buddhism, the basis of Asian religion and the fundamental thought of time-honored cultural heritage. It's specifically meant to delve into the definition of ecological early childhood education, its view of life, development and early childhood education, and the content and method of it, to look into the pivotal thought of Buddhist early childhood education, its view of life, development and early childhood education, and the content and method of education in Buddhist kindergartens, and finally to compare the thoughts of the two sorts of early childhood education.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, ecological early childhood education took an ecology-centered view of life. That prized not only man but every living creature, and regarded man not as the lord of all creation but part of nature. That focused on taking after nature instead of taking advantage of it. In terms of a view of man, namely the way of looking at human development, 'human development as now and here' was viewed as a starting point to iron out problems with early childhood education in modern society. And this approach was in pursuit of the kind of preschool education that could make preschoolers nature-friendly, enjoy play, childlike and exciting, strike a balance among reason, spirituality and sensitivity and take care of their body, mind and spirits.
Second, as for Buddhist early childhood education's view of man, man was believed to exist through mutual relationship as a living creature of the universe who transmigrates according to karma. That took a dependent origination to life which focused on life respect and emphasized the importance of every being that was mutually linked. In other words, that followed dependent origination that shed light on the past, present time and future at the same time without separating the present time from the other two. Buddhist education was built on life respect and nature friendliness, and nonpossession was accentuated.
Third, as a result of comparing the thoughts of the two early childhood education, the two approaches had something in common in that both of them were based on life respect. In terms of a view of man, namely the way of looking at human development, there was a difference between the two. Ecological early childhood education attached importance to 'development as now and here' and the present time as a way to work through problems with early childhood education, whereas Buddhist early childhood education looked at man according to dependent origination and eventually looked into the past, present time and future at the same time.
As for a view of early childhood education, ecological early childhood education sought after what makes preschoolers childlike, what strikes a balance among reason, spirituality and sensitivity, what makes young children exciting and cheerful and what takes care of their body, mind and spirit. Buddhist early childhood education's view of early childhood education was built on religious philosophy and pursued the development of the Buddha-nature of preschoolers.
When the two approaches were compared in content and method, it's found that both of them sought after a thought of life and could contribute to redressing current early childhood education that was confronted with an extreme problem, which was dehumanization. Buddhist education was nature-friendly and based on the thought of life respect, and in that regard, that was the same as the relationship- oriented ecological early childhood education that stressed being together with nature. Buddhism's idea of nonpossession was in line with ecological early childhood education's idea of moderation and frugality. The former's idea of Jihaenghapil was in line with the latter's emphasis of consistency between knowledge and action. The latter's spirituality and meditation programs that dealt with matters about the mind and spirit could be regarded as one of sure ways to practice Jungjungmujinyeongi, one of Buddhist early childhood education methods. Besides, Buddhist early childhood education's thought of Bulsalsaeng and Jariita was philosophically bound up with relationship-oriented ecological early childhood education.
The above-mentioned findings suggested that ecological and Buddhist early childhood education could be valuable educational thoughts that could get current preschool education out of crisis and create a new paradigm that leads to successful character and well-rounded education.
In which way preschool education thoughts should be established based on ecological and Buddhist early childhood education should be discussed in the future, and a wide variety of relevant educational programs should be prepared.