Moral Education of Children: Moral Act as Artistic Activity
Ali. Ghasemi1, Mohsen Imani2*, Alireza Sadeqzadeh3, Mohammad Saeedimehr4
Citation :Mohsen Imani et.al., Moral Education of Children: Moral Act as Artistic Activity International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education 2017,4 (11) : 128-134.
Education is the process of development of human talents and potential. It is one of the main components of civil society's survival. Education has various aspects such as physical, spiritual, social, artistic, moral... educations, among which moral education is the most important one. Concerning the moral education, we face values and concentrate on virtues. In this regard, many scholars have focused on rationality and less on other aspects of human being. However, John Dewey has a different look (aesthetic view) to moral education. Many discussions have been issued after Dewey's approach and proponents of pragmatism expanded it. In this paper, we are going to investigate this approach using an analyticaldescriptive method. Results reveals that children's moral behavior has two aesthetic aspects: 1- Behavior creation and production (artistic performance); 2- Aesthetic activity which is related to understanding and desire. Dewey believes that moral experience consists of these two aspects and actually moral experience is an aesthetic-artistic experience whose application in education and specifically in moral education would lead to development of sensitivity, empathy, understanding and moral practice in children.