Improvisation Experiences to the Discussion of Aesthetic Environments for Young Children in Hong Kong

Aesthetic development is one of the four primary goals in early childhood development in Hong Kong pre-school education. Its function is to stimulate children’s creativity and imagination. Yet, research in young children’s aesthetic environments in Hong Kong is few and far between. The author’s recent study indicates that young children acquire aesthetic experiences through the practice of “decisiveness, introspectiveness and empathy”. This paper takes the research findings further to examine the impact of aesthetic environments on children’s aesthetic development. Informed by theories in aesthetics, improvisational drama and education, the paper proposes that both the physical and metaphysical environments are crucial to facilitating children’s aesthetic experiences. In the metaphysical environment, teachers’ pedagogical perspectives and practices are the basic factors, and the paper further discusses the role of teacher, the pedagogical approach and orientation in it.