The art of living deals with education

Education is crucial but early childhood education played a decisive role to become reflective, autonomous and knowledgeable human beings, who can take responsibility for their own lives.

Early Childhood Education can be based on four principles:

• Empowerment

• Holistic development

• Family and community and

• Relationships

The well-being should be articulated in each child, a sense of belonging for children and their families, that the contribution of each child is valued, communication is promoted through active exploration of their environment.  Education is the art of living and children’s learning assist the progress quest of happiness

The well-being is also intermixed throughout the curriculum and the other areas of learning and development.  It should be followed by a guiding framework with a holistic understanding of the child and their family.  Thus, impetus emotional stability and supports children’s self-control, self-esteem and relationship building.  Further, the well-being of children is not seen in isolation but includes their family and community.  This strong connection and consistency among them foster a child’s learning and development.

The discipline should be focussed to bring out the interpretation of well-being.  The discipline of education with a consistency of educational contexts encompassing a range of dimensions, such as health, emotional and/or mental well-being, socially expected behaviour that indicates well-being, aspects of protection and basic human needs, as well as broader philosophical interpretations such as living a good life.

There should be a holistic approach to education and to equip students for partaking in a society’s economy, to take a more humanistic approach of supporting students to flourish and live the best possible life under the circumstances they are living in. It should be taken into account that children take time to slowly develop the vocabulary and not in a sophisticated was as is most evident in adulthood but their interests should be intact. 

The approach to the art of living is simple, it should take an individual focus and emphasises the importance of personal taste. Living a good or beautiful life means living a life according to one’s self-reflected norms, values and beliefs.  This individualistic approach, however, can be seen as problematic from social-constructivist theories.  Therefore, it is important as a human being should be a part of a social environment and have to consider the people around themselves in their decision-making and planning of a beautiful life.

To develop an art of living and beautiful life, therefore, does not mean to live a selfish life in disregard of others. This type of action does hamper to flourish a beautiful life. 

If each individual is engaged in the art of living to transform basic egoism into a form of enlightened self-interest that leads towards care for others, society, humanity in general, and ultimately care for our planet and living environment.  It is very true if an individual in the capacity of his/her own is engaged in the art of living can become the artist of his or her own life.

Education can play a vital role to help children and students to develop these skills and relevant knowledge that allow them to engage in the art of living and reflect on their own life.   

To develop an art of living the educators in all fields, need to be taken into account by including early childhood education, primary, secondary and tertiary education. 

It is important to prepare young children earlier and allow them the sense of art of living towards a good and beautiful life.

We should comprehend the basic trend of humans particularly in the human being as an individual; the social human being; difficulties and burdens of human life; striving for fulfilment and meaning in life; religions, beliefs and human cultures; and personal lifestyle and global perspectives.

The first step of early childhood education could be learning the basic rules of society and people living together in families and communities is one of the core learning areas for young children.  The main aim is to raise awareness about the limitations, responsibilities, as well as benefits that accompany living in a family, community and society.

Religions, beliefs and human cultures can be integrated well among the children.  Since children of various nationalities, religious backgrounds, races or cultures come together and interact in the same group in an early childhood centre thus, multiculturalism and otherness can therefore regularly be addressed in daily practice via communication. 

Participation in cultural practice, such as dance, art, clothing, foods, as well as national and/or religious holidays is only one example of how awareness for and knowledge of diversity can be raised and can potentially lead to increase respect and understanding, which impetus the tolerance and acceptance, of otherness.

The environment also plays a key factor and the exploration of the child’s environment that allows for considerations of sustainability and global responsibility. While inculcating among the children, all of these aspects need to be approached in an age-appropriate way.

When we are talking about the art of living, creativity is an important aspect in order to envision alternative ways of living a good and beautiful life.  The ability of the child to reflect upon their ideas and stimulates of ideas of reflection. 

The teacher should play a pro-active role in the art of living and they need to be engaged in their development and striving towards a beautiful life in order to be able to engage with students in authentic discussions and to be able to guide students through the challenges of shaping their own lives according to their self-reflected norms and values.

It is the combo to support the development of students’ and teachers’ and for this incorporate a whole-centre approach.                 

All aspects of life within the centre, beginning with the curriculum but also including daily practices, centre routines, staff policies, could be reviewed with the intention of creating an environment that allows children and staff to develop their art of living and live a good and beautiful life.

Early childhood education is a life-long process and arguably more significant in adolescence and adult life also.  A whole-centre approach is suggested that supports the development of an art of living for children, teachers and other staff alike. 

It is to be assumed that early exposure to certain areas of life-knowledge such as self-reflection, critical thinking, and tolerance and respect for others, can support the development of an own art of living earlier in life, rather than later.

This would certainly raise the likelihood of a person living a life that he/she considers good and beautiful and it aims to support young people to find meaning and direction in life based on their own reflected values, instead of blindly following the direction prescribed by society, one’s parents, or economy and industry.

Perceptibly, a holistic educational approach to early childhood education empowering the young generation to live good and beautiful lives.