China

=Chinese Arts Education = By: Ruixiang Huang

Introduction
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area. China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing.

In China, people believe that learning is very important at young age, so the courses are very heavy since primary school. There’re examinations after primary school and middle, which means if you want to get into better schools after primary school and middle school, you need to get high scores during those examinations. And due to the high population, the examination is just like a keen competition. Due to the high pressure of the competition, arts and creativity are not valued in most schools. Although schools do not pay enough attention to arts education, there're many outside school organizations which offer different kinds of programs of arts education. If parents want their children to learn something about arts, they could let their children take those programs during after-school time.

Accomplished Artist
1919, August 29, borned in Yixing, Jiangsu. 1936, started studying both Chinese and Western painting in National Arts Academy of Hangzhou. 1947, traveled to Paris to study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts on the government scholarship. 1950, returned to China and introduced aspects of Western art to his students at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. 1979, had his first professional solo exhibition. 1991, was made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. 2010, June 25, died at the age of 90 in Beijing.
 * Wu Guanzhong**(August 29, 1919 – June 25, 2010), was a contemporary Chinese painter widely recognized as the father of modern Chinese painting. He is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters of all-time. Wu had painted various aspects of China, including much of its architecture, plants, animals, people, as well as many of its landscapes and waterscapes in a style reminiscent of the impressionist painters of the early 1900s. He was also a great arts educator.
 * Main Events During His Life:**


 * A Short Vedio that Introduces Wu Guanzhong's Main Work:**

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 * Introduction:** This organization is founded in 1956. It is designated for the creative work, sport training and extracurricular activities of youth and children. The main idea of the organization is "keep the country in heart, keep others in heart". Educational work of the organization was designed to cultivate children's interests in labour, knowledge, development of creative abilities, professional orientation, and amateur talent activities. The organization offers various calligraphy, painting, sports, dancing and music programs.

//**Robots with Me on Children's Day**// This is one of the painting programs offered in Youth and Children's Palace of Wuhan. This program asks children to imagine if there's a robot playing with them during the Children's Day and draw out the best robot in their imagination.
 * Program:**

//**The Red Journey**//

This program let children experience some different kinds of arts. Children will go and visit places like Senyuan's Art Gallery and Wuhan Sculpture Museum. This journey could help children recognize different styles of arts.

School Arts Program
As mentioned at the beginning, due to the high pressure of the competition, arts and freedom are not valued in schools in China. In China, the word "K-12" is not used. The levels of education in China are divided into kindergarten, primary school, middle school, high school and college. Arts education is hard to be seen after primary school. I'm from China, and I would like to tell you something about my own experience. From my memory, I did not have any arts lessons since the fifth grade in the primary school. Schools paid most of their attention to subjects like science and math. Why this situation happens? This is because arts are not required to pass the exams. There’re examinations after primary school and middle, which means if you want to get into better schools after primary school and middle school, you need to get high scores during those examinations. If the society does not pay enough attention to arts education, how could we require schools to do so? Although I did not have any arts lessons since the fifth grade, I enjoyed the arts education pretty well in the kindergarten. During the time in the kindergarten, we practiced singing songs, learned how to draw simple pictures and played games with others. I'm glad that I at least enjoyed the arts education for such a period. The government, society and schools in China do need to pay more attention to arts education in higher levels of education.



Conclusion
I‘m from China, so my own experiences really matches what I found. As I mentioned in School Arts Program, my experience of arts education during kindergarten was pretty good. But after the fifth grade in the primary school, my experience of arts education was almost nothing. My experiences reflected the main problem of the education system in China. Not only the school, but also the society do not pay enough attention to arts education. There's still a long way for China to improve its education system.

I was surprised when searching for arts organizations. I have not attended any outside school arts organizations. So I really didn't know that there are such a lot of outside school arts organizations. Those arts organizations offer various interesting programs to help children learn something about arts. I would like to send my children to those programs if I could. That's really meaningful and interesting.