Catastrophes and primary school drawing course design for moral education in China

Abstract

This paper examines how drawing classes can contribute to moral education in primary schools. This paper uses class observation, interviews with teachers and students, and analysis of students’ work to highlight how the students articulate moral concerns by drawing and designing future-oriented architectures, which aims at preventing natural and social catastrophes. It suggests that the design of this drawing class provides new possibilities of doing moral education in China’s primary schools. The drawing class made possible the articulation of becoming moral subjects, which is able to integrate ‘harmony’ into the younger generation’s value system, world views and the possibilities they envision for themselves and human-nature relationships.