A Development and an Application of a Childhood Personality Education Program based on 『Haeng-sil-gi』

Cho, Sukyung

Department of Korean Women''s Leadership Studies,
Yeungnam University Graduate School

Instruction professor, Hong, Sangook

Abstract


The purpose of this study is to analyze 『Haeng-sil-gi』(行實記), reflecting the life and virtue of Gyehyang Jang who had holistic human virtues and to develop a program for childhood personality education based on this analysis. In fact, in order to verify its effectiveness, a experimental education program based on the results of this analysis was applied to 4th grade children in an elementary school of Y county K province Korea.
Therefore, the content of this study is to extract the core virtues of humanity through the analysis of 『Haeng-sil-gi』, to develop a childhood personality education program based on it, and to apply this experimental program to the frontline school to see if it is effective in cultivating children’s personality.
In order to secure its objectivity as personality scale, the core virtues of humanity obtained by the analysis were applied to KEDI personality scale(self esteem, sincerity, consideration, communication, social responsibility, courtesy, self control, honesty, courage, wisdom, justice, citizenship). A childhood personality education program was preliminarily developed through consultation with field teachers, and then revised and supplemented through consultation with experts.
The childhood personality education program developed in this paper is designed to help children to be self-loving, to serve their parents with devotion at home, to form good friendships at school, and to further improve their ability to foster community consciousness by teaching to practice the holistic human virtues of Gyehyang Jang in life and to live up to saint-oriented life.
This program helps children to have self-love, to make sure that consciousness and behavior are consistent with each other in life, to understand the difference between me and others, to accept other opinions, to respect parents with courtesy, to be able to control themselves, to keep their mind right and to have no lies in words and behaviors, to know the basic equal values of human beings regardless of their identity, sex, and property, to practice life living together with other people all over the world, to identify right and wrong by doing things correctly, to ultimately understand and practice the saint-oriented life of Gyehyang Jang
In order to verify the effectiveness of this program, pre and post test were conducted by dividing total group into experimental and control group. For the experimental group, was carried out this program over 11 sessions. In addition, observational studies which include recording observation records of the children’s attitudes toward the class, reviewing the children’s activities at each session, recording interviews with specific children, and checking children’s changes through counseling with homeroom teachers were also conducted.
As a result of the test, the experimental group showed higher average Personality Scale than the control group, which makes it possible to interpret the children’s personality education program as having a positive effect on the children’s personality development. Especially, it is noteworthy that not only the total average of the personality scale but also all the ten virtues which are sub-variables showed meaningful results.
The significance of this study can be summarized in three points. First, a childhood personalty education program was developed based on the traditional values of Korea by this study. Second, the reason why this study was able to secure the story is because the center of the traditional values was Gyehyang Jang, a woman who practiced holistic human virtues in our community. Third, as a result of this study, a childhood personality education program which is able to reproduce the image of Virtuous Woman(女中君子像) of Gyehyang Jang for children was acquired.