Commissions
Artists in Classrooms
“Is it possible to motivate students and evoke their creativity in classroom conditions?” The Artists in Classrooms project started with this question emerging from the T-Tudok Centre for Knowledge Management and Educational Research Inc. T-Tudok has already examined several working practices abroad and developed an idea to fit the Hungarian school environment. Research has shown that students are under-motivated during lessons mainly because their own ideas are not taken into account and their voices are unheard in classrooms.
T-Tudok decided to bring artists into classrooms. 8 visual artists: Krisztina Erdei, Judit Fischer, Rokkó Juhász, Miklós Mécs, Ágnes Szabics, Zsófia Szemző, Miklós Soltis and Dávid Utcai joined the team in March 2017. After an intensive preparation, they landed in different classrooms with different subjects until the end of academic year. Students from these classrooms aged between 4 and 16. They nearly all came from disadvantaged background and half of them were having severe hearing difficulties.
The artists worked on regular subjects in collaboration with teachers. It is important to note that the project deliberately avoided being an art training for the students, it rather aimed to bring in artistic approaches incorporating students’ ideas. The teachers remained as key figures throughout the process.
The artists created extremely interesting learning environments and mini projects within the framework. Both artists and teachers appreciated the opportunity to collaborate and build new skills, and students admittedly enjoyed the lessons when their ideas and experiences were connected to the curriculum.
The project was monitored by T-Tudok research group and the findings will be published as an introduction of approaches to classroom learning in the Hungarian context. This project involved 2 schools, 120 children, 15 teachers and 8 artists. The whole creative process will be exhibited and the results will be disseminated in Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest from 30 January 2018.
COMMUNITY_ Molnár Ferenc Magyar–Angol Két Tanítási Nyelvű Általános Iskola (Ferenc Molnár Hungarian-English Bilingual Primary School) and Hallássérültek Tanintézete (Institution for People with Hearing Difficulties)
