- The purpose of the Mineduc Artistic Workshops is to develop creativity, critical thinking and socio-emotional skills in elementary and secondary school students through artistic experiences.
With an artistic exhibition that brought together colorful naive-style paintings, poems with experiences about love and a podcast about the literary creation process, the 5th and 8th grade students of the Chipana School concluded the Music and Visual Arts Workshops.
This initiative is part of the Artistic Workshops promoted by the Ministry of Education and carried out by Movimiento Fibra with the purpose of developing creativity, critical thinking and socio-emotional skills in primary and secondary school students through artistic experiences.
The Head of the Education Department, Gladys Pérez, visited the exhibition together with the Regional Coordinator of the Artistic Workshops, who saw the creations and participated in the podcast broadcast by Radio Escuela Chipana about this experience, together with the Director of the school, René Araya, and the management team.
“We want students to be able to build comprehensive and meaningful learning, using artistic language to explore their emotions and reflections around everyday experiences and the challenges of each stage. So that they can nourish their educational paths and their formative processes and, with this, contribute to maintaining interest and motivation to attend classes, coexist in respect and with an inclusive perspective while adding other learnings,” explained Gladys Pérez.
The Mineduc Artistic Workshops are taught in 11 educational establishments in the Tarapacá region through pedagogical pairs, which are made up of teachers and artist educators. These pairs articulate and plan the curricular contents with the artistic themes to promote comprehensive learning that strengthens the educational paths of the participating students.
Emotional education
In the workshop “Purga en rima con publicación cartonera, phonographic recording y podcast radio” the students wrote a poem in the Language subject taught by professor Germán González, while the artist educator Daniel Montaño composed the music that accompanied the emotionality of these creations. The students made a book cover and together with their poems, professor Jonathan Guillén from the Escuela República de Ucrania compiled the material and generated the book “La poesía es un lenguaje del alma” (Poetry is a language of the soul), to end with a phonographic recording of the creations.
The artistic educator, musician and journalist, Daniel Montaño, spoke about the experience of this workshop: “The students want to communicate and want to say something important. We finished the recording of the poems of the girls and boys, with my music and singing, and we were able to read the book of poems, listening to the music, we shed some tears and at the same time we laughed out loud. I believe again, every time I enter a room, that in this experience we meet again and that education heals, that is why I continue in this belief of doing emotional education through art.”
Naive art
For the visual artist, Yoely Alegre, the workshop was a space for learning. “I worked for three months teaching naïve art, which is a very colorful, naïve art, and the kids worked on creativity, emotion, and created their own works. The experience was very nice because each class was very motivating and they were eager to finish the work and wanted to know how it would turn out in the end and obviously trying to learn new techniques. Each class was super nice and productive.”
Connotative language
While the Language and Literature teacher at the Chipana School, Germán González, highlighted the academic-artistic articulation: “The impact of the work was positive, as it allowed students to develop artistic skills, especially in the creation of poetry, which turned out to be a very enriching experience. Through this process, we were able to work on connotative language, which allowed students to express their emotions and feelings in a deep and authentic way. The work was very interesting, as we addressed experiences related to love, a universal emotion, and achieved significant learning. Students not only understood the meaning of love, but also something even more important: the value of self-love.”
At the regional level, the Mineduc and the Fibra Movement developed Artistic Workshops in the disciplines of Dance, Theater, Music and Visual Arts in the following educational establishments: Republica de Ucrania School, Chipana School, Gabriela Mistral School, CEIA Alejandro Soria High School, Bernardo O’Higgins High School, Labor Training Center and Hispano Italiano School in the commune of Iquique together with Domingo Savio School in Alto Hospicio. In the Province of Tamarugal there are the La Tirana School and the Estrella del Sur School in Pozo Almonte in addition to the Vertiente del Saber School in Pica.
