Teaching creatively is essential to make learning a process that all students can enjoy and benefit from. The arts are undoubtedly an exceptional tool for a teacher because an artistic activity stimulates emotional intelligence. By offering countless opportunities for sensory learning that engage emotions – essential to long-term memory – the arts make it easier to understand content in school subjects. Thus we can teach mathematics through music, history through the visual arts, science through dance, geography through theater,…

This was the credo of the ARTinEd project, created in 2011, which gained the support of teachers and European authorities in charge of education. The project activities were tested by many enthusiastic teachers who were waiting for new proposals in the same spirit.

E-ARTinEd extends this vision and expands its resources, exploring three new topics: “Social inclusion through the arts”, “Exploring nature through the arts” and “New technologies related to art” “. Through E-ARTinEd a community of practice has been created and an online course has been set up, so that teachers experience, through the arts, inspiring tools for their work.

This approach has been tested in several pilot residences in schools and in natural settings, including artists and teachers as well as project partners. The didactic resources of the project have been enriched with new good practices based on art. Online courses have been made available to teachers.

It is now a matter of publicizing this approach to the general public, and to this end, a major conference will be held in Edsbyn, Sweden, from 16 to 17 August 2018, for the benefit of teachers, school administrators and cultural actors. It will consist of presentations, practical workshops, seminars and a variety of artistic proposals. It will provide a meeting place where teachers and cultural actors can find the inspiration and motivation to integrate the arts into education and pedagogy

Both ARTinED and E-ARTinED have been co-financed by the Sweedish Erasmus+ Agency.

Author: Marianne Poncelet, IYMF Executive Vice President (based on information provided by the project as well as by the organizers of the Final Conference)