Understanding countries through works of art

From November 5 to 9, Sir Temi Zammit Boys' Secondary School, Mtarfa, hosted a Comenius meeting in which six other European schools are participating.

The Maltese team consisted of a number of teachers from the school - project co-ordinator Paul Schembri, who is also responsible for the history section of the project, Robert Magro, ICT teacher, Raymond Galea, art teacher, Kenneth Borg, mathematics teacher, Lorna Attard, teacher of French, Tanya Agius, teacher of English, Jacqueline Scicluna, teacher of Italian, William Debattista, music teacher, and John Maggi, computer lab technician.

The members of the team were supported by Carmel S. Micallef, head of school, and Alfred Grixti, Anna Spiteri and Anthony Mangion, assistant heads.

The meeting was held at the school in Mtarfa where representatives of schools in Hungary, Austria, Romania, Poland, Germany and Italy met to work on this project with the aim of promoting a more integrated Europe by understanding each others' cultures through works of history, art and history of art. The project will reflect each participant country's culture and traditions and will also focus on the use of languages.

The project team concluded that education is the best way to reach this ideal. Through the syllabi of various subjects taught at the participating schools, such as history, art, history of art, ICT, craft, design and technology, and the use of languages - Maltese, English, Italian and French - students' creativity is improved through preparing works of art inspired by historically and culturally important and exciting places, events, buildings and objects in their country, town, or region reflecting people's historical culture.

Students will be required to cover topics which are in their national curriculum. Consequently, their knowledge of art, history, history of art, craft and languages will develop and their ability to analyse and synthesise information will also improve.

After the presentations, discussions were held on the ways in which the seven participating countries are planning to match the seven national educational curricula and syllabi of the above-mentioned subjects.

Each participant talked about the school, the national system of education, the country's national facts, and various aspects from history, art and history of art reflect people's cultures. The Maltese presentation was highly praised and the team was asked to produce copies of their CD.

Various projects worked by the Maltese students were presented during the meeting in order to illustrate Maltese culture, for example the traditional farmhouse, the fishing boat and the girna, models of prehistoric temples, such as Ggantija, statuettes, craft work, paintings, collages, power-point presentations, and charts in Maltese, English, Italian and French about Maltese culture.

The Maltese students produced these projects as part of their education in the various subjects. Some of these products were exchanged with those of the foreign schools.

A subsequent discussion dealt with the planning of a teachers' and students' exchange programme. In fact, it was upon the initiative of the Hungarian and Austrian delegations, who were impressed by the richness of Malta's heritage and the projects produced by the students asked for a student exchange with Mtarfa Boys' Secondary School which will be held in summer.

Each country created a Website - www.schoolnet.gov.mt/mtarfasecondary - on which detailed information on this project together with several photographs and other information can be found. This Website and the other six Websites of the school partners are gathered on one common Website - www.vacisuli.tv.net.hu This will be the end product of this Comenius project and will also be available on CD.

The participation of the local school in this project brings forth more involvement of the students and therefore further learning opportunities in the near future. The school believes that such participation and sharing of various ideas on education and culture will strengthen the vital preservation and enrichment of each other's culture.

As part of the programme, the teachers and students from the seven participating countries were taken to visit cultural and historical places such as the Cittadella and its museums, Ta' Pinu and Ggantija temples in Gozo, the Knights' Palace and Armoury, the Great Siege Show, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Archaeology, St John's Co-Cathedral, the Upper Barracca Gardens in Valletta, Mosta parish church, the Inquisitor's Palace, the Maritime Museum and Fort St Angelo in Vittoriosa, the Hypogeum and Tarxien temples. The foreign guests were impressed by the richness of the Maltese cultural heritage.

A Comenius evening was also organised with the help of the school administration, the Comenius team, staff and the school council, parents and students. A couple of foreign students were also hosted by parents of students.

The school would like to thank the Mtarfa council for its participation in the project and by sponsoring the farewell dinner for the whole organisation.