This school year, 880 students from primary schools, lower-secondary schools and general secondary schools in Bolesławiec County took part in the New Horizons Film Education programme. The programme was prepared seven years ago by the New Horizons Association and aims to overcome the stereotype that going to the cinema as part of a lesson is a waste of time.
Ambitious films, presentations, learning about filmmakers’ craft and discovering the magic of cinema are the principles of the New Horizons Association. Bolesławiec is one of twelve cities that joined the programme.
The coordinator and initiator of the series is Iwona Bojko, who contacted the Association and proposed cooperation. What mattered most to Iwona Bojko was that the cinema she managed should not be merely a commercial cinema. She wanted Bolesławiec’s Forum to be open to discussions about films, screenings of independent films, young filmmakers and ambitious productions that often lose out to blockbusters in multiplexes. Iwona Bojko assesses this year’s project very positively. It was successfully introduced at once at all educational levels, that is, from grades 1–3 and 4–6 through lower-secondary schools and secondary schools. The large number of participants is also worth emphasising.
Teachers speak about the series in the highest terms. Joanna Krzyżostaniak, a Polish teacher at the Complex of Commercial and Service Schools, talks about the effects she noticed in her classes. Students were very eager to prepare for lessons after watching a film and were interested in ambitious cinema. The films watched could be perfectly linked to the educational process. The film “Adam’s Apples”, a comedy about a neo-Nazi learning humility at a rural vicarage, served as an illustration for a lesson introducing biblical stories, specifically the Book of Job. “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”, Loach’s ambitious film, familiarised students with Europe’s recent history and the emergence of the IRA.
Aldona Wilas, a teacher at the same school, emphasises something very important. Students themselves pick up cameras and record their own films. These are short productions used at school events and enthusiastically received by the student community. This is the greatest success of film education. Young people show how interesting cinema is to them. It is not dead theory; it offers the opportunity for their own creativity and artistic work.
Encouraging teachers to cooperate with Bolesławiec Cultural Centre, we present a list of schools introducing modern forms of education:
- Primary School No. 4 in Bolesławiec
- Primary School in Żeliszew
- Primary School in Kruszyn
- Primary School in Nowa Wieś
- Primary School in Gościszów
- OXPRESS Private School
- Municipal School Complex No. 2
- Municipal Lower-Secondary School No. 2
- First General Secondary School
- Second General Secondary School
- Complex of Mechanical Schools
The New Horizons Film Education programme was placed under the patronage of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009, awarded at the request of the European Commission by the Foundation for the Development of the Education System.
(GH information)