MUMBAI, 9th OCTOBER, 2019  (GPN): Kokuyo Camlin Ltd, the premier stationery brand, in partnership with Indian Art and Design Educators Associations (IADEA) presented ‘Camlin Art Teacher Excellence Awards’ The Indian Art and Design Educators Association (IADEA) at IADEA’s second annual conference in New Delhi. The theme of the two-day conference was Art Integrated Learning – a cross disciplinary approach to learning art where art is seen as a facilitator for overall learning. 

The theme was created specifically to bring together stakeholders from across the education and art ecosystem who are passionate about making art an important learning tool in school based education to facilitate lateral thinking, process orientation, problem solving, risk taking and individual creativity thereby fostering key life-skills that are essential for survival in the modern world. The two-day conference included workshops and seminars and was attended by 150 teachers, art educators from 28 cities across India and 12 non-profits working in the art and education domains from across the country as well as a few keynote international speakers. Both global and national experts from the art and education world shared their views and experiential learning on Art Integrated Learning highlighting the need for equal partnerships in teaching and learning rather than a top down didactical approach. 

Announcing the workshop, Sara Vetteth, Founder IADEA said, “Art Integrated Learning is a highly acclaimed and holistic model of teaching-learning that integrates art with the mainstream school curriculum to helps educators and teachers create a better classroom environment and improve both teaching and learning standards. How does art relate to language, science and maths? We want to change the way art is perceived and introduce the idea of art as a facilitator for cross disciplinary thought and learning. It is a great way to teach life skills, risk-taking, process oriented and design thinking. I am delighted to see so many participants that are eagerly learning and sharing their own experiences. We hope some of our ideas manage to influence inclusive and integrated teaching-learning methods in the future.” 

Dr.Pawan Sudhir, HOD of Art Education and Aesthetics, NCERT applauded the valuable work done by IADEA in bringing together such a platform to facilitate and further Art Integrated Learning. Citing the National Curriculum Framework 2005 which recognized the valuable place art education has across the Board says the Ministry of Human Resource Development has also recognized the important of the process of learning, more than the final product. If this concept is widely recognized and practiced it will facilitate fresh perspectives in teaching and learning. Shilpa Gupta, an independent Mumbai based artist who is showcasing two installations currently at the Venice Biennale shared insights on the process of creating an art work. The participants were also given cards with poems selected from the works of 100 jailed poets and asked to respond to them. 

The event concluded with the much awaited 2019 Camlin Art Teacher Excellence Awards that celebrated the inventiveness, creativity, and passion of art teachers. The award-winning projects are now online as resource material for all teachers to refer to and use. 

Mr. Saumitra Prasad, CMO, Kokuyo Camlin expressed his pleasure while congratulating the winners of the first edition of Camlin Excellence Awards for Art Educators,” Camlin has not only been making the high quality art materials for the Indian school students but also promoting the correct way of art education through a number of initiatives including Camel Art Contest and Child Art workshops for educators and parents. IADEA also promotes similar ideas for art education in schools and that is the reason we are supporting the seminar and specifically the awards. Hope that the winners will motivate more educators to adopt healthy practices of art education and our schools will be able to match the global standards soon.

The 7 award categories that included both a winner and runner-up were: 

• Art for Social Change Winner – Diana Sathish, KC High International School, Chennai Runner up – Amrutha Anand, ApL Global School, Chennai 
• Art Teaching Techniques Winner – Pragati Pramod, Somaiya School, Mumbai Runner Up – Amal Krishna Paul, Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad 
• Best Use of Elements of Art Winner – Amrutha Anand, ApL Global School, Chennai Runner up – Vidhi Sharma, Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad 
• Collaboration in the Art Room Winner – Ashwini Rajeev Rudrakshi, The Orchid School, Baner, Pune Runner Up – Raghunath Jena, VidhyaGyan School, Noida 
• Innovation in the Art Room Winner – Amala Aiana, Deepa Shankar and Nivedha Leoni, Sishya School, Chennai Runner up – Rajashree Gupta, Kiran Nadar Museum, Delhi 
• Instilling Creative Confidence Winner – Manisha Lal, Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram Runner up – Mandakini Mathur, Devrai Art Village, Panchgani 
• Promoting Artistic Process Winner – Vidhi Sharma, Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad Runner up – Pankaj Patil, Somaiya School, Mumbai 

A special award ‘Teacher of the Year Award’ was awarded to Vidhi Sharma, Shiv Nadar School, Faridabad.

The annual conference was an initiative of the RainbowFish Education Trust and its key partners were Sundaram Finance as Patron and Camlin as Awards Partner along with support by the India International Centre (IIC). ENDS