The students had the opportunity to look at the landscapes through the train's windows and paint as impressionists of the 19th century..
The desire for education on the train arose a long time ago. When I received the title and award of the Best Educator of Serbia given by the Association “Živojin Mišić”, I also got the opportunity to realize my idea.
The first class was held at the end of April this year with 24 students of class VII-4 from the Petefi Šandor Elementary School from Novi Sad.
The classes were held on a regular line that transports passengers on the route from Novi Sad to Odžak. Departure from Novi Sad was in the morning at 10:10 and arrival in Odžake at 11:10. We returned by train from Odžak, departing at 11:40 am and arriving in Novi Sad at 12:40 pm.
Due to the available time and the number of students, we realized classes in art and civic education. In the departure, group A, which were sitting in the front part of the wagon, had civic education, and in the back of the wagon, group B had an art class. Upon their return to Novi Sad, the groups were rotated.
The civic education teacher and I agreed on the correlation of the subjects. That is why we chose the following teaching content: the beauty of the landscape from art culture (students acquired previous knowledge from all kinds of perspectives), and students gained knowledge about the right to a healthy environment from civic education. We were guided by the outcomes that students should achieve during this class, such as: learning that artistic expression can contribute to the preservation of the environment, being aware of which activities contribute to environmental protection and better quality of life of the people, animals, and plants, discussing the responsibility of various social actors for environmental issues, and creating the illusion of space with the help of color, air, and linear perspective.
During the classes, we used problem-solving methods, heuristics, audio-visual media, and manual tools - hammer paper and pastel. In this class, the students had the opportunity to learn to draw with dry pastels and to discuss environmental protection through their personal experience of the landscape. Observing the landscapes that change through the train windows, the students drew on like impressionists.
During the trip, the students were very cheerful and productive. They worked diligently and stayed motivated, and they also interact with each other and cooperated with teachers. After a long time of online teaching, this class held on the rails brought pleasure to the students and teachers.
At the end of the trip, everyone was satisfied. Students gained new experiences, knowledge, and new works of art with the beauty of the landscape, which they recorded along the way with dry pastels on hammer papers in A3 format.
Also, as part of the evaluation, the students wrote that they had positive experiences and pointed out that this was a pleasant trip and that their classes were fun. In addition, a large number of students haven't traveled by train until the beginning of these classes, so this was a unique experience for them.
During the next few weeks, on the route: Novi Sad - Odžaci - Novi Sad, more classes in fine arts will be held in correlation with other subjects..