For ten years, the Education Program of Place des Arts transforms the way young people come into contact with the performing arts. More than 35,000 high school students have already taken part in this unique approach, based on aesthetic education, an approach that is still little known, but brings remarkable results.
Credit: Émilie Tournevache
On the occasion of this anniversary, the director-professor-researcher at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at UQAM, Marie-Christine Beaudry, specialist in cultural activities in a school context and long-time collaborator of the program, helps us understand why this approach profoundly changes the integration of culture at school.
Understanding aesthetic education
Aesthetic education consists of educating with the arts, transforming the encounter with the work into a real learning experience. Rather than theoretical or lecture-based preparation for the cultural outing, students are invited to observe works, to name what they see, to question themselves, to compare their interpretations, then to create in turn. Around a dance, poetry or humor show, they play with words, gestures, situations. “Art becomes a shared space where the adult guides, but where it is the students who explore, feel, imagine and construct meaning,” summarizes Marie-Christine Beaudry.
At the heart of this approach, the student is no longer a passive spectator: he becomes an actor. He searches, tries, creates his own scenes, invents characters, speaks. This active posture builds confidence, develops agency and gives real value to one’s thinking. The effects are tangible. Students rediscover poetry, dance or theater as living forms, anchored in their reality. Many discover unsuspected talents. Others see their classmates differently: a discreet student turns out to be excellent in slam; another, perceived as turbulent, reveals great sensitivity. These transformations have an impact on the classroom climate, which is often improved for the rest of the year.
Ten years of concrete impacts
The teaching staff, too, are feeling the fallout. Many speak of a “second wind,” of a renewed pleasure in teaching and a feeling of being better equipped to integrate the arts into their practice. Place des Arts artist mediators who work in class with students refine their professional posture, develop a common language with teaching staff and gain confidence in their role of cultural support.
The strength of the Place des Arts program lies in the coherence and quality of its system: in-depth training of faculty, classroom workshops conducted according to the principles of aesthetic education, very high quality shows, as well as a constant concern for evaluation and continuous improvement.
This co-construction, supported by rare educational rigor, gives rise to experiences that are artistic, educational and deeply human.
After ten years, one thing is clear: aesthetic education helps develop creativity, critical thinking, inclusion, empathy and perseverance. A program that renews practices, which makes a lasting difference and which, year after year, continues to broaden the cultural and educational horizons of thousands of students.