EGAKU for
Kids & Youth

This workshop was run as part of Three Schools Joint EGAKU - a series of workshops which began last July at Kaetsu Ariake Junior and Senior High School. For this third session held at Seigakuin High School, we collaborated with some students from the school who were fascinated with kanji (Chinese characters) to run a special session around the theme of 'jukugo'(idioms) and inventing new words.

In the first part of the workshop, instead of the usual exercise of seeing an artwork, the students ran their 'jukugo' creation game. Participants were asked to string together 2 or 4 kanji from a sheet of pre-selected kanji to come up with their own new 'jukugo', to invent new meanings. Once everyone had invented their jukugo, next they were asked to re-imagine the essence, the meaning embedded in that word and express it visually, as a picture. 

'End-Begin-Inner-Outer','Illusion-Power' 'Human-Emotion-Sea-Deep' 'Word-Waves' - these were some of the jukugo(idioms) that emerged. The images inspired by this exercise in word play were bursting with creativity, and it was an intense and exhilarating experience giving a brief glimpse into the fresh, precocious minds of these adolescents. We hope you enjoy discover their imagined worlds. 

On the same day Komura-san of Benesse Corporation, who had been instrumental in helping us realize the Three Schools Joint EGAKU project, was hosting the 'New Learning Festa 2015' at Seigakuin High School, and he kindly gave us the opportunity to present the project during their closing ceremony. 

This project is the first time we're running EGAKU for children as a series of workshops, rather than a one-off workshop, and we're excited to see how far this project has come. With the cooperation of our partner schools, this project has opened our eyes to the many possibilities of leveraging EGAKU to support and new approaches to learning in schools. We look forward to see how this project continues to evolve.