World’s top teacher uses $1m prize to bring artists to schools
The London art teacher who won this year’s global teacher prize has been lauded for founding a charity that will bring artists into schools.
Andria Zafirakou announced she is using the $1 million she won in March with the Varkey Foundation global teacher prize — a kind of Nobel Prize for teaching — to set up a campaigning charity to get more artists and arts organizations into Britain’s schools.
Zafirakou said she wanted to bring about a classroom revolution. “We are going to make a change and do something quite incredible,” she said. “I knew what I had to do, I had to start a mission, a crusade, to help fix a mess, to raise the profile of arts in our schools.”
The campaign stems from the difficulties many schools have in getting artists of any sort — whether an up-andcoming local musician or a major movie star — into schools to work with and inspire children.
Ms Zafirakou, an art and textiles teacher, launched her charity, Artists in Residence, at her place of work for the past 12 years, Alperton community school in Brent, North London.
Ms Zafirakou, 39, said: “I have seen those magic moments when a child is talking to someone they are inspired by — their eyes are twinkling and their faces light up. We need artists more than ever in our schools. We need the creatives to inspire our children and stir our teachers.”
Zafirakou hopes artists and arts organizations will work with schools for fixed periods, whether a day or a full academic year.
Thirty London schools in areas with high deprivation will be matched with an artist in residence. As more artists join the scheme it will be rolled out across the capital and the rest of the country.
Conceptual artist and painter Sir Michael Craig-Martin, an iconic figure for young British artists, is one of the many highprofile supporters. He said: “Andria’s generous and brilliant initiative to bring artists from all fields into direct contact with children in London’s schools is particularly welcome at a time when the arts are being downgraded in the curriculum and access denied to many.”
Broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and historian Sir Simon Schama were also in support of the launch.
Schama described art as a “vocationally necessary” subject, adding: “The future depends on creativity and creativity depends on the young. I do have a mission to make art education not just an add-on.”
Schama said it was a mistake to see arts and music in schools as a luxury or an add-on. “It is an indispensable center. What will remain of us when AI takes over will be our creativity, and it is our creative spirit, our visionary sense of freshness, which has been Britain’s strength for centuries.”