Valentine’s Day, marked by people in love all around the world, was also celebrated on 14 February by Savremena’s students who participated in various activities. After two days of interesting lectures and discussions about love, we organised truly different classes on 14 February.
On the very first day of school after the holiday, students were surprised by the decoration which hinted at unusual lectures to come. The school was decorated with symbols of love in the spirit of the holiday celebrated by people around the world.
Great loves of influential people
Over the course of the two-day Festival of Love, Savremena’s students discussed love, explained what it means for them, described their experience of being in love and shared their opinions on the significance of love in every man’s life.
During History classes, students first talked and then used Spiral application to create presentations about great and unusual loves of famous rulers and generals and the influence of women on their lives and world history.
Serbian language classes were an opportunity to introduce our students to the most beautiful love stories written by Serbian authors, and they expanded their knowledge by reading verses which testify about great and unforgettable loves. Using these stories and poems, the students created Facebook profiles and pages dedicated to the loves of these great authors. Statuses, photographs, love quotes and messages became lasting memories of tragic and unrequited, transient and unusual love, but also love that lasted a lifetime.
Butterflies in your stomach and looking through rose-coloured glasses
Different chemical and biological processes occur in the body of a person in love, and despite popular opinion, love does not begin in the heart but in the brain. What comes after was described by our students as “rose-coloured” glasses through which the person in love observes the world, while feeling the flutter of the well-known “butterflies”.
Pounding of the heart, apprehension, excitement and desire are the result of testosterone, dopamine, serotonin and other “hormones of love”. The information that the primary part of the brain, which developed 4,4 million years ago, is what causes love to develop has left the strongest impression on our students. By learning a great deal about what lies behind the word love, students began to understand things in a different way.
What is the connection between mathematics, physics and love?
Although they established that love cannot be measured or set up as an equation, our students proved that mathematics can be a “science of love” by solving creative problems. They calculated the area of a heart consisting of a triangle and two semicircles, solved problems in which unknowns were represented by boxes of chocolates and roses, and connected love couples based on distinctive individual characteristics.
At the end of the lesson, they solved an inequality, reaching a symbolic solution “i<3u”.
Physics class was dedicated to the great success achieved by the first female student of physics at the Sorbonne, the first female with a PhD in physics, the first woman who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics and the only woman who was awarded two Nobel Prizes – Marie Curie. A particularly interesting element of this story was her relationship with Pierre Curie, in whom she had found her soulmate, husband and lover, but also a faithful companion in all her scientific enterprises.
Travel around the planet with our students on their “Love Tour”
Imagine travelling around the world and visiting places created solely out of love and the desire to keep the memory of loved ones alive for eternity. Savremena’s students took one such journey on Valentine’s Day.
The road took them from Paris to the Taj Mahal via Verona and Vrnjačka Banja. In the mid-17th century, Shah Jahan, the ruler of the Mughal Empire in today’s India had a wife Mumtaz Mahal whom he loved immensely. Death parted them when Mumtaz died in childbirth, and the Shah built in her honour a palace the likes of which the world had never seen – the Taj Mahal. A view of this magnificent building, one of the greatest symbols of love, left our students breathless. The journey continued to Thailand, then to Japan and America and ended with a look at a natural wonder – Galešnjak, the famous heart-shaped Lover’s Island.
The most original gift for Valentine’s Day – origami love boxes
To show their creative skills, students made little origami boxes in Art classes. Each of them left a love message on the box intended for the person to whom they wanted to show their affection. Unusual love stories of famous painters were used as the motif for an interesting game.
Based on their letters and emotional confessions, students tried to discover pairs, guessing the recipient of each love letter. Personal confessions of the lovers and their letters encouraged students to discuss unique love stories of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Salvador Dali and his muse Gala and other famous artists.
Did you know this about Valentine’s Day?
Japan cultivates a special tradition for Valentine’s Day. Instead of receiving gifts from their partners, as is the custom in other parts of the world, ladies are those who give chocolate and sweets, not just to their partners, but to their colleagues, family members and friends as well.
Numbers that show the global popularity of this holiday are also interesting – every year, around 1000 letters to Juliet arrive to Verona, the hometown of Romeo and Juliet, and around 50 million roses are given to women on this day! Students discussed these and many other interesting facts in Global Perspectives classes.
A truly different approach to education
The Festival of Love organised at Savremena was an opportunity for the students to view this holiday from a different angle, to connect their knowledge of different subjects and discover a lot of new and interesting facts.
The students kindled their imagination and creativity, re-examined their beliefs, and enriched their world with new and exciting knowledge through a fun learning process.