Academy of social arts - Tabor

Curative care, social and art therapy, music therapy

Full-time and part-time studies

There comes a time in our lives when we start asking fundamental questions: Who am I? Where do I come from and where am I going? We usually can’t answer these questions immediately, but the urgency helps us to find stability and orientation in life and also in lives of those we meet. Stability doesn’t mean rigidity and orientation isn’t the same as ideology. The questions arouse interest in ourselves, in people and in the sense of our existence, then we look for human values and their structure. To understand well it is necessary to become familiar with cultural epochs and comprehend roles they played in the development of humankind. A human is a creative and artistic being. Every single piece of work fills us with pleasure and proves that we really live. It encourages us to continue and gradually we stop being frightened of the future or our environment. If we stop being afraid and get rid of fear and distress, we don’t have to be either aggressive or depressive.

If we aren’t aggressive and depressive, we become a powerful source of goodness, truth and beauty. Provided these three powers live in us, our destiny and destinies of people we meet start to change and organize. Then we cease to be on the Earth as passing visitors or burglars, we become real managers and artists of our life. It’s not so difficult. The discovery of power in creativity and art is enough, we needn’t long for force and hide weakness any more.

When we realize that our life is a way of an individual human being meeting other human beings, it will set us free from a handicap which almost all adults have in common, i.e. the handicap of illusions and expectations. We suppose what is good and what is wrong, and then we find out that we have served an illusion faithfully for a long time. We know what we should do and shouldn’t do, who is a friend and who is an enemy etc., but finally the life proves that we’ve been wrong.

We are influenced by two powers. The first leads to rigidity, selfishness and greed; the second makes us melt and diminish, it leads to illusions of virtual realities, of drugs and “bright” future. To be able to fight against the two powers we should recognize them and answer the question what we can do for ourselves and for the others. In this process handicapped people can help us a lot because they are real guardians of humanity. They bring situations which we cannot plan and make us deal with problems we have to solve although we haven’t intended to before. Everyone can be ill, old, even helpless, therefore handicapped people are constantly showing us the necessity of orientation in human and social values.

Studies

Teachers work in the Academy as guides through the education as it should be according to the original meaning of the word "pedagogue". They assist students in their process of cognition. Teachers don’t offer ready solutions, but teach students to search and find information on their own. This process is called action search and is often painful because students have to face their own gained limits. However, the result, the discovery brings great joy from getting the gist. Basic subjects are accompanied by practical activities of various art therapies such as music therapy, dramatic production and art (painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, working with wood, production of musical instruments, puppets, and other art and handicraft techniques).

Throughout the whole study students practice eurhythmics which works with all parts of a human being by means of movement, words and music. During the year they spend a few weeks in the social-therapeutic centre located in Nová Ves nad Popelkou (Foundation Tabor) where they look after themselves (cooking, cleaning), take care of animals and work on fields, so that they learn the meaning of the term "sustainable growth". First-hand experience enables them to get the idea of life in community. In the fourth year students go abroad for a year to practise skills in various social institutions (therapeutic educational institutions for children, helping people with special needs, handicapped people, drug addicts, alcoholics, the elderly, members of local communities). Most places for students are located in German speaking countries and in Holland, Switzerland, Sweden and Great Britain. During the yearlong practice students write a final thesis on a topic they chose in the third year. In the last year they work on their own biography, resume the results of the practice, deepen the knowledge and prepare the final thesis for defending. Students also prepare a final play and an exhibition of their work.