The Secondary Education Institute (IES) Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been honored with an Honorable Mention in the Essential Learning Promotion category at the National Education Awards. The award was presented by the entity La Betweien during a ceremony held in Madrid.
The project, running for five years under the coordination of professor Elia Padrón Quintero from the Department of Spanish Language and Literature, aims to foster learning, coexistence, and artistic creation through the interaction between young students and older adults.
As reported by the Regional Ministry of Education, the initiative brings together students from the first year of Performing Arts Baccalaureate and Curricular Diversification with users of the El Pino Sociosanitary Center. Together, they build shared learning experiences based on memory, recollections, and personal life stories.
The proposal is structured through 'living libraries,' which are meeting spaces where seniors share their life stories with the students. Based on these testimonies, the students undertake a process of research, writing, and scenic creation, culminating in the staging of plays inspired by real accounts.
The jury of the National Education Awards particularly valued ‘Vidas Cruzadas’ capacity to transform artistic education into a tool for social transformation, promoting communicative, creative, and emotional competencies, as well as values linked to empathy, active listening, respect, and solidarity.
This initiative stands out for its collaboration between educational and sociosanitary institutions, strengthening intergenerational bonds and contributing to the preservation of collective memory through meaningful learning experiences.
Concluding the academic year's work, the project will present the play ‘La esperanza me mantiene’ on June 16, inspired by the poetry collection of the Canarian writer Pedro García Cabrera. The performance will take place in the auditorium of the El Pino Sociosanitary Center, with shows scheduled at 11:30 AM and 6:00 PM.
This national distinction reinforces the educational trajectory of IES Pérez Galdós in pedagogical innovation, social commitment, and the value of performing arts as a space for encounter, learning, and collective knowledge construction.
