Mladen Šljivović, a physics teacher at the Zaječar Gymnasium, is the recipient of the first Serbian teaching award “Prosvetitelj” (Enlightener), awarded by the Alek Kavčić Foundation.
For his innovative teaching methods and achievements, Šljivović already holds the titles of Best Educator in Serbia and STEAM EXPERT Ambassador, and is the recipient of the Svetosavska award and numerous other recognitions.
Šljivović came to the Zaječar Gymnasium, which he himself graduated from, as a physics graduate for a one-month replacement, but stayed for a full two decades during which his students always won awards at the highest-level competitions, and he received all the most important teaching awards.
The latest, the “Prosvetitelj” award, was given to him from a pool of 1,000 teachers.
“I’m sitting in the audience and they’re reading out the announcement. There are four of us, phenomenal people, finalists they’ve chosen, and suddenly they call out ‘teacher from the gymnasium,’ I look and see I’m the only one from the gymnasium! I hear ‘Mladen Šljivović’ and I see that’s it! I managed to maintain this level of commitment and I like to say that I’m ‘first among equals,’ but even that sounds too arrogant”, Šljivović is modest.
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The results that Šljivović achieves with his students have contributed to the Zaječar Gymnasium being the first to get a makers lab and a science club.
“He tries to make learning interesting. He tries to make the lessons clear and concise enough for us to understand, and to learn something.”
“We have fun and learn at the same time, that’s the magic of this maker space, at every corner I look, there’s some device to learn something, to play. You learn best through play, and this is the perfect place for that”, say the students taught by teacher Mladen.
“I see some call, I see some idea and I say ‘let’s go, let’s chase it!’ I enjoy it and that’s my whole philosophy”, concludes Šljivović.
For two years in a row, the teams led by Šljivović have won the state competition of student companies. A new idea might just be a “smart garden” that connects agriculture and informatics.
“What’s most important is that Mladen has shown the children that science can be applied and it is very much applied and they can see that in any practical example that he organizes for them here in our ‘smart garden,’ makers lab, science club”, says the director of the Zaječar Gymnasium, Srđan Stanojević.
His students have won dozens of awards, and many of them are now researchers, doctors of science, students at prestigious universities.
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Source: Blic
Photo: Printscreen Zamedia Youtube