Maria Henje receives the Faculty of Science’s Pedagogical Award for 2023
Maria Henje has been involved in the gardening programme since it was developed in Mariestad in the 1990s, and since then she has taught on all the programmes in the Department of Conservation. Now she has been awarded the Faculty of Science’s Pedagogical Award for 2023.
Congratulations! How does it feel to have won the faculty’s Pedagogical Award?
“Oh! It was a wonderful feeling and I was really surprised when Göran Hilmersson phoned to tell me I was going to be awarded the faculty’s Pedagogical Award.”
Among other things, the citation says that your teaching is unique, innovative and attractive and that you pass on a passion that is infectious to students and colleagues alike. What methods have you used to motivate and engage your students?
“That’s obviously an impossible question to answer but I think I need to understand the students’ points of view to find keys to their learning. Preferably at group level, but sometimes it’s different for different students. And being enthusiastic about your subject and the learning process itself makes the job so much fun. I think it’s important to be definite, to do whatever needs to be done now, to do it right, and to get it wrong sometimes. Either it’s about arguing and giving constructive criticism or about drawing and measuring. And I have had the privilege of meeting students on all the programmes at the Department of Conservation over the years.”
When do you find teaching most enjoyable?
“Out in the field! But ideally not when it’s raining... Then I get cold and so do the students and it’s better to find some shelter and some coffee.”
You teach on the Botanical illustration course, which is one of the most popular courses at the university. What makes it so successful do you think?
“The high number of applications may be down to the fact that it’s a purely distance learning course, which means it attracts students from all over the country, especially women in rural areas and in small communities with a thirst for learning.
“Learning the names of the plants growing in the verges at the side of the road is like opening the door to a wonderful treasury of knowledge. Bo Mossberg’s and Lennart Stenberg’s flora are also so easily accessible so the course literature is available in every public library.
“I ask the students who complete the course to think about their own learning process when they make their final submission. I get different answers but what many of them have in common is that they understand that they have learned to see with a pencil in their hand. The act of drawing the complex details and the plants as a whole, practising and persevering gives them the time to see in a new, expanded way. It isn’t always easy for us to accept that it takes time to develop a skill. Not everyone comes with the ability to draw from school or has picked it up at home. I have some simple methods, you could call them technical methods, which can be applied and can give the student tools to master their own drawing.”
What are your future plans?
“I hope to be able to paint, and to get outside looking at plants and growing vegetables and flowers! I also have plans to talk about and spread awareness of the way Canadian Goldenrod is spreading invasively and taking over space where wild meadow flowers should be growing. Verges and roadsides between Gothenburg and Lidköping are glowing yellow with Canadian Goldenrod at this time of year.”
Award motivation
Maria Henje has been a fundamental force since the education in garden crafts was built up in Mariestad in the 1990s. In her teaching of composition with a focus on perception and creative processes, she conveys a passion that inspires both students and colleagues. Her teaching work was reinforced in the academic context when the craft school became part of the University of Gothenburg in 2006. Since then, Maria has in a unique and innovative way further developed her teaching in drawing and artistic sketching methods as tools for interpretation and understanding of plants, cultural landscapes and buildings. Not least, her pedagogy is recognized as unique, innovative and attractive, through the extremely popular summer course Botanical illustration with around 1,000 applicants
The Faculty of Science’s Pedagogical Award
The Pedagogical Award recognises excellence in teaching. It can be awarded to one person or be shared among multiple recipients. The award ceremony will take place on October 19.