Arkın University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD) held the fifth edition of its traditional education workshops for high school and middle school teachers in Northern Cyprus on Thursday, December 11, at the University Conference Hall. This year’s guest was academician and author Prof. Dr. Binnur Yeşilyaprak. With her seminar titled “Revealing the Sculpture Within Us,” Yeşilyaprak offered teachers a profound perspective on human nature, the balance between emotion and reason, bodily memory, and the exploration of an individual’s inner potential.
This year’s workshop hosted 120 teachers from 35 high schools. Prof. Dr. Binnur Yeşilyaprak’s impressive presentation centered on innate human potential, metaphors of social and natural software, emotional regulation, and Michelangelo’s analogy of the “sculpture within the stone,” providing participants with a comprehensive inner journey. The seminar was supported by two interactive exercises, enabling teachers to actively engage in the process.
The Education Workshop Program began with an opening speech by ARUCAD Rector Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi. Vehbi noted that they had considered postponing the event due to adverse weather conditions, but emphasized how valuable the response from some teachers—“No, we definitely want to come”—was for them. He stated, “This wonderful crowd gathered here today created a picture that made us say, ‘It’s a good thing we didn’t postpone it.’”
In the continuation of his speech, Vehbi drew attention to ARUCAD’s academic and physical development over the years: “When our university first opened, we had a structure consisting of 5 studios, 5 workshops, and 3 laboratories. Today, we have become an international institution bringing together academics and students from 55 different countries. We currently have 33 studios, 17 workshops, 10 laboratories, and 5 stages, greatly expanding our spaces for production, research, and experience. ARUCAD has now entered a period of maturity, and from this point on, our focus will be entirely on quality.”
Vehbi also emphasized that the refunctioning of Toplancılar Han in Lefkoşa Bandabuliya as ARUCAD’s Faculty of Music and Performing Arts is an important step for both the university and the city. He stated that this transformation would contribute to the social, economic, and cultural vitality of the Walled City area, saying: “The transformation of Toplancılar Han into our faculty not only provides a new educational environment for our students but also creates a structure that strengthens artistic and cultural interaction in Surlariçi. We believe this step will add significant value to the region.”
Following Prof. Dr. Asım Vehbi’s speech, the program continued with the seminar “Revealing the Sculpture Within Us”by academician and author Prof. Dr. Binnur Yeşilyaprak. Yeşilyaprak began her presentation with a social experiment that directly involved the participants. She asked everyone to choose a stone at the entrance and then informed them that they were being recorded on camera at the moment of selection, observing their initial reactions. She explained the experiment as follows: “When I told you that you were being recorded while choosing the stone, many of you immediately thought, ‘How do I look? Did I do it right?’ Yet the stone you chose was an indicator of how you communicate with yourself. True awareness begins when you turn the camera toward yourself, not toward others.”
After the experiment, Yeşilyaprak continued by emphasizing the importance of emotions and thoughts working together: “Human beings are not only thinking creatures; our emotional side is just as decisive as reason. The success of education depends on being able to see these two systems together.” She noted that the educational approach in the region has increasingly narrowed to academic achievement alone, and that pushing art and creative courses into the background negatively affects children’s development. “We focus only on academic subjects; we remove courses like music and visual arts from the system and expect children to achieve outstanding success in quantitative and verbal fields. However, the right brain and left brain are a whole and complement each other. If we do not develop the emotional brain, we cannot achieve success in the thinking brain.”
Continuing her talk, Yeşilyaprak emphasized that emotions are a fundamental part of human “natural software”: “When a baby is born, they do not know how to think; thinking is something we learn later. But emotions are with us from the moment we are born. Hunger, satiety, compassion, and even disgust are emotions that a newborn baby can experience.”
Stating that every individual has an innate potential, Yeşilyaprak recalled Michelangelo’s famous words: “Michelangelo says, ‘I only remove the excess; the sculpture was already inside the stone.’ Every child is like this… Our duty is to create the environment that reveals the sculpture within them.” She explained that humans are shaped through natural and social software, adding: “We are born with natural software and shaped by social software. The teacher is the most influential guide in this shaping process.”
Emphasizing that the definition of education needs to change, Yeşilyaprak expressed her approach with the following words: “Education is a process that enables individuals to discover, develop, and reflect their mental, emotional, and social resources into their lives.”
The seminar continued with interactive activities conducted by Yeşilyaprak. Through these exercises, participants had the opportunity to observe and evaluate their emotional and cognitive processes.
At the end of the program, Yeşilyaprak’s book “Self Therapy,” which has also been translated into English, was gifted to the participating teachers by ARUCAD. The program concluded with a cocktail reception.
