AT THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO (DEPARTMENT OF MUSEUM EDUCATION) AND THE FIELD MUSEUM

After my trip to Chicago,  why have I chosen to talk about the Art Institue? www.artic.edu/aic Because it is a great museum, of course, but also because it has to do with the project of Patrimonio Para Jovenes, due to the important Spanish workshops in its collection and its very interesting educational department. So first of all, and before writing more, I want to thanks Hillary Cook and Georgina Valverde ( Teen and Museum Partnership Coordinator and Teacher Programs Coordinator)  for their attention and help during my time at the museum. At this point I want to point out that all my opinions here have to do with some days, and some hours, and its important take this into account, so this is not the conclusion for all the job at this museum or museums in  Chicago, or in the States. 

            

At first glance, my attention was attracted by two things: The huge range of students and children in the museum, and the size of the installations for the educational area; the Ryan education center, located close to the contemporary galleries and the new entrance, the beauty of their classrooms and the very nice atmosphere for very little children, teens, teachers and parents.

Visiting the classrooms, the guide tours with students, and consulting the material that the department gave to me, I´ve seen that they focus their attention on developing the capacity of observation, creativity and oral expression among children. And its great. It is something that I really would like to see more in Spain. 

 

Teachers have a great range of resources and programs you can visit at www.artic.edu/aic/education/teachers and for general information they have a paper with instructions; “Tips for leading Discussions about Art” There you can find indications like these; “Give students time to look” and then, how to prepare questions, opening questions, more specific questions and “encourage students to probe their observations more deeply” So, its a great program to “Learn, engage and enjoy” as it reads at the entrance of the educational area. Great goals. However in my opinion, “incorporate background information when relevant” is not enough, for me, background is always relevant. We can have a deep misunderstanding of a masterpiece if we don´t know its time, its symbols and language, the concerns of the artists and the patrons. All these give clues to observe in a different way.  

As an example of this I´ve found a very nice classroom focused on “Still Life” here you have the idea  with all the objets you need for a Still life. However if you check out the results on twitter #AICStillLife you can see people have a lot of fun but they don´t understand what exactly a Still Life is, in the sense that it represented in the baroque times. Would it be possible to learn and have fun at the same time? In my opinion, yes. Here, for me,with this example of still life, its only fun. 

Regarding positive things, I also like the way the students are distributed in the museum, in small groups, and they listened the explanations seated, (in small foldable chairs that the students themselves could carry with them). I´ve see these chairs in Spanish museums but not in such a large number. Feeling confortable is quite important when listening to an explanation.

     

Here in Spain, we don’t have the chance to enjoy these kind of great educational departments unless we are living at big cities like Madrid or Barcelona (which have great museums as well). But the advantage that Spain has over the USA is that the whole country is a museum in the sense that hundreds of little villages have a great artistic or cultural heritage. An example? Just check out posts on this blog.

So let yourself apply this emphasis on creativity and observation, let yourself apply “learn, engage enjoy” all around our country and we can be successful in spreading our very rich cultural heritage.

I also want to say something about another interesting museum; The Field museum www.fieldmuseum.org also with many students in attendance and with very nice activities such as having young orchestras perform in the hall, meetings with a scientist, or explanations of the galleries that are easy for children to understand. Here you have also some pictures from my visit there. 

              

 

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Have a nice day!