With help from the Target retail chain, the curriculum developed by District teachers and National Gallery staff will be offered to schools in other parts of the country next year. For the fifth-graders at Thomson, immersion started when docent Susan Bruce visited their downtown classroom in the fall. She explained what museums do and how the students could learn what goes on inside those buildings. Two weeks later the students tumbled out of a yellow school bus and walked silently into the grand spaces of the East Building. The curriculum is carefully planned.
Students learn about color, design, technique and subject matter.
She talks to her classmates about the patterns of the shadows cast by the work. The students quickly become absorbed in the way shadows from the sculpture move black forms across the white walls. This shows me I can look at art another way. It does look like broken glass and ceramic pieces. I think if it moved more, it would make a clinking noise.