Spring Break
Meadows Museum offers new student docent program
Russ Aaron, Entertainment Editor, raaron@smu.edu
Issue date: 10/30/08 Section: Entertainment
As a way to connect with the SMU student population, the Meadows Museum now offers a student docent program. The program, which took shape last year, is similar to those established by other university museums, such as the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas.
The student docent program is aimed at any currently enrolled student who has a love for art, not just one who's course study focuses on it. Of the 23 students currently involved in the program, majors range from art history, to communications, to a law student who possesses a love for Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect responsible for the motorized, wave-like sculpture outside the museum.
Starting earlier this semester, the student docents participated in a crash-course training program. They earned how to interact with museum guests and gained an understanding of the pieces of art inside Meadows. Regular docent training can take up to a year or more before the docents are ready for action, but not in the case of the student docents. The students, who have been training for four to six months, are already teaching and involved in campus tours. By no later than January, the docents will be ready for touring and teaching within the museum itself.
The Meadows Museum's approach toward the docents is unique in that the students are not expected to learn Spanish art from the 10th century to the present. The program focuses more on a facilitation teaching method, which means knowing how to talk to people about art, not necessarily everything about a certain piece. Currently, the student docents are in the process of learning a method called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). VTS is a practice of asking questions that generate discussion. In this sense, the students do not have to know a great deal about a certain piece of art to motivate discussion and new ideas.
Scott Winterrowd, assistant curator of education at Meadows Museum, believes that allowing the student docents participate in teaching early gain a greater amount of knowledge and experience.
The student docent program is aimed at any currently enrolled student who has a love for art, not just one who's course study focuses on it. Of the 23 students currently involved in the program, majors range from art history, to communications, to a law student who possesses a love for Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect responsible for the motorized, wave-like sculpture outside the museum.
Starting earlier this semester, the student docents participated in a crash-course training program. They earned how to interact with museum guests and gained an understanding of the pieces of art inside Meadows. Regular docent training can take up to a year or more before the docents are ready for action, but not in the case of the student docents. The students, who have been training for four to six months, are already teaching and involved in campus tours. By no later than January, the docents will be ready for touring and teaching within the museum itself.
The Meadows Museum's approach toward the docents is unique in that the students are not expected to learn Spanish art from the 10th century to the present. The program focuses more on a facilitation teaching method, which means knowing how to talk to people about art, not necessarily everything about a certain piece. Currently, the student docents are in the process of learning a method called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). VTS is a practice of asking questions that generate discussion. In this sense, the students do not have to know a great deal about a certain piece of art to motivate discussion and new ideas.
Scott Winterrowd, assistant curator of education at Meadows Museum, believes that allowing the student docents participate in teaching early gain a greater amount of knowledge and experience.
Be the first to comment on this story