A Note from
the Executive Director
Dear Friends,
Spring is in the air, a time of year when the world around us
rejuvenates and comes to life. For VTS, 2008 brings a host of new
opportunities and challenges , and we are excited to see such rapid
growth in VTS programs in every corner of the country--from Florida to
California to South Dakota. This season's newsletter is bursting with
updates from all over the country. Museum partnerships are expanding
steadily, numerous VTS training events are scheduled throughout the
year, and thanks to the Eisner Foundation, we continue our work on an
entirely new home for VTS on the web... (stay tuned for its premiere
later in the year).
As schools, museums and non-profits throughout the US are coping with
budget cuts, staff reduction, shrinking art programs and testing
pressures, organizations are seeking programs that are affordable and
effective that generate real results. The unique attributes of VTS, in
terms of pedagogy, research, cost, time commitment and professional
development, provide educational institutions with a viable option to
address some of those challenges
Through VTS collaborations we are making significant progress in many
areas. The national VTS office is here to provide advice, support and
suggestions to help our partners further VTS in their area. So if you
ever have a question about VTS, please give us a call.
Enjoy the season (and to our colleagues in the North, don't worry, Spring will be coming soon...)
Sincerely,
Oren Slozberg,
Executive Director,
Sonoma, CA
PS - If you want to send us an update on VTS in your area, please drop
us a line and we would be happy to include it in our Fall Newsletter.
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Now that your taxes are done,
donate your refund to VTS!
Our mission is to make a real difference in the lives of children, both in school and beyond. In today's competitive and crowded philanthropic environment, we rely on the support of individual donors like you now more than ever.
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Upcoming Events
VTS Practicum
Three-day workshop focused on developing VTS facilitation skills.
June 25-27, 2008
Chicago, IL
Late Summer 2008
Dallas, Texas
Professional Development Institutes
These institutes prepare people for helping others use VTS.
April 22-25
Session 1 of 3
New York, NY
June 23-26
Seattle, WA
July 21-24
Session 1 of 3
New York, NY
October 27-30
Session 3 of 3
Indianapolis, IN
Fall 2008
Session 1 of 3
Los Angeles, CA
Lead Teacher Institute
Four-day workshops, separated by the
first year of implementing VTS, designed to prepare teams of "mentor
teachers" to return to their schools to introduce VTS.
July 21-24
Session 1 of 2
New York, NY
August, 2008
Session 1 of 2
Sonoma, CA
Introducing VTS
April 28-30, 2008 - 2:30pm-4:00pm.
2008 Washington Cultural Congress Seattle, WA
by Yoon Kang- O'Higgins and Deborah Sepulveda.
VTS Research
& Coding Workshops
Please contact us for more info.
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Teachers are Talking:
"VTS gives teachers an opportunity to learn about the lives and thoughts of their students in a unique and personal way."
"I want to thank you so much for how you have changed the way I teach. I probably sound corny, but only one other course has ever moved me and changed the way I look and teach. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the experiences I had in your class."
"VTS is such a great vehicle to work on vocabulary while including the arts! Thank you for giving this gift to our students!"
"VTS really prepares students for future discussions in and about the real world. The method reminds me of the Socratic seminar format of my college classes where we would dissect great pieces of literature and other works of art."
| "With VTS you see themes and ideas emerge. You see students improving how they communicate and improve their interaction with each other."
"Students practiced analytical language and became much more adept at supporting their statements and backing them up with concrete evidence. Their language became clearer and more concise."
"I like that my struggling readers can participate effectively. They are usually quiet and avoid taking part in the lesson, but not with VTS."
"I find that I am applying VTS in the classroom without really planning a 'session.' I find I will use the questions after reading a story or passage in a story, and the students respond with much better comments than they would otherwise. They seem to do much better thinking."
"At the beginning of the school year, the kids told me they had never had discussion time before. Having VTS artwork to focus on helped them to begin to pull their thoughts together and be able to speak, to listen seriously to their fellow students' ideas. Once they started really getting the idea, students who were either too hyper to be attentive or too shy really began to get into the discussions with really in-depth ideas."
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Report from NAEA
 The 2008 National Art Education Association's annual conference for art educators, museum professionals and other like-minded individuals, was held in beautiful New Orleans.
The conference opened with a keynote by renowned education authority, Barbara Newsom. In her compelling speech, which underscored the strengths and successes of VTS, she said "Learning is not only enhanced by but actually dependant upon a child's mind and imagination...the exercise of a child's visual intelligence is critical to the learning process, that, in fact, it is an educational crime to deprive children of the arts in their classrooms and beyond." You can download the full text of Newsom's speech, by clicking here.
VTS Senior Research Associate Karin DeSantis said of her experience at the conference,
"When I think of the depth and breadth of
our discussions, it was clear that there is a new generation of VTS practitioners
looking for new uses, new ways to use this method. It's extremely
gratifying to see how many different people from all over the country
are excited about VTS. The
possibilities are truly limitless."
NAEA presenter, Nancy Jones, who is the Director of Education
at the Detroit Institute of Arts, said: "We know that VTS is a flawless
teaching technique that promotes the development of skills of looking
at and interpreting art. For educators at the DIA, it has also been
the basis for our thinking about pedagogy in general, including for our
studio program." Jones
continued, "Housen's extraordinary research has also informed our
museum's new visitor-centered installation by showing us who our
visitors are. The kudos that the DIA is currently getting should also
go to VUE."
Plans are already underway for VTS presentations at NAEA's 2009 conference in Minneapolis.
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VTS in Chicago
 Visual Thinking Strategies has been percolating in Chicago since the mid 1990s, when Antonia Contro, then head of student and teacher programs at the Art Institute, brought Philip Yenawine in to conduct workshops for docents and teachers, most of them art specialists, in the then-evolving pedagogy that became VTS. Participants were sufficiently enthusiastic about the way VTS engages students in the process of examining art that funding was found to produce a film, "What Do You See?" which became a standard in docent training programs in the dozens of years its been in circulation.
In 2004, Dori Jacobsohn, then manager of studio and family programs at the Terra Museum of American Art, also asked Philip Yenawine to conduct teacher workshops, and in 2003, the Terra hosted an institute for museum educators wanting to focus on school partnerships to use VTS. In the same year, it produced a tape of Philip working with teachers including both a discussion and a follow up analysis of the VTS method.
After the Terra Foundation closed its museum operations, Dori began teaching early childhood education pre-service students at Columbia College Chicago where she has incorporated VTS training into methods courses. In December 2007, two CPS Elementary schools, Fiske and Fermi, on Chicago's Southside began a Kindergarten thru 5th grade implementation. The initial training, took place at the University of Chicago's Smart Museum of Art. Subsequent professional development is being lead by Dori Jacobsohn at each school.
 We are now poised to increase the reach of VTS, starting with a presentation to a selected group of principals on April 10, in addition to our VTS Practicum, which will take place on June 25-27, and will be hosted by the Smart Museum, the Oriental Institute, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Thanks to the efforts everyone involved, VTS is truly blossoming in Chicago.
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Pre-K VTS in Amagansett
The Amagansett School on Long Island has been enthusiastically implementing VTS in its classrooms this year. Even Ms. English's PreK class has gotten in on the act. They have been enjoying looking at and discussing the Kindergarten images. Below is a transcript of their discussion about The Miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Isabey with his Daughter by Francois Gerard. The children make a lot of great observations. See if you can spot where they are beginning to interpret, argue with evidence, and create idiosyncratic narratives:
The girl with the dad
The girl wearing the dress and princess hat, princess dress.
A dog.
This is not a dad, this is a mom.
I see the dog and the dress wearing the princess.
I see the princess crown.
That's the teeth, the dog, and the hat.
The dress and the dog.
I see the hat. I think that's a backpack of the girl and the girl and the dad.
See this little white things back there, those are the shoes and this is a dad because it doesn't have long hair.
I see the girl's face and the shirt.
I see the dog's (points to collar).
I see the sun over the dog's feet.
This is a crown and a hat and this is the sun and moon and trees and bushes.
It's dark time so it wouldn't be sunny and that's the ceiling and its dark time outside.
I think the dog grabbing the hat.
I see that they're holding hands and the dog is trying to go outside and this is the shade.
Why they are hiding?
They're playing hide and seek with another person with a dog.
I see the daughter's red eyes.
I think they're in a museum.
I think they're in a pretend haunted house.
This is the dog's collar and dress.
I like...This is not a boy it's a girl and this is the girl's dress and girl's hat and this is the bag and this is the pants.
That's a girl and that's pants.
I see that spot.
This is a grandfather and this is a kid in a haunted house, um, museum full of dinosaur bones and fish bones and all kinds of bones of things.
And people bones.
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Regional Updates
New York and Long Island --
- VTS Staff member Amy Chase Gulden presented "Building the Relevance of the Visual Art Program Across the School with VTS" at the Partners for Arts Education Common Ground Conference, held in Albany, NY in April 2008.
- As part of the NYSCA Services to the Field grant
for Long Island, Amy Chase Gulden and Ariana Bayer taught a four-part
"Jumpstarting Visual Literacy" VTS grad-level course, offered through Brooklyn College and the Teacher Center of the Westhamptons.
- The Eastern Suffolk BOCES Literacy-Learning Conference hosted a presentation by Amy Chase Gulden and Patricia Lannes of the Nassau County Museum of Art, entitled "Using VTS to Develop Oral Literacy and Critical Thinking."
- The New York State Alliance for Arts Education, in partnership with the
Art League of Long Island, East End Arts Council, Eastern Suffolk BOCES
and Long Island Arts in Education Roundtable
presents "Tools for Success: 21st Century Learning Conference for
Educators and Artists." Amy Chase Gulden and Patricia Lannes will
present an introduction to VTS on May 7 in Dix Hills, NY.
New Britain, CT --
- The New Britain Museum of Art has completed it's first VTS docent training program, and will be supporting new VTS programming in the New Britain public schools in 2008-2009.
Massachusetts --
- Students at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum
continue to participate in VTS discussions, write in response to their chosen work and create works of art in response to the collection at PAAM. Student artwork, texts, and PAAM collection work are then featured in the galleries. - A unique collaboration of Boston Museums are developing a city-wide implementation of VTS in schools in the Boston region.
- Corinne
Zimmerman has been hired as the Regional Director of the Boston VTS
region. Corinne is a veteran museum and arts educator who has been
working with schools and museums in Massachusetts for more than 15
years.
Amherst, MA --- Rosemary Agoglia continues to spread the word about VTS at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and will present a pre-institute talk at the Reggio Emilia Institute on Friday, April 25 entitled "Observing, Listening, and Learning: The Languages of the Reggio Emilia Atelier and the Visual Thinking Strategies."
New Jersey --- Thanks to a gift by artist Bill Westheimer, Redwood Elementary School continues their VTS programming in partnership with the Montclair Art Museum in West Orange, New Jersey.
Indianapolis, IN --- By the end of spring, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will have facilitated VTS discussions with more than 1,500 students in their classrooms (including almost 300 K-2 students) and hosted more than 3,000 K-5 students from 34 schools for field trips as part of our Viewfinders program.
- The IMA has worked with more than 150 pre-service Elementary and Art Education students from Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) School of Education to familiarize them with and train them in using VTS. We have heard reports from their mentors that they have already put it to use while student teaching.
- The IMA is piloting a program with Year 3 students that includes a VTS discussion in the Lilly House, a historical site on the campus of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
- The IMA is partnering with Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) to develop a visual arts curriculum for a law and government magnet middle school. Images will include pieces selected from the IMA collection and from the IPS Shortridge Collection, a group of works by Indiana artists.
- The IMA has been facilitating VTS discussions in the galleries with public health and nursing students from IUPUI and Marian College in an effort to help them with their communication and observation skills.
- The IMA is partnering with an IPS gifted and talented K-8 magnet school (scheduled to open fall 2008) to implement VTS school-wide and train classroom teachers to use VTS as part of their daily curriculum instruction.
- Approximately 15 docents trained in VTS who help us facilitate all VTS tours at the IMA. They meet monthly and practice in the galleries regularly. Our new docent class includes 15 additional people who have expressed a keen interest in becoming involved in our Viewfinders program and are currently being trained to facilitate Year 1 discussions.
San Francisco --
- SFBayVTS began school-wide three-year implementations with five new K-5 schools in San Francisco in September 2007, serving 104 teachers and 1,742 students: Cesar Chavez, Glen Park, Peabody, Sutro and E.R. Taylor.
- We continue to partner with SF MOMA, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Asian Art Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California to develop VTS programs and support school-wide VTS implementations.
- We are developing a rich dialogue with San Francisco Unified School District
leaders. As we develop relationships with new district leaders, we are
exploring how VTS functions as a tool for educational equity.
- VTS is expanding into 3 new counties in the coming school year: Alameda, San Mateo, and southern Marin.
- In the fall of 2008, we will partner with ZeroDivide, an organization whose mission is to leverage new technologies to benefit people in underserved communities, to begin a one-year pilot implementation at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center's Child Life Department to bring VTS to patients who attend their SFUSD school (K-8).
- In December, we launched a multi-year partnership with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to create a program called Art Savvy, featuring VTS discussions with adults about contemporary art in the galleries.
- In November, we held a VTS Soiree at the de Young Museum and another is scheduled in April at the Oakland Museum of California. The VTS Soirees have brought together teachers and docents eager to practice VTS with original works of art.
- We are developing our relationship with the Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership of Alameda County and the Arts Learning Anchor Schools. Together, we are exploring how VTS supports schools at all stages of becoming arts learning sites.
Northern California --- In
collaboration with the San Jose Museum of Art and the San Jose Unified
School District, VTS addressed more than 50 people in the area about
VTS school and museum programs in two introductory sessions.
- The
Sonoma County Museum of Art hosted an Introductory VTS sessions for
educators, attracting educators from Sonoma and Napa Counties.
- The
following schools will be implementing VTS in the 2008/9 academic year:
Old Adobe Elementary, Petaluma; Waldo-Rohnert Elementary, Rohnert Park;
El Verano Elementary and the Presentation School, Sonoma.
- The
Sonoma Valley Unified School District, the Sonoma Valley Education Fund
and VTS are collaborating to implement and fund a program in the
district's elementary schools.
Fresno, CA --- On March 3, 2008, educators from the Fresno Met facilitated a day-long VTS Introduction to seventeen teachers and administrators from Fresno Unified School District.
- The Fresno Met continues to implement VTS as a 10-week outreach program in local schools. Two trained staff members facilitate the lessons in the classrooms (two schools each per week). They continually have a one-year wait list for this program which started in December 2002.
- On May 22 and 29, 2008 the Frenso Met will conduct a two-part VTS Introduction for eighteen teachers from a new charter school Valley Arts and Science Academy (VASA).
- The Reeves ASK Science Center Gallery has adopted VTS as part of "Crossroads: The Meeting of Art and Science" exhibition.
- On February 27, 2008, Teresa Espana made a presentation on the Met's VTS program at the California Museum Association annual conference as part of the panel, "Building and Maintaining Successful Museum Outreach Programs."
- For more about VTS at the Fresno Met, please click here.
Northwest --
- The Museum of Art and Culture (MAC) in Spokane is working to establish itself as the hub for VTS in Eastern Washington. This Spring, regional director Yoon Kang-O'Higgins spent two days with the staff, docents and local teachers to help jumpstart their programs.
- Yoon also spent two days in Eugene at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon in Eugene. One day i worked with the docents and with undergraduate education students. The Schnitzer is currently working to incorporate VTS into its programming in deeper ways.
- Deborah Sepulveda has been working with Seattle University faculty and students to develop a five-credit internship program for Fine Art students. This fall, the first year pilot of the program will begin. The program will be open to all sophomores, juniors and seniors majoring in Fine Arts willing to make a one-year commitment.
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If you are using VTS in your area and want to include an update in the next VTS newsletter, please let us know. We would love to include you!
With sincere thanks for your support,
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The VTS Staff
Visual Understanding in Education
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