Training in the
Rembrandt Teaching Project focuses on enhancing the
content area knowledge of the teachers in the areas of
art and art history. Being located in New York City we
not only take advantage of each other's experise but also
receive offsite training in museums in New York City in
which Rembrandt's works are located. By collaborating
with cultural institutions the teachers in the Rembrandt
Project will expand the borders of their classrooms to
include some of the major museums of the world.
At a session in October
of 2001 a new group of teachers received introductory
training for the Rembrandt Project. These teachers
received training from other teachers who were in the
first cohort of teachers who made up the Rembrandt
Teaching Project. These teacher trainers have refined
their classroom practice to include using the art of
Rembrandt to teach both core content subjects such as
mathematics and science as well as art.
The teachers who attended
this session were representative of both elementary and
intermediates school teachers. Some were art specialists
while others were classroom instructional generalists.
What they all have in common was a motivation to use the
art of Rembrandt to construct best practices in
teaching.
At this session teachers
received introductory training on the artistic biography
of Rembrandt to give them context about his life and
times. This included having the teachers view a slide
show composed by the project's director that included
slides of Rembrandt's birth place in the Netherlands, the
school he attended in Leiden, and significant Rembrandt
locations in Amsterdam. They also viewed examples of many
of his major works.
This was followed by
hands on demonstrations that included having teachers
make and use a viewfinder to compose their own version of
a fall still life. Teachers also received materials such
as books and journals in order to encourage the
implementation of a multiple literacies approach to
learning.
A session of the
Rembrandt Teaching Project was held at the Metropolitan
Museum in New York City in May of 2003. A staff
development confernce was held in the Uris Conference
Room followed by a workshop and walking tour.led by Ines
Powell, a museum educator with Metropolitan Museum
Education Department.
The topic of the workshop
and tour was the influence of seventeenth-century Nothern
and Southern European art on the work of Rembrandt. Ms.
Powell made a lively presentation of Rembrandt's
influences. We learned how Peter Paul Rubens' art was an
important background influence to Rembrandt's training
and work. Also Spanish art in the seventeenth century was
shown to be connected to Dutch art of the same period.
With her lively presentation, Ms. Powell set the stage
for discussion as to how to integrate art and art history
into traditional school core content areas.
At this session teachers
received various materials including slides of paintings
viewed during the tour.
