Teacher's Pre-Lesson Notes

       The Krannert Art Museum pages in this workbook are designed to help you use art to help your students develop a number of skills: careful looking; articulation of ideas; listening to others; logical argumentation; flexible, critical and creative thinking. Besides fostering these vitally important skills and mental habits, the looking, discussion and writing activities described here also reveal some essential qualities of art that are not always taught: art makes us think; it is about human experience; and the richness of a work of art defies one simple "right answer" about meaning. These qualities make art an especially effective focus for student discussions. Though few classroom teachers had time to learn about art during their own times in college or graduate school, many are beginning to recognize the importance of "art ways of thinking," or aesthetic thinking, in many subject areas. It may be useful to think of aesthetic thinking is an important part of our ability to deal with complexity, ambiguity, and even sheer quantity when we confront new information. You do not need to have any particular knowledge of art yourself to teach these lessons.

       The approach to teaching introduced here is the result of a unique collaboration among a cognitive psychologist, an art museum educator, and the many classroom teachers who have tested and critiqued it. It is called the Visual Thinking Strategies, or VTS for short. It makes a lot of sense for members of these three professions to collaborate in developing teaching strategies that help more students become successful life-long learners through art. Research by psychologists provides new insights into human development and the learning process. Art museum educators provide access to the objects in museum collections; they know the collections, and can help teachers make connections with their teaching goals. Teachers know both their students and their curriculum well. They are able to help students find connections and know how to support each learner's individual needs.

       The VTS is playing an important role in the education programs of many American art museums. It is also being used as a research curriculum in several schools. Learning to teach VTS lessons and developing a thorough understanding of the research and theory upon which the VTS is based takes time. Teachers usually participate in an initial two-day workshop, and then begin an alternating pattern of teaching the lessons in their classrooms and meeting with fellow teachers for discussion. The workbook pages here do not attempt to substitute for that in-depth training. Instead they offer a glimpse that we hope you will find both interesting and useful.

       If you decide you would like to know more about the VTS, visit the Visual Understanding in Education Website at: www.vue.org. At this site you can learn more about the work of Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine, the creators of the VTS. You may also want to contact educators at one of the several museums where VTS teacher training is offered and/or where tour guides employ this approach in the galleries. These include the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (www.mfa.org), The Detroit Institute of Art (www.dia.org), The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts (www.artsmia.org), and Krannert Art Museum. (www.art.uiuc.edu/kam/)

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