I am extremely grateful for the late stat we got on this day, my tank was leaning a bit towards empty and I needed a break. First off I would love to talk about the building itself, wow what a great place to have it and what an amazing structure. Our tour guide told us the reason for the design as wel as many of the other buildings in the city had a “Greek” influence to it is because at one time it was concsidered to be the “Athens” of the West because of the democracy that took place here in the creation of our country. That in itself would be a great teaching point in any American History class.
How would I use the “American” collection in my classroom? Although I myself grew up in the mountains of hick town USA LA Veta, Colorado; My parens who had grown up in Thousand Oaks, California and London England made a point to take adavantage of any arts we had in La Veta and drag us up to plays, musicals, art museums in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver in a n effort to make sure we appreciated that part of society. OVer the years as a teacher I have tried my best to do the same with my students, at the Connect School they already do that to an extent but for those 9 years at Vineland those kids needed to be exposed to that element of our culture. The arts need to be a part of our kids life and using the online versions of some of our countries artists give the kids an appreciation for just how important it was for those people to establish themselves and give America its own unique style of art making our country even more different and more seperated from our colonial roots. Below you will find a small sampliing of some of my favorite pieces of the museum as well as for the capture the kids attention picture of the Rocky Statue that I would use as a hook to get the m into the rest of the art.
