Richard Hunt–inspired sculptures by 5th-grade students at the museum
The 5th-Grade Tours program at the Georgia Museum of Art is one of our most successful — a wonderful partnership with the Clarke County School District (CCSD), the University of Georgia’s Experience UGA program (a campus-wide initiative that strives to bring every K-12 student in CCSD to visit campus each year for the purpose of fostering interest in pursuing higher education among CCSD students), the UGA College of Education, private donors who make it all possible and other parties. Active for many years, it served as a model for Experience UGA. But our educators aren’t content to rest on their laurels. They’re always trying to figure out how to make it a better, more enriching program.
The 2018 version of the program focused on the exhibition “Richard Hunt: Synthesis,” bringing 5th-graders from all 14 CCSD elementary schools to the museum. Each tour began with an introductory presentation in the museum’s auditorium, as part of which students learned about the museum, artist Richard Hunt, his sculptures and processes he used to create them and the exhibition. Then, groups of 10 to 15 students proceeded on docent-led tours of the museum’s permanent collection and the exhibition. They explored the “Richard Hunt: Synthesis” galleries independently, at their own pace, using an activity guide with questions and prompts that utilized emojis and other clues to promote close looking and emphasize personal reactions to the works of art. They also engaged in hands-on, interactive learning in the galleries via the museum’s Art Carts, with touchable objects including metals in various states of the welding process and safety equipment similar to what Hunt used while creating his metal sculptures. Students successfully engaged in hands-on learning in the galleries through this use of touchable teaching elements made especially for use in the program, thanks to a grant from Georgia Council for the Arts.
Following the tour, they came back downstairs for a studio session, where students made their own sculpture using metal wire, Styrofoam and tinfoil. They approached this creative work with imagination and ingenuity, using the provided materials to construct a wide range of sculptures including figurative, abstract, wearable and kinetic works. After the museum visit, an outreach art session took place in five of the schools, with outreach instructors presenting a brief PowerPoint presentation to recap the museum tour and remind students of Hunt’s art. Inspired by Hunt’s sculpture “Swing Low,” which hangs from the ceiling at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C., students created their own hanging, kinetic sculpture. The project invited students to consider a different type of sculpting than the project they created during their museum visit. It also inspired individuality and encouraged students to use their problem-solving skills.
Before each school year starts, museum educators meet with CCSD teachers, including 5th-grade teachers, to present the museum’s schedule of exhibitions for the upcoming school year, plan programs and share ideas to develop the best museum experience for school tours and follow-up classroom sessions. Before each class tour, a preliminary PowerPoint presentation is sent to its teacher that introduces students to the museum and the exhibition, a resource that has been heavily requested by teachers. The gallery tour element of “Synthesis,” which featured an activity guide that fostered independent exploration of the collections and exhibitions on view, was a direct response to teacher recommendations. The museum sent a catalogue of the exhibition to each art teacher in CCSD and developed a digital teaching packet. For teachers outside of CCSD, copies of the exhibition catalogue and other exhibition catalogues are available upon request.
Staff and docents always make a point to invite students to return with their family and friends for programs and to tour the exhibitions and collections, and students often do so. For many students each year, the 5th-grade tour is their first time coming to the museum. Adding touchable objects made the exhibition more accessible than ever, and the program as a whole had a positive impact on the academic progress of participating students. They built and improved their visual-information-processing skills and gained inspiration from Hunt’s life and career. As they learned about Hunt’s life and legacy and how they connect to American and African American history, students were able to connect art with other topics and their broader understanding of the world. They also tested and matured their ability to participate in the scientific process by creating multiple types of individualized sculptures.
The outreach instructors noted that the activity they developed differed from other classroom art activities where students all participate using the same materials, and students responded with overwhelming positivity to the challenge of creating individual works of art and sharing their materials. One outreach instructor described a visit by explaining that a lot of the projects were really inventive. She worked with one student who, after discussing the trip to the museum and Hunt’s “Swing Low,” decided he wanted to make a flying motorcycle. She and the student worked together to brainstorm how to create a motorcycle out of paper and how to get it to hang with the provided materials. Then the student set to work and “he ended up making a whole hanging motorcycle, and when he finished, he was so excited and proud of his work.”
The Fifth-Grade Tour Program takes many hands to put together, but we’re so proud that it continues to grow and evolve to reach students better every year. The 2019 program will kick off in October and will focus on the exhibition “Mary Lee Bendolph: Quilted Memories.”
