The Center’s latest Skype in the classroom lesson [the Center’s virtual lessons have migrated: learn more] proves that art can open many doors for students—especially high school students. We recently launched a participatory virtual lesson that we hope helps teachers across disciplines expose their students to the idea that perspectives can be communicated over time through technique, process, history, storytelling, and cultural traditions.
Our new lesson, Do You See Me Like I See Me?: Cultural Perspectives in Western American Art, focuses on how artists have used their own backgrounds in art, their experiences with Plains Indian culture, and their knowledge of history to influence their own perspectives as reflected in their artwork.
Perspectives: Art Can Open Many Doors for Students
We want to challenge high school art and history students to explore how culture, individuality, technique, and place in history have influenced various artists. Using artwork from the Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Center educators introduce students to historical and contemporary reflections of Plains Indian life. We show European views of Native life, as well as American Indian perspectives of their own experiences.
Examining Ourselves: Art Can Open Many Doors for Students
Examining individual artists is just part of this lesson. We also want students to dig a little deeper and think about how they see themselves and how they see others. Prior to the lesson students are asked to draw self-portraits in settings that reflect how they see themselves. Then students work with partners to draw portraits of their classmates in settings they think reflect their peers.
Finding Relevance: Art Can Open Many Doors for Students
The so what…the relevance of art for students. We have all heard it around the country. Art related topics and classes are continuously cut in schools everywhere. Does this make art less important? I do not think so. In fact, I believe it makes art vitally more important, because art can open doors for students. Art can help tell stories—stories of culture, history, perspective, hardship, resilience, and place. Don’t students have these very same disciplines in their own lives?
Art can open many doors for students—doors that might otherwise remain locked, doors they did not know existed, and doors behind which they might create their own connections to art.
Schedule a Skype in the classroom Lesson
Lesson slots are available now. This lesson is interdisciplinary, meeting Common Core Standards, as well as national standards in art, history, and culture. Register for Do You See Me Like I See Me?: Cultural Perspectives in Western American Art.
Learn about all our virtual lessons by visiting our Virtual Field Trips page.
