The MAG RCSD Expanded Learning Collaboration (2017-18)
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The Memorial Art Gallery-Rochester City School District (MAG–RCSD) Expanded Learning Collaboration is a museum-based learning partnership that currently serves every student in grades 1-4 at School #23, grades 2-5 at School #29, and grades 1-2 at School #45 in Rochester, New York. As part of this museum-school repeat visit partnership, each student visits MAG once a week for ten consecutive weeks during the school year, engaging in a series of curriculum-based hands-on and in-gallery experiences.
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The MAG RCSD Expanded Learning Collaboration (2016-17) brought students from the same schools: Francis Parker School #23, Adlai E. Stevenson School #29, and Mary McLeod Bethune School #45.
Students spend a portion of their time looking at a piece of art in the collection and take part in a discussion about the art, guided by one of the museum’s docents. This talk connects to the art they will then make back in the Creative Workshop. It’s a program that seeks to teach students not only how to make art, but how to look at and talk about art and how to experience it in the context of a museum. Read more about the program in this POST Rochester article.
The program coordinators work closely with the teachers and principals at the schools to make the lessons relevant to the work being done back in their classrooms, but part of the success of the program is bringing them outside of the classroom to experience something new. In addition to enhancing their knowledge of art, it has also had a positive effect on behavior. Students learn how to interact in the museum in a polite and respectful way toward one another, and teachers notice how this impacts their attitude beyond their time at the MAG.
Moving forward, organizers hope to expand the program beyond the three schools currently involved, and for it to become a model for programs in other cities across the country.
The Memorial Art Gallery’s 2020-21 School Programs are sponsored by the William and Sheila Konar Foundation, the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation, Doug and Abby Bennett, the Wan Jou Family Foundation in memory of Shi-Ling C. Hsiang, the Waldron Rise Foundation, the ESL Charitable Foundation, Anne O’Toole, Jody and Bob Asbury, Wegmans, Rosemary Christoff Dolan, Deborah G. Goldman, and three anonymous donors. Funding is also provided by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Additional support for School Programs is provided by the Docent Endowment Fund, the Emma Jane Drury Education Fund, the Louis D’Amanda III Endowment, the Joanna M. and Michael R. Grosodonia Fund, and the Frank Grosso and Diane Holahan Grosso Fund.
The McPherson Director of Academic Programs is partially endowed by an anonymous donor and supported by the Joan Feinbloom School Programming Fund. Support for the Estelle B. Goldman Assistant Curator of Academic Programs is provided by the Estate of Estelle B. Goldman.
