Welcome to the new school year!

Why I love being an Art Docent

I don’t know about you, but I’m super excited to get back into the classrooms!  When I think about what the Art Docents teach the students, I realize it’s not only art history, aesthetics and art techniques, but more importantly, perseverance and critical thinking. 

“Critical thinking is a desire to think, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order, and hatred for every kind of imposture.”   -Francis Bacon (1605), Philosopher

Memorizing facts, being capable of following logic and rules, organization, and meeting expectations are all necessary to succeed in school.  But Critical Thinking, the ability to analyze and evaluate, is a skill that is imperative to thrive in our modern world and is crucial in any future career path a student chooses.

Further reading: Why Art Matters – Art and Critical Thinking

A part I love about being an Art Docent, is when we bring our portfolios of images or roller bags of materials into the classrooms, we not only give the children facts and knowledge about artists and history, art terms and art techniques, but we also afford them the space to observe, describe, question and reason – all without judgment – allowing the students to form their own opinions on art.  They are “learning to learn”. 

Actually, what I love the most is quite selfish:  it is that I learn from the kids at least as much as I teach and that I benefit from the fact that I am “learning through teaching” (the Protégé Effect). 

What do you love most about being an Art Docent?  

-Theresa Bricker, President