In a significant effort to enrich teachers' skills and to develop classroom resources, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published 20th-Century Art: A Resource for Educators. The large boxed set of comprehensive written, visual, and high-tech materials provides essential tools for educators, featuring a 173-page publication — fully illustrated in color — with essays, strategies for classroom lessons, and background information that includes artists' writings and extensive bibliographic material. Also included in the packet are a set of forty slides, a full-sized, three-part poster set, a video, and a CD-ROM version of the book.
20th-Century Art: A Resource for Educators is made possible by a grant from Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose. The grant supports a five-year program of teacher training and resource development based on the encyclopedic collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The gift makes it possible to provide these printed resources, free of charge, to every one of New York City's public schools. Representatives of New York City public schools may phone (212) 396-5067 to obtain a copy of the publication. The Resource for Educators is also available to all interested readers in the Metropolitan Museum's Uris Library and Resource Center. It is also available in the Museum bookshop for $65.
The Resource for Educators considers 31 masterworks in the Metropolitan Museum's collection of 20th-century art, each of which is framed in its broad context and analyzed in discussions that are posed to draw upon students' specific curriculum and developmental needs. Teachers are invited to use this resource as a flexible tool, and its design allows it to be customized in myriad ways according to the needs of the class and the grade level of the students (which may range from the elementary school level to the junior high school and high school levels). Through specific discussion strategies, students will confront art that is complex, challenging, and multivalent, developing critical thinking skills and considering a broad universe of artistic modes of problem solving. Teachers may use the materials in advance of a museum visit, either to the Metropolitan or to any other museum with holdings in 20th-century art, as classroom-based lessons, or as a reference for students working on class projects or individual reports.
The publication is written by Stella Paul, Associate Museum Educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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July 27, 1999
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