School and Teacher Partnerships at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

Field Trip Progamming

At the Brooks field trips can be adapted by teacher request, but the standard format is a forty-five minute tour followed by a forty-five minute studio class. The minimum group size is ten, the maximum is sixty. In the case of thirty or more students, half of the students complete the tour portion and half of the students complete the studio portion concurrently, and then the groups switch. Tour groups consist of 8 to 10 students, with one chaperone required per group. A broad range of ages are served by the field trip program, from pre-k groups to AP studio art students.

Tours are led by highly trained volunteer docents. Before giving tours, docents are required to complete a six-month training course which meets twice a week and is offered every other year. Topics covered during the course include art history, the Brooks’ permanent collection, touring techniques, and interpretation strategies. New docents further develop their skills by observing veteran docents in action. Once the docents have completed their training, they are asked to be available to give museum tours one day a week. Further training is provided to all docents during monthly meetings. During these meetings, the education staff provides training on the latest interpretation techniques, curators give talks on temporary exhibitions, and guest speakers such as local artists demonstrate art making techniques. As a result of the in-depth training provided by the Brooks the docents gain the ability to lead students in rich, inquiry-based discussions. Docents use high level questioning techniques such as compare and contrast and the evaluation of evidence to support the development of students’ critical thinking skills. The Brooks is fortunate to have a very dedicated docent corps, many of whom have been volunteering at the museum between ten and thirty years. During the 2018-2019 school year the docents volunteered a combined total of six hundred and sixty hours, clearly demonstrating their commitment to civic engagement. The docents truly make the field trip program possible.

The Brooks education team strives to support student learning by being as relevant to teachers as possible. One way in which the museum does so is by providing a variety of program themes to choose from. These themes include Narrative in Art, Arts of Global Africa, Role of the Artist, and Urban versus Rural. Data suggests that field trips aligned to previous classroom lessons are strongly remembered by students, which creates opportunities for long term learning (Falk & Dierking, 2002, p.154). Keeping this in mind, the Brooks’ tour programs have been carefully designed to encourage student learning by supporting the Tennessee state curriculum standards.