Crystal Bridges Piloting School Visits
By: Kyle Leyenberger
Updated: January 27, 2012
The doors at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened early for a group of middle-schoolers Friday.
A group of 30 kids from J.O. Kelley Middle School in Springdale toured the museum, stopping to discuss certain works with Anne Kraybill, the manager of the Willard and Pat Walker School Visits program.
"They're helping us test out the content and all the logistics before we start the program in late March," she says.
The pilot program has been going for about two weeks. Kraybill says several different tours will be offered to school children of all ages. Tour leaders are in training now, and the museum expects to see 120 students each day once the full program starts.
"I don't want to stand in front of a painting and just tell the kids about it," she says. "They actually get to learn how to look, explore, discover and bring their own ideas to interpreting that artwork."
The program is fully sponsored, so schools are reimbursed for the cost of transportation, substitute teachers, the cost of the tour itself, time in the experience art studio and even bag lunches provided by the museum.
Kraybill says many of the students are blown away by the facility and the artwork.
"This group, nobody had ever been to any kind of a museum before, so just the impact of being able to expose them to different types of arts and how they can engage with the artwork is inspiring," she says.
A group of 30 kids from J.O. Kelley Middle School in Springdale toured the museum, stopping to discuss certain works with Anne Kraybill, the manager of the Willard and Pat Walker School Visits program.
"They're helping us test out the content and all the logistics before we start the program in late March," she says.
The pilot program has been going for about two weeks. Kraybill says several different tours will be offered to school children of all ages. Tour leaders are in training now, and the museum expects to see 120 students each day once the full program starts.
"I don't want to stand in front of a painting and just tell the kids about it," she says. "They actually get to learn how to look, explore, discover and bring their own ideas to interpreting that artwork."
The program is fully sponsored, so schools are reimbursed for the cost of transportation, substitute teachers, the cost of the tour itself, time in the experience art studio and even bag lunches provided by the museum.
Kraybill says many of the students are blown away by the facility and the artwork.
"This group, nobody had ever been to any kind of a museum before, so just the impact of being able to expose them to different types of arts and how they can engage with the artwork is inspiring," she says.
