The Mystic Arts Center in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art will use the Visual Thinking Curriculum, developed with support of the Commission on the Arts, as a teacher-training tool for the region's schools as the core component of our program "Discovery and Inventive Thinking Through the Arts". The program's central premise is consistent with the Commission's goal that the arts are basic to education and, as such, they enhance basic literacy, develop self-esteem, and are a valuable teaching tool.

Recently, the State of Connecticut has commended an inter-disciplinary approach to learning which incorporates all subject areas and for which a set of performance standards has been designed. Art education plays an important role in this plan. The question of how children learn about art has been traditionally answered by the teaching of art history or hands-on routes. Neither approach addressed the need of the student to incorporate higher learning skills in other areas of the school curriculum or in learning to decode his/her visual environment. The Visual Thinking Curriculum addresses this concern.

Over the last decade, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) has developed an approach that has shifted the focus from learning about art to using art for learning in all areas of study. Their program, the Visual Thinking Curriculum ("VTC") has demonstrated the very goals that the State of Connecticut, Department of Education, has set forth in its performance standards for art education.

The VTC stimulates critical thinking in response to specific works of art. It was developed to stress inquiry over specific art history and the multiplicity of meaning over fixed interpretations. The curriculum (eight (8) lessons consisting of images, description, slides and lesson plans) was designed to help students solve problems and assess ambiguous situations. The VTC encourages students to develop strategies for analyzing art, and expand interpretation skills and their capacity for imaginative reflection. It teaches vocabulary as it stimulates students to articulate what they see. Responding to visual information supplied by art objects is a non-threatening, open-ended opportunity to voice opinions and note objective responses.

Using images from the MAC and MOMA Permanent collections, teachers will be taught by MAC facilitators how to stimulate critical thinking in response to specific works of art and how to stress inquiry over specific answers and the multiplicity of meaning over fixed interpretations. They will be encouraged to use these skills in teaching core subjects such as history, language arts, and the sciences.

To ensure the long-range effectiveness of the program and on-going evaluation of this curriculum, the following features have been identified to be integral to its success and will be incorporated into its implementation:

• Concentrated classroom teacher training with the opportunity to earn CEUs
• On-going mentoring in the classroom by trained museum staff · Studio art classes for children taught by artists in a real studio environment
• Museum visits for children to view the actual works which have been utilized as part of the VTC in their classrooms
• Classroom demonstrations by local artists followed by in-depth art classes where children develop a correlation between historical perspective, style, and execution
• An Artist-in-Residence program for all participating schools featuring a visiting artist who will work with each of the subject area teachers to incorporate art and creative expression in the existing curriculum

Contact Tamara Rich, Education Director of Mystic Arts Center to request Registration Forms. 860.536.7601 or education@mysticarts.org.