Jansen, a junior at Roosevelt High School (RHS) in Seattle, is one of nearly three dozen students participating in the Henry Art Gallery’s Student Guide Program this year. The program, which involves training students to lead tours for classmates and other student groups, earned the Henry Art Gallery a KCTS 9 Golden Apple Award in 2010.
Halinka Wodzicki, museum education manager at the Henry, created the Student Guide Program in 1999 and still heads the program. “I was thinking about how to make a contemporary art museum relevant to a high school student’s life,” explains Wodzicki. “I thought this approach would encourage students to learn more about the art and issues on view while also developing their own voice. We present art and ideas of our time, so the issues are current. They affect them.”
Wodzicki reached out to language arts teachers at RHS—a short bus ride away from the museum—who then offered their students the option to train as student guides for honors credit. “The program has been building ever since,” says RHS teacher Cora Mackoff, who has been part of the program since its inception. Each year, she and other teachers organize class field trips to the museum, with the student guides leading the tours.
The program was a perfect fit for Mackoff, whose master’s degree was about integrating art into the curriculum. “I love that it makes art accessible to everyone,” she says. “We’ve worked hard to make students see that the Henry Art Gallery can be a fun place to be. And because the guides are their peers, students are more open to responding to their questions without fear of seeming silly.”
Most tours last an hour, involving a focused discussion of a handful of artworks in an exhibit. To prepare, the student guides complete a series of four-hour workshops at the Henry, in which they learn about the exhibit as well as how to engage a group in discussion. “From the instant I meet them, I use an inquiry-based approach,” says Wodzicki. “I’m modeling a teaching technique that they will use in the galleries.”
Jansen praises Wodzicki’s methods. “She asks a lot of open-ended questions to allow the group to discuss what art means to them,” says Jansen. “It helps us learn how to develop our own open-ended questions for our tours.”
The students then create their own tours, practicing on each other before going public. It’s an opportunity to get immediate feedback from the group and Wodzicki—and a chance to get comfortable with public speaking. This is especially important for the less outgoing students completing the training.
“I was one of those really shy kids who no one thought would have the courage to stand up and speak,” admits Wodzicki. “That’s what we’re really teaching — building confidence. The program is about art, but also about placing these students in a leadership role.”
Mackoff agrees. “They gain unbelievably important real-life skills,” she says. “To speak in front of people when you’re prepared and you are an expert is important for kids. We’ve had everyone from football players to ESL students who still struggle with English take this on. Some come in so tentative and lacking in confidence that they’re ready to drop it. Then, as training continues, they gain confidence. Even during a tour, they may start out tentative and become more confident over the course of the hour. At the end, they often comment that they wish they could do it again.”
Some, like Jansen, do sign up again. Participating for a third year, Jansen has led groups ranging from rowdy high school freshmen boys to an elementary school class, the latter requiring more hands-on activities. “It’s a great way to view the art,” says Jansen. “You get to experience so many other people’s perspectives on it. I really didn’t understand contemporary art. This has opened up a whole other world.”
Wodzicki would like to reach even more young people. In 2010, she expanded the program to include student guides from Shorecrest High School (SHS) in Shoreline. This year she added a new twist, inviting all three sixth-grade classes from Lake Forest Park Elementary School (LFP)—a feeder school to Shorecrest—for a series of visits. Those visits combine gallery tours led by SHS students with teacher-led instruction (using a study guide prepared by Wodzicki) in the Henry’s Reed Collection Study Center, using pieces from the Henry’s vast collection.
LFP teacher Chrisy Francescutti welcomed the opportunity to participate. “In the classroom, you have a hierarchy of students who always have the answers,” she says. “But looking at art, there are no right or wrong answers. I can call on a student who never answers a question in the classroom, and whatever he says, it’s always going to be the right answer. That can be very powerful.”
And who knows? Maybe the experience will inspire the sixth graders to become guides themselves when they reach high school.
“It’s definitely a worthwhile way to spend your time,” says Jansen, now a seasoned veteran. “Everyone I’ve talked to who has done it has really enjoyed it.”