By emphasizing the connections between art and language, the Interdisciplinary Museum Project ‘Bridging Spanish Language Acquisition and Visual Literacy’ aims to enhance the educational journey of Spanish language learners at Andover.
María Martínez, Tang Fellow and Instructor in Spanish, collaborated with staff at the Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology (Peabody) and the Addison Gallery of American Art (Addison) to identify artworks and collections that align with Spanish curriculum content. Through the integration of visual literacy into Spanish lesson plans, Martínez hopes to teach students how to look at their environment differently.
“I’m trying to find topics and common themes between the Addison, our craft and work, and also the Peabody. The idea is to create activities and lesson plans that will help improve students’ proficiency in the language. This project is also working with visual literacy. We think that since we are sighted, we all know how to see things, the idea is to train the eye on how to see in different ways. That’s why these lesson plans are tapping into different skills, abilities, and connections between institutions and schools,” said Martínez.
Typically, Tang Fellowships are brought to the Tang Institute by various faculty members. Jamie Gibbons, Head of Education at the Addison, described how the proposal of the Interdisciplinary Museum Project differed from the typical process.
“Usually, Tang Fellowships are proposed by faculty members to Tang. This one came about a little bit differently. This was one that we proposed to Tang, and then we advertised to faculty to apply for. We proposed the fellowship as an opportunity to identify areas of study in a particular department that could be supported through object-based research in our collection.
We were really hoping to work with a faculty member from a department where classes don’t come to the museum as frequently,” said Gibbons.
The project’s purpose is not only to draft lesson plans but also to show the possibilities created through collaboration between different academic departments and esteemed cultural institutions. The joint efforts of the Addison staff and Martínez show how interdisciplinary work can bring to life new perspectives and new learning opportunities.
“It is not just about creating lesson plans, it’s to see how collaboration between the Spanish Department or any department and the art museum and the Peabody can happen, how these conversations can be useful, efficient, and have some products at the end of that. The products are lesson plans that we are going to put to the test during the next year and see how students respond, but it is also about collaboration,” said Martínez.
Rachel Vogel, Assistant Curator at the Addison, described the role of the curatorial department in the project. She talked about how the department collaborated with Martínez and guided her through narrowing Addison’s wide collection to better frame her lesson plans. On the other hand, Vogel explained how Martínez advocated for her department by emphasizing the curriculum and lesson plans of different Spanish levels.
“The role of the curatorial department is really to help facilitate [Martínez], who is not familiar with these tens of thousands of works in the collection, and help direct or guide her efforts so that it’s a little bit more narrowed down. We also connect her with resources like our exhibition files that will allow her to learn more about the objects when making these decisions about how to kind of frame these function lesson plans for her department, who won’t have had the experience of spending all of this time doing these deep dives into the collection. She’s an ambassador for her department, and we are an ambassador for the collection to her,” said Vogel.
Gibbons elaborated on how this project is in its experimental year and will hopefully continue developing and expanding in the future. She expressed that both museums on campus are resources to be taken into consideration, and learning how to use these resources in classes would enhance object-based teaching across different departments.
“This is really the pilot year of the Interdisciplinary Museum Fellowship. Our hope is that if we’re able to do it again next year, we would have two fellows: one working at the Addison and one working at the Peabody, or one working here and one working at the archives or in the special collections over at [Oliver Wendell Holmes Library] (OWHL). [We’re] thinking about all of the object-based teaching that’s possible here on campus because there are two museums on campus, which is incredible for a high school,” said Gibbons.
The Tang Interdisciplinary Museum Project can be found here.
