School Partnership Programs allow students and teachers to explore curricular themes by examining artworks through multiple sessions with a museum educator. Programs combine guided explorations of Museum collections and special exhibitions with professional development, assessment, and planning between teachers and museum educators. These elements make for successful, intensive programs that benefit both the school and the Museum.
Museum educators work cooperatively with school and district leaders to determine the exact nature of each partnership. Schools must assign a coordinator to oversee the partnership throughout its duration.
Hear what past participants have to say about School Partnerships.
The way we teach
Museum educators take an anti-oppressive approach in their teaching and collaborative practices. Through art-centered discussions, the School Programs team prioritizes the narratives of historically marginalized groups that are often missing from classroom curricula.
We at the Brooklyn Museum recognize that institutional and structural racism have informed U.S. education systems and museums, impacting children of all ages. We work with teachers and students to analyze, critique, and intervene in these systems of power. In turn, we invite partners to join us in applying an anti-oppressive framework to teaching.
Together, we will prepare students to think critically, practice empathy, and offer strategies and resources for building a more just society.
Together we can:
Speak and listen with care
Acknowledge multiple narratives through art
Complement and complicate curriculum by incorporating diverse artworks, artists, and art-making practices
Strengthen cultural fluency and literacy
School partnership models
Brooklyn district-wide learning
In this model, each district works with museum educators to highlight a particular curriculum area for distinct grades. With input from district leaders and teachers, we create a variety of resources—including pre-recorded videos, digital handouts, and live virtual lessons—that may be shared among district schools.
Additionally, we offer teachers pedagogical tools to implement the resources, in combination with several antiracist teaching workshops held throughout the year.
Customized school partnerships
In this model, serving grades K–12, teachers work with a dedicated museum educator to complement their school’s curriculum based on a selected theme. Each partnership may include educator-led lessons held in the galleries or classroom, pre-recorded video lessons, and/or digital handouts.
All partnerships, regardless of scope, include a planning meeting, classroom observations (contingent on health and safety protocols), a reflection meeting, and professional development opportunities for teachers.
Questions?
Contact school.programs@brooklynmuseum.org.