I take an overnight trip to Chicago, or sometimes two nights to Cleveland
and Pittsburgh, with my National Art Honor Society students. They pay big
money to go along and they, too, must do extra, ungraded, work to prepare
for what they see. We always invite parents in on a special night to see
all the results of the prep work.
This year we saw Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob, The
cleveland Art Museum, the Carnegie Institute, the Andy Warhol Museum, and
an installation museum called The Mattress Factory. The docents at Falling
Water were completely blown away by what the kids knew about FLW, and the
kids were quite perfect. I asked them to reflect in writing after every
event at the trip then put the best comments into an article for our local
paper.
You should submit your story, exactly as you told it to us, in your local
and/or school paper. Lots of bad news gets printed about schools, and it
is up to us to tell the good stories.
I do this regularly in a column called "Tales Told Out of School."
Parents, and even local residents without children, love it, and it doesn't
hurt my image either. I urge you to tell that story to the public.
Christa
