Learning to see

The Globe and Mail: Did you notice their guns?

Museum educators talk a lot about learning to see ... about the importance of visual literacy and non-verbal communication. In this article, Simon Houpt of the Globe and Mail, gives a great summary of some non-traditional uses of art museum collections to teach skills of observation and analysis.

"For almost two years now, the Frick has been running a program with the police department that brings captains into the museum for a few hours to test and hone their observational skills. It was inspired by a program for students at Yale University's medical school which has spawned a number of copycat initiatives around the United States. A study submitted by Yale faculty, and published in the September, 2001, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, indicated that students' observational performance was significantly increased by spending a few hours looking at representational paintings."

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