Viewfinder Issue 2 — Transparency: Letter from the Editors
Sara Egan, Emily Jennings, and Chelsea Emelie Kelly, Viewfinder Editorial Board
How can clarity, openness and willingness to share improve our practice and enable honest communication within our museums and with our audiences?
Art museum educators from across the country will gather around the topic of Designing for Transparency at the NAEA Museum Education Division’s Preconference on March 16, 2016. To begin that conversation, we invite you to consider the idea of Transparency in this second issue of Viewfinder.
Four authors took on this theme with candor and creativity, giving us three articles with different vantage points that all speak to the importance of approaching our work with intention and honesty.
Looking inward, Laura Evans and Jeremy Blair share an autoethnographic approach that foregrounds museum educators’ personal narratives to foster understanding of one’s self and colleagues. Bringing such metacognition to our audiences, Theresa Sotto developed a thinking routine that empowers students by giving insight into how we process works of art. Turning to the larger community, Jessica Keyes reflects on a project designed to honor visitors’ response to challenging issues by creating open channels of communication.
In the spirit of Transparency, the Viewfinder Editorial Board also wants to acknowledge our process in putting together this issue of Viewfinder. First, the Editorial Board choose to retain our roles as reviewers for each submission as we continue to refine the editing process. Second, we chose this issue’s topic in response to the Preconference theme, but themes for other issues will be determined by the interests of our readers. To the left, you can see that Accessibility and Professional Development are rising to the top — add to our list by February 22 to have your theme considered for Viewfinder Issue 3.
Finally, for those of you attending the conference, we would love to hear what Viewfinder has meant to you and what your hopes are for the project moving forward. We plan to hold a Pop-Up Session on Thursday, March 17 at 10 am. Stay tuned to social media for specifics and location. If you are unable to attend the conference you can still join the conversation via twitter during the Pop-Up Session, or simply send us an email.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and we hope to see you in Chicago in March.
— The Viewfinder Editorial Board
Sara Egan
Sara Egan (Twitter) connects Boston students and teachers with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as manager of the School Partnership Program and the Teens Behind the Scenes. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is an adjunct professor of art at Simmons College.
Emily Jennings
Emily Jennings oversees both Teacher and School Programs at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Her duties include in-gallery teaching, developing facilitated programming, organizing teacher education programs, and producing curriculum. Her work in curriculum development is shaped by a commitment to researching how museums function as learning environments where students use and understand the metacognitive structures that shape specific disciplines. She holds an MA in Art History from San Francisco State University and a M. Ed. in Historical Thinking from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Chelsea Emelie Kelly
Chelsea Emelie Kelly (Twitter) is an art museum educator specializing in gallery teaching and museum technology. She is currently Youth Corps Coordinator at Park Avenue Armory and holds a MS.Ed. in leadership in museum education from the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in art history from Vassar College.
