Green Hope High Teacher Attends NGA's 2006 Teacher Institute

Instruction focused on the Gallery's collection of Dutch art, emphasizing direct encounters with original objects. Teachers studied works by Dutch masters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Gerard ter Borch, Frans Hals, Judith Leyster, and Pieter de Hooch, examining paintings within the broader social matrix of 17th century Dutch life.

During the last two days of the program, teachers explored new digital technologies suited for studying and teaching art by creating a podcast about a Dutch painting of their choice. Image-enhancing podcasting is ideally suited for teaching and studying visual art; it expands learning options for students who are visually, musically and kinesthetically oriented.

Through lectures, gallery talks, discussions and hands-on activities, teachers studied the paintings that were created for a newly affluent middle class. From the beginning of the 17th century and the de facto peace with Spain, Holland flourished as a nation of seafaring traders, their prosperity soon spreading throughout the Netherlands and helping shift the balance of economic and political power from the Mediterranean to northern Europe. Dutch society became known as the most urbanized, international and literate in Europe, with an unusually large number of people owning works of art. These patrons of the arts championed a range of secular subjects that spoke of social rank, personal accomplishments, and aspirations, as revealed through portraiture, history painting, still life, land- and seascapes, and genre scenes.

For 18 years, the Gallery's Teacher Institute has offered educators the opportunity for intellectual renewal and professional exchange with colleagues in a museum setting. More than 2,100 teachers have participated in the program.

The Teacher Institute is a program of the Division of Education, which produces and distributes instructional materials on a free-loan basis to schools throughout the nation. To learn more about the institute and other educational resources of the NGA, visit www.nga.gov.