GAEA: A Report

Carissa DiCindio, associate curator of education, was kind enough to write us a couple of paragraphs about her experience last weekend at the Georgia Art Educators Association fall conference:

Last weekend, Cece Hinton, curator of education, and I went to Young Harris for the Georgia Art Education Association fall conference. I always enjoy going to this conference because it is a wonderful opportunity to meet art educators from around the state. This year, I had the opportunity to present at three sessions. The first one was called “Making Connections: Educational Materials and Programs at Museums” in which I talked about the resources GMOA has to offer teachers, listened to what teachers would like to see from us and asked other museums to share their programs and materials. For the second session, I co-presented “Exploring Divergent Thinking: Synthesis in Clay” with NaJuana Lee. NaJuana and I are students in the doctoral program in art education in the Lamar Dodd School of Art together, and we presented a lesson on creating something new out of existing parts using clay. As an award winner last year, I also was invited to talk about GMOA and my position at the museum at a session called “Create.”

During this conference, I attended some informative sessions on museum education, including one on interdisciplinary collaborations by Shannon Morris, curator at the Georgia College and State University Museum, and another on how teachers can use cultural resources with their classes. There was also an interesting session by Cindy Bowden, director of the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum, on the World Crafts Council. This conference gave me the opportunity to learn more about the successes and challenges educators are experiencing in Georgia and to make sure everyone knows about the Georgia Museum of Art and all of our resources for teachers. I am already looking forward to next year’s conference!

Thanks, Carissa. We appreciate all the work our wonderful department of education does. GMOA wouldn't be GMOA without their incredible outreach and commitment to reaching everyone through art.