b'Connecting Collectionsby Ninoshka BoylstonH ave you ever taken the time to consider how you learn? For many, weTo nourish little thinkers learn best when were active, talking, observing, analyzing, creating, playing,collaborating,listening,drawing,researching,sharing,and questioning. All these strategies are learning methods we use every day in theto grapple with complexityclassroom to nourish little thinkers to grapple with complexity and to be able to have a dialogue with others. Last summer, I attended Connecting Collections, a 5-day intensive training on how to use art as inquiry. My classrooms during those five days were some of the most important art museums in the world - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and at The Guggenheim in New York City. There were times I felt near rock star status just being able to walk into these museums with my lanyard around my neck that said, Im with the band. Im kidding. It didnt really say that, but it darn sure felt like it! I was surrounded by educators of a variety of disciplines from all over the world who were equally as excited as I was to be students again. Connecting Collections used different methods of inquiry to teach curriculum incorporating modern and contemporary artwork. Each day we met at a world classmuseum to learn about object-based teaching strategies which we can use to encourage students to deeply engage with whatever they are looking at: art, literature or problem. During my five days, I also had the opportunity to listen to two fantastic keynote speakers whose inspiring words of wisdom about active viewing vs. passive watching and using art and inquiry were feverishly scribbled into my sketchbook. Connecting Collections was perfect because it introduced me, a professional artist and designer,to new ways of engaging with content. I came back to my room at the end of each day extremely exhausted from analyzing artwork, but excited to learn a different way to do it all over again the next day. Having the tables turned enabled me to see learning through my students eyes and to think about what themes, questions, activities, information, and sharing techniques may be of interest to them so that they, too, can use inquiry as a useful learning tool. Asking the right questions, or tapping into the Socratic method, stimulates critical thinking that can lead to new knowledge; it pushes us to figure out something new. Asking the right questions stimulates critical thinking that can lead to new knowledgeIve implemented what I learned right away, mostly because it felt natural to do so, and shared content with colleagues. Im using the strategies of questioning, themes, and sharing with my 6th graders as a foundation to our linoleum print unit. To begin, we analyzed A Centennial of Independence byHenriRousseau.Studentsusedquestionstodissect hidden messages in the artwork and used a visual lense to discover the story left by the artist. Students will use what they learned during our analysis to develop their own46 | Summer 2019'