End of the Internship

The end of the internship has finally arrived. I am sad to have left events like the Spring Break Art Extravaganza and the Kimbell Family Festival behind because I loved getting to work with children during these events. It felt great to be in such an active role during these events throughout the internship and I wish there were more opportunities like that. The majority of my internship could be summarized with administrative assistant tasks; mailing docent planners, archiving files according to program type, printing materials for education staff members, and stuffing folders for different program participants. I understand the importance of these tasks - they're part of the unsexy reality of running education programs to coordinate with docents, have materials ready for programs, and make sure the audience has all the information they need about the museum's various programs. It felt more like the education staff were giving me the work that they didn't want to do themselves instead of giving me projects that would help me grow as a museum educator.

I wish that I had more opportunities to do things like the vision access project. preparing the tactile graphics and sensory bags, as well as working with the focus group to gather evaluative data. It felt like that was the last real project that I got to work on during the internship and the majority of the work that they called "research" involved vague instructions to find where to purchase materials without giving me a list of approved vendors or gathering information on summer programs with no parameters like age ranges or types of camps (baseball, community centers, ...). I would have hoped that their definition of research would include possible lesson plans, art activities, finding literary sources, or anything along those lines.

One of the programs that I wish I got to work more with this semester would have been the UTA pre-service art educators. I first learned about this multi-visit program when I created the folders for them containing their group information and the overview of the program. Although I was unable to see any of the in-between stages for the program, as I had been assigned other work, I was dying to get an opportunity to see the UTA students demonstrating their program to middle school students. After preparing all the materials for the program, I was assigned to help out with the program and provide any assistance to the UTA students during their teaching demonstration.

While the majority of my help was making sure they had all the materials they needed, I loved the opportunity to watch other art educators in the museum setting. I watched two groups lead discussions about their chosen works of art in the galleries and how it would relate to the art activity planned in the studio. The groups struggled a little bit while leading their gallery discussions but the middle school students were so polite in working with them. It definitely seemed like some UTA students weren't very experienced working with kids as they struggled to direct the projects while some took to it like they'd been doing it for years already. Each group had very different art activities going on and I was able to document them for potential uses in the future.

Additionally, I was able to talk with their professor while the students were teaching to try and learn more about their program. Dr. Amanda Alexander was so friendly and let me grill her extensively about the art education department at UTA. While it seemed like there was a lot of overlap between the degrees at UTA and UNT, there seemed to be more of a focus on hands-on learning at UTA with an increase in service learning experiences and programs like the one at the Kimbell. I think it would be great to try and have a similar program for UNT pre-service art educators to practice before their student teaching, regardless of where the program is held at.

While I enjoyed the time spent at the Kimbell and getting to work with the other interns and the majority of the Education greeters, I felt very unwelcome at the Kimbell and held at an arm's length from the rest of the Education Department. I feel like I was seen more like an "intern" than as "part of the education staff"; that I wasn't part of the team but someone underneath them. I appreciated getting to learn the different roles of the education department and the programs that I was able to participate in, however, this internship has left me wanting more for my next position in the art education field.