Can conversation be a form of care? I think a lot about the ways in which VTS teaches, but perhaps less than I ought to about how it can also be used to nurture and sustain, to connect and to heal. When we discuss an image with a group, is there an opportunity to...
As a VTS Trainer working with classroom teachers, one of the questions I frequently encounter is how to leverage the kinds of critical thinking that VTS supports into other subject areas. How might VTS support mathematical thinking, for instance? While this question...
How can we achieve a feeling of connectedness when many of us cannot be physically close to our students?
Language is not something we acquire; rather it is something we participate in. As such, we do not ever really learn a language, we practice one. In moments when we achieve creativity, or poetry, we play in one. Language is also a discipline. There is politics in how...
We know the skills that VTS fosters—critical thinking, careful observation, generating inferences, and revising ideas—are also useful in fields outside of art, but do we need to modify VTS if we choose to use it with content other than art objects? Over the past four...
Among the many joys of being a VTS Trainer—as well as the Editor of Site Specific—is the opportunities I have to work with and learn from truly incredible teachers. Aija Simmons is just such an inspiring figure. Her work in and out of the classroom is a model for how...
Listening is necessary for any conversation, but listening well expresses something meaningful in and of itself.
This edition of Site Specific takes the form of a dispatch or letter from one classroom teacher to others. Written with warmth, humor, and passion, it is a personal reflection on the remarkable changes that VTS encourages in students over the course of a year. In it,...
As VTS Trainers working in schools, perhaps one of the most frequent requests we encounter is for more information on how to leverage the types of learning that occur during VTS discussions into other areas of the curriculum. This edition of Site Specific is devoted...
Clearly, the curriculum was failing this classroom. How should a facilitator respond in such a situation?