EDUCAT IO N
ART SEDUCATION R E V A M P E D A NEW APPROACH TO DOCENT TRAINING
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ast year, in response to COVID-19, Phoenix Art Museum had to close its doors, and with that, some of the Museum’s most beloved events, tours, and outreach programs paused as well. But not everything went dormant behind the scenes. The Docents, the Museum’s corps of volunteer educators, continued their work on re-imagining their training program, ensuring they would be ready to meet the community’s needs both during the pandemic and beyond. As volunteer arts educators, Phoenix Art Museum Docents connect visitors of all ages with the institution’s collections and exhibitions through on-site tours and off-site outreach experiences. Prior to the COVID-19 closure, community members who wished to become Docents spent two years attending classes in the Museum’s comprehensive training program, attending bi-weekly continuing education seminars, and shadowing tours. From there, those who successfully completed Docent training were prepared to facilitate conversations about art with a wide range of on-site and off-site audiences, from students on school field trips to older adults at community centers. The former program produced what Lisa Roger, the Docent training taskforce co-chair described as a highly versatile Docent or “somebody who can do everything.” However, the rigor of the process made it extremely challenging for anyone who worked during the week or had other family or personal commitments to complete the necessary training. The new Docent training structure, which will launch in Fall 2021, offers a modular approach that provides more flexibility for prospective volunteer educators to make the program more accessible and diverse. Training will begin with an introductory course that lasts approximately 12 weeks and covers
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information about the Museum, art history, and basic research strategies. Afterward, Docents-in-training can choose a specialized area of service to pursue and, over time, can add additional focus areas based on their interests. The Museum piloted this updated approach with current Docents, a number of whom completed the adult-outreach module this past spring. Now, that group is ready to give virtual presentations for adult groups in community-serving institutions.
each other, specifically working to build the skills needed to facilitate conversations about works of art whose subject matters or histories can present challenges when engaging visitors on tours or in gallery talks.
When asked about the process of restructuring Docent training, Roger and her training taskforce co-chair Nancy Levin, who was named Docent of the Year this spring, said it all started by evaluating the training plans from previous years. “We conducted surveys, and assembled focus groups,” Roger said. “Our goal was to distill the fundamental elements that made the Docent experience meaningful and fulfilling and to find the most effective ways to develop the skills they need in the galleries and for community outreach.” Additionally, the Docent training taskforce made sure to make the training schedule more flexible. Now, modules will be offered at times that vary year after year in an attempt to accommodate a range of schedules.
For Leslie Lewis, Docent training co-chair, Docent training is an ongoing process. “We are continuing to learn; this is not something where you check a box and you’re done.”
Flexibility, however, isn’t all that’s new with Docent training. A final element that is vital to the future success and sustainability of the Museum’s Docent corps is the group’s commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. Mirroring the efforts of the Museum as a whole, the Docents have re-committed themselves to better serving the institution’s surrounding communities by examining programming, policies, and practices that can be made more equitable and inclusive, and as part of their updated training efforts, Docents have taken numerous steps forward to educate themselves and
SUMMER/FALL 2021 / PHXART MAGAZINE
Rather than committing a single training module to these efforts, this important and necessary work is instead woven throughout the Docent training program, as an essential component of every step of the journey.
This approach directly reflects the education practice of meeting people where they are. “Letting your audience lead you is the kind of thing that is very much a DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] concept, but the two ideas hadn’t been explicitly linked in that way until now,” said Betsy Pai, also a Docent training co-chair. People of all ages and backgrounds visit Phoenix Art Museum, each bringing a unique combination of lived experiences, interests, and sets of references. By updating their training processes and prioritizing inclusion work in their culture, Museum Docents are creating a platform for arts education practices that cultivate cultural awareness and sensitivity. Through this work, they are helping to ensure the Museum is an inclusive environment where staff, volunteers, and visitors alike are encouraged to practice empathy, experience new points of view, and challenge and correct stereotypes and assumptions. If you’re interested in learning more about the Docent program or volunteering at Phoenix Art Museum, contact education@phxart.org.
