On Friday, I toured with and was entertained by six 6th-grade students from Walden School. When I asked why they were at the museum, they quickly responded, “to learn about the Silk Road!” Hmmm. I explained that the Silk Road exhibit was just a small part of the tour, but the exhibition they would see was unique and interesting. I then gave them a bit of time to explore in the Crossroads Gallery. While they were exploring, the teacher informed me (somewhat apologetically) that they hadn’t actually started learning about the Silk Road. We then moved on.

We started in the Wetlands with the kites (as I did with the 2nd-graders). I wanted to see if 6th graders were as engaged as the 2s. We started with a discussion of butterflies and related topics. With the exception of more knowledge of the process of metamorphosis, etc., the Ss were equally engaged. We talked about Qing Ming Festival and Tomb Sweeping. They were very interested. I found it curious that none of the Ss had ever actually been to a cemetery!

On to the forest. Activity: Ss partnered up, and I asked them to wander around the Forest (the pillars) and find the ugliest object or the one they found least interesting. They were to discuss each other’s choice and agree on one to bring back to the group. When they were back in the group, I told them the second part of their task: they were to return to the object they had chosen and find one thing in it that they could agree was beautiful. When done with this task, they presented their objects to the rest of us and explained what they found beautiful and why. They were thoughtful, articulate presenters. After a few more moments of exploring those objects, one S remarked to me that while he originally felt the object was really ugly, he disagreed with his initial assessment and thinks the object. Very beautiful! What a little close looking can do, eh?

At the Golden Frog/Toad, we briefly discussed the California Gold Rush, which they were already familiar with. We read “Uncle Speaks” aloud and discussed the meaning of “Enough is Enough.” I had them scour the room for the “most valuable object” (thanks, Lorenzo) and finally concluded that they, indeed, were the most valuable. Another “AHA” moment: when wandering about, one S pointed out that the Liu Haichan and Toad shows the Toad with three legs, but he stated that the toad wasn’t necessarily “missing” a leg, but perhaps was born differently, with a disability or birth issue!

In the apartment, these students were as fascinated with the exhibit as the 2nd graders the day before, though they weren’t necessarily as focused on the food around the table. They commented on the phone, the typewriter, and the TV/VCR set-up (some seemed to know what they were). When asked what time period this might have been, they thought “70s.”

As time was quickly passing, we briefly passed through the Feng Huang room on our way to the Guardians/Storefront. While in the Guardian exhibit, we were briefly visited by a workman walking through who quickly disappeared through an unseen hole in the wall. A few minutes later, he came back out and left. We followed him and spent our remaining minutes in the Storefront, talking about Tanuki, Kitsune, and other objects of interest. 

This was another amazing tour with an amazing group of students. They were engaged and articulate, bringing fresh ideas to their understanding of the exhibition. Their teacher commented that she would like to figure out a way to get back to the museum with S before the exhibition closes. She was also interested in attending the Himalayan exhibition next year.

look for symbols of longevity. 2. immigrants from different countries and what they brought to remember their heritage. [write them down on clipboard paper]. 3. sitting on the floor to get undivided attention. 4. Visual aids to enhance their learning experience

The Silk Road Gallery is a disaster. Students quickly dispersed around the room and do their own thing without paying attention. It is better for them to sit on the floor first; give them brief introduction before letting them do self-exploring.

I have some visual aids that may be of interest to our docents. Students from some schools are rowdier and with less attention span and NOT listening to instructions. [some teachers are of little help]

In the Courtyard, I explained that we were going to explore the galleries, looking for mythical creatures, starting with dragons. We started with a brief discussion about dragons, their history, geographical locations, and physical attributes.

Dragon’s Landing – See, Think, Me, We: From three positions (far to near), students were asked to write down what they saw. Then they shared, discussing thoughts (what are you thinking about the work?) Finally, they were asked how (or does?) this work applied personally to them, and then to the world? Good discussions.

Next, the students explored Room 1, mainly looking for dragon artifacts and noting differences among the pieces. We discussed that different cultures, in different countries, had different interpretations of the creatures in mythology and that often those interpretations were very based on fears.

Four Guardians – closed (unannounced)

Courtyard/Crossroads – Students created a sketch of a hybrid creature based on their own fears. First group, sketching, but little sharing; second group, little sketching, lots of talking about fears. (This was done in the Crossroads gallery because another group was in the Wetlands.

Wetlands (1st group, only): Discussed the 10 Symbols of Longevity. Honestly, not much interest. Had I been prepared to present this object (thought it would be closed), I would have been better prepared. 

Forest Gallery (2nd group, only): I asked them to break into pairs/trios and choose just one of the objects on the pedestals, then create a story based on it. The students eagerly engaged in this activity. They were given 5 minutes to discuss and create the story.

The students explained that this object depicts a person from the past (at the center), being embraced by their present self. They thought that the title “What Was, Back Then” suggested that one’s present is somehow protected or guided by one’s past.

The group that worked with this object was the most clear about their story. This explained that “Beauty is rotten from the inside.” They explained that young people are constantly being bombarded with “beauty standards” and find it difficult to navigate the pressure to meet them. They said that the “worms” surrounding the “self” are the standards they struggle to meet. They also indicated that it was difficult to be different. They were inspired by the title “Don’t look at the sun. She is ugly.”
This group had the most difficulty creating the story. They basically described the object, though they did give it serious thought.
On both tours, we visited Gold Mountain and Feng Huang and had brief discussions about their significance, symbolism, and stories. They were somewhat interested in the differences between the meanings behind the Feng Huang and the Phoenix. 

Both groups of students participated thoughtfully and were well-behaved. They asked excellent questions and were impressed by much of the work. The routes were quite disjointed due to closures and other factors. Also, navigating the space with four groups was difficult.

I hope that for the next tour, all rooms will be open and the route will be direct.

During both tours, I found the students to be quite challenging to manage. Only 1 to 3 students actively participated in the close looking activities, while others were scattered around, examing different art objects, doodling on their clip boards, or simply observing quietly. 
However, the students seemed to particularly enjoy the “Guardian Room”. The artist was present, and they eagerly identified the creatures depicted in his work, as well as the person holding the turtle shell. The artist shared his personal story about how the art project was inspired by his experiences; after an accident where he fell off a cliff, he lost some of his memories. He explained that the way the art lights up to reflect an image symbolizes his ability to take on thoughts, activities, and information from work or school to compensate for his lost memories. 
Additionally, the students enfaged in activities like sketching and writing postcards about what they saw in the “Ten Symbols of Immortality” exhibition. These hands -on activities rather than the close looking conversations, allowed them to explore their thoughts about the artwork. 
In sharing about the Qlin, the being who makes an appearance only during reign of just rulers symbolizing prosperity and imminent prosperity, a student stated that Qlin would never appear in the US!

I was not able to follow the route, 4 zones , in an efficient manner due to the difficulty managing the group and the room blockage .

My students today were rambunctious. I had forgotten how useful it is to ask them to sit on the floor, following their exploration of a gallery to identify hybrid and shapeshifting mythical creatures. Having them seated on the floor helps with close looking and storytelling. In an ideal world, I would have sat with them on the floor but I am not up to that.

My students tended to lean against the walls in some of the galleries and to lean against the pillars in the forest. They were also prone to running among the pillars. This is tricky because they get so excited when they arrive in the forest. Another issue is how to how handle a special needs student who gets scared in the guardians room when they think that the creatures are real.

I had a successful tour – the kids learned something (e.g. they now have heard of the Silk Road!) and were engaged by the art and mythical creatures. I had planned to focus a bit more on the journeys of our families (and ourselves) as a theme but in the end the creatures won the day. For the next time, I think I’ll use Jane/Annette’s questions earlier to set the stage and to better drive the discussion. After a brief chat about the exhibit and its context in the Garden, I did ask the students, if they found themselves having to move, to consider “What would you leave behind?” “What would you bring to your new home?” . That generated some discussion but also a fair amount of puzzlement. Maybe a case of ‘read the room.’

Due to the construction, we then moved to the Forest (coming from the gift shop through a number of rooms out of order) and I found that sustaining the immigration flow now felt a bit off. But the art and animals came to the rescue. The Fox Woman and Unicorn were favorites. I told the story of the Fox Woman and legend of the nine tails. We did a drawing/word description activity. The ‘woven’ painting of the Cambodian temple was of interest, visually as it comes into focus and for technique.

The Village Square was a hit. The presence of graffiti was unexpected, the collision of cultures in the collage of signs as well. The painting with the various dragons is worthy of a close look. And of course, Vishnu and Garuda. Throughout the tour I had them on the lookout for the various chimera and guessing what animals comprised the creature in front of them.

We did do a brief stop in the Silk Road, and the students were drawn to foods and musical instruments.

We did a stop at the Dragon’s Landing. Based on Melissa’s prior tour, we discussed the collage and its making and attempted to have the students say what they might include in a collage of their own lives. We ended in the Kitchen with a peek at the Four Guardians. Mythical creatures!

My tours focused on mythical creatures originating from mythologies in Asia. I am avoiding Dave Kim’s theme of the many stages of the immigrant journey because that has not been my personal journey. Also, I am reluctant to ask students to make connections between his journey and their journeys which are highly personal and particularly sensitive when ICE is seizing people off the street in Pasadena. That said, this is what we did on my four tours (Feb. 19 and Feb. 20).

We organized our clipboards with a handout that I had prepared. Then, we created and sketched on our handouts a hybrid creature, with each person in the group suggesting a physical feature. For example, body of bird, neck of giraffe, head of horse, ears of elephant, and so on. Then, we looked at my handout which shows two categories of creatures from Asian mythologies: Hybrid Creatures and Shapeshifter Creatures. By then, they already had the concept of “hybrid,” so we turned to shapeshifters where we had a conversation about what they are, their favorites, etc. We then looked at my handout to see the creatures listed under each category: Hybrid – dragon, qilin/kirin, phoenix, garuda; and Shapeshifters – nine-tail fox and tanuki. Our goal was to make a check mark on the handouts each time we saw one of these creatures.

Upon entering a gallery, we looked for the creatures listed on the handout, working individually, with partners or in small groups. Then, we compared results and had conversations about which creatures on the list pulled them in/made them wonder and why. We focused on close looking so that we could make comparisons when we saw the same creatures in other galleries and they could choose their favorite creature at the end of the tour. As part of close looking, we talked about the physical features of each hybrid creature.

We sometimes talked about creatures that they liked but which are not my list. We tried to do this in a way so that they could make comparisons and connections – for example, the faces of the copper deer in the wetlands to the face of the kirin in the forest or the legs of the cranes in the wetlands to the legs of the phoenix.

We also had some good laughs – waving our arms like a phoenix and imitating the pose of tanuki.

As part of our conversations, I tried to convey a variety of things. For example, I sometimes asked them about the dates when objects had been created to convey that the creatures have been depicted by artists over the centuries. I gave examples to convey that the creatures are more than symbols of various things (e.g., good luck or blessings) but also carry stories with life-lessons. Sometimes we looked at where the objects were created to convey that although a creature may appear across Asian mythology, it may be depicted and interpreted differently from culture to culture (e.g., Japan vs. China).

Clipboards helped immensely with group management and getting responses from everyone in the group. I would use the clipboards in a slightly different way if I gave the group more freedom to choose the subjects of close-looking. In that case, I would ask them to write down several words that come to mind when looking at the object and to group share those words.

Yesterday, I toured with a group of six middle-school (8th grade) girls who were very quiet yet interested. We were only doing one tour as there were only 30 students total. They were English-speaking Mandarin learners. I wouldn’t classify them as engaged, but they responded when asked questions and, on occasion, asked questions of their own. We were asked to include the oracle bones on the tour.

We began the tour with the oracle bones, where I gave a brief history of their discovery and their contribution to written communication and the history of China. We then discussed the process of divination, which I tied to some of Cai’s philosophy of mortality/immortality and permanence/impermanence. Finally, we looked at some examples of the evolution of the language from pictographs to current Chinese writing. 

We spent time in almost every room, discussing various works and processes, focusing primarily on Palmyra, Return to Darkness, and Shadow: Pray for Protection. At Palmyra and Shadow I used the ODIP strategy: observe (silently, what do you see; not what you think you see), describe (share what you see), interpret (based on what you observe and connect, what do you think the story is), and finally prove (what makes you say that; what do you see in the work that demonstrates your interpretation). 

The tour ended when half the group disappeared. They simply went to the restroom with the chaperone! Luckily, we were near the end of the tour, so we spent the remaining minutes in the garden.

Reflection (what would you do differently?):

Comments & Suggestions:
The groups were formed (by the teacher) into single gender (girls/boys) groups, which, in middle school, is a wise decision. Studies have shown that single gender grouping relieves some social stressors within this age group, making for a more successful experience for everyone.

Standing in front of Palmyra or Shadow: Pray for Protection.
Look at it from a distance and write down one word, then write down another word looking at it from a middle distance, and then sit down close to it and write down a third word. Then, share what they wrote down.
In the AI room, find all the places where they can see themselves in the mirrors. Speculate about why this might be and whether it affects how they feel about these works.