Margaret Bourke-White Field Trip

On Thursday, October 16, 2014, nineteen of our oldest students visited Syracuse University’s campus to view Margaret Bourke White’s exhibit of 180 vintage photographs taken in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England and Italy in the 1930s and 40s.

Prior to our field trip, Andrew Saluti, Assistant Director to SU’s Art Galleries, visited The New School as a mystery guest, and then proceeded to share with the school the significance of Margaret Bourke White’s work – her passion for photographing industry, people, and her documentation of World War II. It is hard for today’s youth, familiar with instant access to information, to grasp how Bourke-White’s photographs in Life Magazine informed the world. Andrew was also able to show and explain how different the process of taking photographs was in the 1930’s. Children were also amazed to learn how large her camera was! Andrew is gifted when it comes to engaging children of all ages in a sophisticated topic. His presentation was masterful.

At the exhibit, the older children used Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to study two photographs. The discussions that ensued were facilitated by graduate students in SU’s Museum Studies program. Finally, students were given time to view the entire exhibit and to identify photos they found especially meaningful. We are indeed lucky to have such resources in our community and couldn’t be more grateful to Andrew for hosting such a rich learning experience for our students.