Day One at the AGO, by Stephanie Fielding

This was Aamna and my first week shadowing at the AGO.  It was overwhelming to see the amount of students that pass through the museum daily; it felt like a beehive.  Our education officer, Carol Matson, was stressed for time due to the late arrival of the school group (grade fives).  It was interesting how differently the education officer and the gallery guide, Ortansa Moraru, dealt with time contraints- Carol clearly has an agenda she felt the need to follow while Ortansa let the children guide her to certain works of interest, deviating almost entirely from the tour’s intended content.  This is a point of contention which is very relevant to current issues in education- how much control does the educator need to have over the curriculum and how much should ‘child-centered directives be followed?  I think there should be a combination of the two- the educator should encourage student exploration but be present to navigate intelligent discussion and discoveries.

During the tour, as we approached the European galleries Carol made it very clear that we were to avoid, at all costs, the room containing the Kara Walker piece.  This lead Aamna and I to a discussion about the role educators play in censorship.  This issue was brought up in class, with no definite conclusions drawn.  So the question remains:  how much should the AGO intervene?  Considering the AGO’s role as a public institution serving a multitude of cultural and ago groups, should the exposure to controversial content be left up to the students’ teachers and parents?  Although I do believe in exposing children to the world and allowing them to make their decisions, I understand that this is not the opinion of many other Canadians, therefore perhaps the AGO is not the place for discussions of rape.