During a season when most museum and art gallery programs are slowing down, MEMBG docents were busier than ever presenting summer tours to students and their teachers as part of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Emergency Immigrant Education Program (EIEP). EIEP was established to develop English skills rapidly in immigrant children, but one of the most important elements of the program is also exposing immigrant students to the richness of Greater Los Angeles via field trips to parks, musea, and other cultural resources.
Planning for EIEP began in spring, when members of the MEMBG docent curriculum committee worked with EIEP advisor Terri Bourg to devise a botanical educational package for the teachers as well as docents. Then, on July 12, thirty-six teachers attended a pre-visitation staff development meeting and garden orientation conducted by docents Helen Friedman, Mary Knowlton, and Evelyn Rabuchin. From July 19 to August 16, on ten different summer days, nearly five hundred students from sixteen schools--accompanied by teachers, parents, and paraprofessionals--were given tours by our docents. Teachers used materials provided by the curriculum committee in follow-up lessons, and one class at Bellagio Road School wrote and presented a play based on their field trip to the garden.
Docents reported that they thoroughly enjoyed working with the EIEP classes and found themselves developing teaching skills they needed to present a tour to students with limited English skills. "A group of students from China, living in the United States for only two months, learned the word for bamboo, and I learned how to say it in Mandarin," said one docent. Here was a reaffirmation that first-hand experience is a wonderful opportunity to begin learning a new language.
Thanks to the dozen docents who made this summer experiment a big success!
HELEN FRIEDMAN, Chair, Curriculum Committee