Power of One: Grade 5 Students Curate Living Museum

Swain Library was filled with curated exhibits featuring Florence Nightingale, Josephine Baker, Albert Einstein, Muhammad Ali, Tyrus Wong, Elijah McCoy,  Milton Bradley, and other historical figures as fifth-graders took on the personas of inventors, activists, athletes, visual and performing artists, scientists, and writers in the recent Changemakers Living Museum.

Dressed in all-black attire with custom curator labeled T-shirts, the students opened the presentation with the help of Lower School music teacher Rachael Jungkeit on piano as they welcomed guests with an introductory song full of descriptors referencing the historical figures guests would meet. At the song’s conclusion, the museum was deemed open; the audience was instructed to choose their first exhibit, which included four student curators, before moving on to the next group of museum stewards. Each student took a few minutes to perform their monologue detailing facts and the importance of their chosen changemakers.

“The Changemaker Living Museum is a cross-curricular presentation between history, art, music, and live performance,” said theater teacher and performance director Lisa Daly. “The students really took the time and effort to become experts on these incredible changemakers, and the selected figures were chosen for a reason. The presentation is a true community effort.”

To prepare for the presentation, each student selected a historical figure that was both an inspiration to them and had made a lasting and positive contribution to his or her field. Head Media Specialist Stacey Schwartz helped the students choose books and resources as part of the project research. In Language Arts class, students turned their knowledge into a research paper and crafted the monologues. The exhibits also featured different artifacts related to each changemaker.

Following the presentation, the students also curated an art show inspired by the late artist Andy Warhol - who was noted during the event as also being a changemaker in his time. With the aid of Lower School art teacher Sue Bennett 1973, the students learned about the pop art movement and its influence throughout history. The students were tasked with taking a contemporary item of their choice and creating a painting based on the style of realism. All the individual art pieces were carefully placed on tables throughout the library.