Brooklyn Museum - CHILD OBSERVATION**

I was reminded of my trip to the Museum of Natural History when I walked into the Brooklyn Museum and saw groups of children with their teachers. Again, the younger the children are, the more closely the teachers seemed to watch them. Also like my trip to the Museum of Natural History, the shows I wanted to see the most were the ones that had no children in them. I wondered where the children went and I found teens in the African art section. Most of the 10 or so students were sitting back to back sketching what they saw. They were talking, enjoying themselves and voicing their opinions; "That one is ugly... I like that one." They were all Black students, so it was interesting to see them in the midst of art of the same African decent.

As I looked through the art that was displayed I saw masks from 19th century Congo. I could not avoid thinking about the reading from class, Kongo to Congo and .... I just imagined that these masks and wooden sculptures were probably taken from the land, possibly without permission. I wondered about the other pieces that came from different time periods and/or different parts of Africa. How did the pieces get from Africa to the Brooklyn museum? What did the students I observed think about the context of these sculptures and masks? What kind of insight do they have and are they interested?

Since the whole group was Black it made me think of the group of pre-school students I saw on the train in the morning. The preschool in my neighborhood was going on a trip. All of the students were white except for one Asian. Although they were in preschool, they felt older as if they had more awareness of their surroundings and life in general. The preschool by my apartment is called the Williamsburg Northside Preschool and it costs from $1,050 a month (2 days a week) to $2,100 a month (5 days per week), making it only available to certain New Yorkers. They have a teaching approach based on the Reggio Emilia model, offering students a very high level/high quality start to their education.

So, in Williamsburg I observed a primarily White group, at the Brooklyn Museum I observed an all Black group, on the subway ride back from the Brooklyn Museum I saw a primarily Hispanic group of children and while I was at the Museum of Natural History I saw a group of girl students with Burkas. It's interesting to see this in a time when we hear about the segregation in schools across the country.