Category Archives: Best Practices
Field trip to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum generates mind-shift
Author Terry Lee Marzell on her recent field trip to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Just about every educator would agree that field trips are an excellent example of experiential learning, and a terrific learning tool for teachers. But, let’s be realistic, very few teachers can afford to escort a group of students to Europe. Most of the time the best the teacher can do is take a tour personally, and then share the experience with the class upon return home. One field trip I would definitely recommend to any art teacher is a tour of the Vincent Van Gogh Museum located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I have to say, visiting this museum, coupled with my reading of Irving Stone’s landmark biographical novel Lust for Life, truly expanded my knowledge and appreciation of this iconic 19th-century Dutch painter. Here’s what I learned. In Van Gogh’s day, most painters studied how to realistically reproduce pictures of the human body, because they relied on painting portraits of wealthy patrons in order to earn a living. Many of these portraits depicted prominent citizens and their families or servants seated in the affluent surroundings of their homes or businesses. Usually, these portraits were pragmatic representations using dark and somber colors, steady brush strokes, and clear outlines for the objects in their works.
“View of Arles with Irises in the Foreground” by Vincent Van Gogh in 1888. Hanging in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
But Van Gogh was an innovator. He preferred to paint pictures depicting breathtaking landscapes of expansive fields full of blooming flowers. If he chose to paint portraits, his subjects were the common working man and his family, such as farmers or coal miners. These were portraits Van Gogh did not get paid for. He didn’t worry about earning a living because most of his life he was supported by his younger brother. Van Gogh’s paintings are characterized by brilliant colors and swirly, dramatic brush strokes which convey energy and movement. And as forerunner of the impressionist movement, he used indistinct outlines for the objects in his works.
Once inside the museum, standing before these stunning paintings, I fell in love with Van Gogh’s art.
What I learned about Van Gogh through my reading and my field trip to the Amsterdam museum is probably nothing new to the art teacher. But because of these experiences I achieved a monumental mind-shift in my understanding and appreciation of art in general, particularly 19th-century art, and specifically Van Gogh’s art. This mind-shift would not likely have occurred otherwise. This is what the educator hopes to achieve through field trips.
In a tour to the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the visitor encounters this image of the famous Dutch painter, surrounded by a comprehensive exhibit of his self-portraits.
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Taking a field trip to Hitler’s famous Eagle’s Nest
Author Terry Lee Marzell recently took a field trip to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, shown here. The site is located near the town of Berchtesgaden in the Bavaria region of Germany.
When teaching students about historical figures, it always helps to take a field trip to places associated with the figure in question. Visiting places connected to former Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is difficult, though, because so many of them have been destroyed since WWII. One site that still exists, and is open to the public, is Hitler’s famous Eagle’s Nest.
The Eagle’s Nest, known in German as the Kehlsteinhaus, was built in 1939. It is located near the town of Berchtesgaden in the Bavaria region of Germany. An impressive feet of engineering, it was built on the 6,000-foot summit of Kehlstein Mountain. The incline is so steep that the vehicles which transport visitors to the entrance must be specially equipped to handle the slant.
To access the house, Hitler was driven through an entry tunnel. Today’s visitor passes through the tunnel on foot. Next, Hitler used an elaborately-decorated elevator to ascend the 400-foot shaft that leads to the house. The elevator’s ornate design was intended to impress visitors, and it certainly impressed us, until we remembered that our feet were standing on the very same ground that former Nazis stood on. The elevator seemed spacious—large enough for about 20 people—but not large enough for Hitler, who was reportedly claustrophobic. He never fully trusted the device, and riding in it made him exceedingly nervous.
At right, the reception hall of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest as it was during WWII. Notice the grand red Italian marble fireplace gifted to Hitler by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. At left, Hitler (far right) and his guests admire the stunning views.
Once you have reached the top, we toured the rooms used by the Nazis for government meetings, receptions, and social events. In the main hall, the showpiece architectural element is the grand fireplace of red Italian marble, a gift from Italian dictator and Nazi ally Benito Mussolini. The unfurnished stone rooms were stark and cold, and seemed harsh in comparison to the spectacular views that could be seen through the windows. Even photographs from Hitler’s day showing the rooms in use, outfitted with thick carpets, overstuffed furniture pieces, and a blazing fire in the fireplace, do not make the room appear soft and warm. It’s almost as if the bleak interiors of the rooms mirror the interiors of the stony hearts of those who used them.
Author Terry Lee Marzell admires the spectacular views from Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in Germany.
Ahh, but the views were breathtaking. The natural beauty of the vast landscape was wasted on Hitler, though, who was afraid of heights. For this reason, he visited the Nazi showcase only 14 times. But in my opinion, the views alone are worth the trek to the summit.
Of course, the best way for a teacher to share the experience this historical place with students is through a field trip, but since travelling to Germany with your class is unlikely, you and your students can learn more about Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest from a visit to the site’s official website at Kehlsteinhaus.
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Take a field trip to the Rembrandt museum house in Amsterdam
Author Terry Lee Marzell takes a field trip to the Rembrandt museum house located in Amsterdam.
Teaching always takes on a new dimension when it can be combined with a field trip. This is what I would recommend for educators who want their students to learn more about famous Dutch artist Rembrandt. Certainly it is costly and difficult to arrange a field trip for students, but you could do the next best thing, which is visit the place yourself, and then share what you have learned with your class. A wonderful place for a field trip is the Rembrandt Museum House in Amsterdam.
A visit to the house offers wonderful insights into how upper-class citizens lived their lives in 17th-century Netherlands. Rembrandt’s home is located in a Dutch artists’ enclave which included the residences of Rembrandt’s teacher, Pieter Lastman, and fellow artists Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy and Pieter Codde. Rembrandt lived in his 17th-century home for 20 years, and it was here that he painted several of his most famous portraits and his masterpiece The Night Watch, which is now on display in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
The author’s husband, Hal Marzell, stands next to an easel located in the personal art studio of the famous painter Rembrandt.
Unfortunately, bankruptcy forced a debt-ridden Rembrandt to sell the house to pay his creditors in 1658. At the time, a complete inventory was made listing all the furniture, art, and other Rembrandt possessions that were liquidated. Museum curators used this inventory to refurbish the home with period furnishings and artifacts. The museum also owns the most complete collection of Rembrandt etchings in existence.
A tour of the house reveals three floors of remarkable rooms, including Rembrandt’s bedroom, his personal art studio, the studio where he gave lessons to his students, a room where he made engravings, a showroom where he met with his clients and displayed the paintings he offered for sale, and a room intriguingly referred to as his “closet,” where he kept his collection of plaster casts and objects d’art.
To learn more about this wonderful historic house, you can visit the museum’s website at www.rembrandthuis.
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Travel to Berlin to gain insight into teaching the Cold War
When teaching US History or European History, educators usually include a study of the Cold War period, which spanned the years from 1947 to 1991. Such a study inevitably includes a discussion of the Berlin Wall, a twelve-foot concrete barrier erected by Russian authorities to prevent those living in the Soviet-dominated Eastern sector of the city from defecting to the more democratic sectors governed by the United States, Great Britain, and France. To aid the teaching of this important period in international relations, I recommend the teacher make a personal visit to Berlin to view the Wall and related sites.
On a recent visit to Berlin, author Terry Lee Marzell stands beside a section of the Berlin Wall, erected during the Cold War to prevent citizens from defecting from the Soviet-dominated Eastern sector of the city.
Before the Wall was erected, approximately 3.5 million East German citizens fled the highly-restrictive Soviet rule by simply crossing into more democratic West Berlin. Then they were free to emigrate to other cities within the German Democratic Republic or move on to other countries. The mass defection was embarrassing to Soviet leaders, who wanted the world to believe their Communist regime was preferred by their people. To stem further flight, the Soviets constructed the twelve-foot concrete barrier that became known as the Berlin Wall. Behind the Wall on the East German side was the area that came to be called the “Death Strip.” The Soviets equipped this area with a number of features intended to betray the presence of defectors. Among these were soft sand that allowed for easy detection of footprints, barbed wire, floodlights, vicious dogs, trip-wire machine guns, and patrolling soldiers with orders to shoot escapees on sight.
By the time the Wall came down on November 9, 1989, more than 100,000 people had attempted to circumvent the obstruction and escape to freedom in the West. They used incredibly creative methods to achieve their goal, including jumping out of windows adjacent to the wall, climbing over the barbed wire, flying over it in hot air balloons, crawling under it through the sewers, driving through unfortified parts of the wall at high speeds, disguising their bodies in inhumanly-shaped suitcases, or hiding in tiny secret compartments in cars. Although more than 5,000 people were able to achieve their goal, at least 171 individuals were killed during their attempts to reach freedom.
On a recent trip to Berlin, I was able to see and touch first-hand a remaining standing portion of the Wall. A memorial with a photograph of each individual who died trying to reach freedom humanizes the number of dead. The spot evokes conflicting emotions: Grief for the loss of life, sadness for the families who were torn apart when the Wall separated them from loved ones living on the other side, and joy for when the Wall finally came down.
While visiting Berlin, the author visits a reconstruction of Checkpoint Charlie, the well-known Cold War border crossing between the East and West sectors of the city.
I was also able to visit the well-known crossing that marks the border of East and West Berlin known as Checkpoint Charlie. It is important to note that what the tourist sees at Checkpoint Charlie today is a reconstruction of the original checkpoint. The famous photos of the American and Russian soldiers are fictional; the guard shack is from the period, but is not the original guard house; and the uniformed men posing for pictures are just actors trying to collect tips from tourists. The reconstruction offers a degree of physicality to a study of the Cold War, but the teacher will doubtless want to share authentic photos from the period with students.
Although it has been nearly three decades since the Berlin Wall was felled, the lobotomized city of Berlin is still trying to knit its two halves back together. You can’t really get a sense of this unless you visit the place in person. And that’s why I recommend a visit to the capital of Germany to anyone who teaches the Cold War.
