First Visit Corcoran Docent Training

Jaqui and I met with Linda and her trainees today.  We observed one woman give a presentation on three works and then just listened to the students discuss their concerns.  Apparently this group is a few weeks away from completing the requirements to be a docent and are hurrying to finish their studies.  Several things were interesting to me.  First it is clear that Linda has a depth of knowledge about the works and art history but is challenged by having to train adult volunteers.  She clearly doesn't treat them as employees or students but I was loosing my patience with some of the trainee's side conversations and not giving their full attention to Linda.  Also, I enjoyed watching the presentation by the trainee after visiting the National Gallery last week.  The presentation was supposed to be geared toward a "school group" but this particular woman would have benefited from more age-specific understanding and some of the rubrics used by Heidi Hamish.  The docents were eager to learn and seemed very happy to be here.