The Marsalis Family

MFA staff and more than 100 volunteers provide teacher workshops, resource materials, guided tours, and self-guided visits for more than 50,000 students and teachers from elementary and secondary schools in Boston and New England. The MFA program is built upon a belief in the power of art to expand students' understanding and appreciation of the world around them, the possibilities for the exploration of differing views, values, and ideas that it offers, and the ways that discovery through art can help students develop critical-thinking and communication skills that will benefit them across all disciplines. All of our guided tours support Massachusetts state curriculum frameworks and learning standards in an effort to create a seamless collaboration between the Museum and the classroom. Our work with teachers is strongly influenced by the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum and teaching method, which enables students to develop aesthetic and language literacy and critical thinking skills, while giving teachers a powerful new technique they can utilize throughout their career. Read more about VTS. Support for School Programs at the MFA is provided by the Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation and the Smith Family Thinking Through Art Program Fund; the Germeshausen Foundation Fund for Youth and Family Learning; the Edwin S. Webster Foundation Fund for School Programs; Helene R. Cahners-Kaplan and Carol R. Goldberg; the Stevens Foundations; the Ulf B. and Elizabeth C. Heide Fifth Grade Education Fund; the Education of Children in the Museum Fund; the Patricia and Robert Lawrence Fund for Education; the Dorothy Wagenknecht Fund; the Mabel Louise Riley Fund for School Programs; the Gallery Instructors and Gallery Instructor Associates Fund for the Partnership with the Boston Public Schools; the Gloria and Irving Fox Fund for Museum Learning and Public Programs; the Morton P. Prince Fund; the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation Fund; Edith T. and Russell C. de Burlo, Jr., and anonymous donors.