The Art Canada Institute Education Program is a national resource that offers K-12 teachers thematically driven resources to facilitate the study of a wide range of subjects. Taking Canada’s artists as inspiration, our cross-curricular, art-enriched materials cover a diversity of topics, from Decolonization to Holocaust Remembrance and Environmental Activism to Early 20th-century Childhood.
Our Teacher Resource Guide on Montreal-born painter Prudence Heward (1896–1947), for instance, introduces topics related to gender and history through the lens of her paintings. While she may not have known it at the time, Heward produced some of the most provocative and dazzling paintings of modern women in early 20th-century Canadian art history. At this moment in time, Canadian women were experiencing seismic shifts in gender roles and expectations as they began to have more of a presence in public life, and Heward’s portraits spark questions, connections, and stories grounded in history, social science, and the visual arts.
In the Prudence Heward guide entitled “Learn about Early 20th-century Women through the Art of Prudence Heward”, teachers can explore learning activities that examine issues of gender and representation, race, colonialism, and limitations on freedoms for early 20th-century women, and a culminating task that invites students to create a social media campaign for the interwar era. Our resources also include a short educational video that introduces students to her work, and inspires them to take a closer look.
To start exploring our Prudence Heward Guide, and to see the myriad ways you can introduce Canadian art into your curriculum, head over to our virtual library where you can access our resources in both English and French, for free: https://www.aci-iac.ca/education/teacher-resource-guides/
If you would like the latest updates on our resources and art-enriched curricular connections sent right to your inbox, you can sign up for our bi-monthly education newsletter here: https://aci-iac.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d66cf13dd51e3fd4a51f28a9e&id=3ca304295f
