Rebecca Field

Honors and Awards

2018 High School Art Educator of the Year, Henrico County, Virginia

Henrico 21 Winner, 21^st Century Learning (innovation) Initiative

2015, Henrico County Public Schools

R.E.B. for Teaching Excellence Award 2014, Community Foundation of Richmond 

VAEA Central Virginia Region High School Art Educator of the Year, 2014

Tuckahoe District Teacher of the Year, 2012-1013 Henrico County Public Schools 

Gilman Award, Teacher of the Year, Douglas Freeman High School, 2013-2014

21^st Century Teacher of the Year, Douglas Freeman High School, 2012-2013

2012-2013 Henrico County High School Art Educator of the Year

ICA Project Proposal

Rebecca Field, AP Art History Teacher

Freeman High School

The Advanced Placement Art History curriculum is fascinating to me, the teacher.  Often however, it is hard for my students to see how the learning that they do in class relates to the immediate world that they see around them.  This year, my students have a tremendous opportunity to connect their own lives to the study of an 800-year-old French cathedral and learn from the new VCU Institute for Contemporary Art before it is even built.  The planning, construction, and building of an important piece of architecture in Richmond, VA, will serve as a unique experience for these teenagers.  They will be allowed to witness the creation of a local and internationally important addition to contemporary design in their own neighborhood.

This project will allow AP Art History students to study both Gothic Architecture and the building of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art in tandem.  Students will be researching and comparing several aspects of the building and design process including the functional, financial, and Ideological.  Students will complete the following: 

-study terms and definitions of Gothic architecture, the development of the Pilgrimage system in Romanesque-era Europe,  The structure and influence of the Medieval Catholic Church, Sacred Geometry and the construction of cathedrals, and Medieval scholasticism and how it affected art  and architecture made during the Gothic era.  This learning directly fulfills the curriculum of the AP curriculum.

- discuss the building process of Chartres Cathedral, in France, with Dr. Craig Reynolds, VCU Adjunct Professor of Art History and Curator of the Branch Museum.

-learn about the ICA building process by meeting with Jaime Baird, the Director of Administration and Johanna Plummer, the Director of Education at the Institute for Contemporary Art

-study the plans and drawings of the ICA building, interview donors/patrons who are funding the project, research the architect and interpret all of this information to find out how the physical space of the ICA interacts with the ideological and metaphoric contents of the design.

-compare 21^st century Richmond and 12^th century Chartres to find out how these 2 buildings effect the local economy and other community concerns of the towns in which the ICA and Chartres Cathedral are built.

-present research findings in a symposium-type setting that will give students the opportunity to understand how art history research is presented at college and professional levels.

I hope that this project will continue for several years as the ICA building progresses and my students will eventually be able to study how the public interacts with the space.   Because of this partnership with VCU, I anticipate sharing this unit of study as an example of the possibilities of dialogue and relationship-building between the University and the public schools located nearby.  It also serves as a model for how teachers and students can utilize local resources in the pursuit of creating exciting learning opportunities in an environment of standard-based structures.