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Teaching Museum unveils energetic new curator

by Hatcher Hurd

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	Curator Jena Sibille opens the door to the hidden room that is a replica of Anne Frank’s hiding place where she and her family hid from the Nazis in World War II Holland. It is one of the ways students see history brought to life at the Teaching Museum North. (click for larger version)

October 14, 2009
Roswell – Jena Sibille has her dream job. She didn't know it at the time, but her whole life prepared her to be the next curator of Fulton County Schools' Teaching Museum North.

She started out in a different direction, though, earning a degree in drawing and painting and working as a graphic artist. But she decided that wasn't rewarding enough, so it was back to school to get an education degree in art

education.

Then came a stint in the Peace Corps with her husband. They went to Papua, New Guinea, and on that Pacific island she stumbled on her true calling.

"By coincidence, I was to be stationed where there was one of only two museums in the whole country," Sibille said. "There were no programs at all for the high school just next door.

Museums were more of a Western idea, she said.

"The idea of Papuans learning about their culture, seeing it as something to preserve, wasn't a concept they thought about," said Sibille.

But Sibille thought about it, and soon she was working to build Papuan culture and history into the school's curriculum. Through the Peace Corps she got funding to start an oral history program. That was the spark.

Stateside again, it was back to school for Sibille, getting a master's degree in education and taking a job at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, where she started out as a tour guide and did some teaching. She got involved with Fulton County Schools, forging several educational partnerships with middle, elementary and high schools.

She created a curriculum tied to the High, as well as a literacy program for fourth graders and a social studies outreach for fifth graders.

When the legendary Jacque Coxe, founding curator of the Teaching Museum North, retired earlier this year, Sibille applied for the job. Not surprisingly, she got it.

The Teaching Museum North, like its sister museum in south county, augments Fulton County Schools' curriculum with programs tailored to different grades. The Teaching Museum North is on Mimosa Boulevard in Roswell in the former Roswell Elementary School building.

Now Sibille wants to build on what is already an incredible teaching accessory for North Fulton students.

Her plans include bringing in other artists and performers (teaching artists, she calls them) and having the students interact with them.

On the day a reporter came to interview her, several classes were bussed to the museum for a Nature Art Safari, where students received pith helmets and talked about observing the natural world around them.

"We talk to them about looking at birds, what they eat, how they live and how climate affects them," she said. "Then they draw what they see. This is integrated with their curriculum, but it is outside of the box – it's outside the building."

In another room – the Cabin Room – Coxe has reappeared to give a performance of "Cabin Tales." She takes on the role of frontier woman (and in 1820 this was the American frontier) to tell children about life in those days in the first person.

In the Anne Frank room, children not only hear about how she was hidden from the Nazis, they sit in a recreation of the attic where she and her family lived to avoid the concentration camps.

"When the children are immersed in the environment, it is no longer an abstraction in the classroom. They hear Harriett Tubman explain the Underground Railroad spiriting slaves to freedom," Sibille said.

"All of this is what is so exciting. It is what I enjoyed working with at the High and being part of the schools too, creating programs. It's about making learning coming alive."

So what is next? Sibille wants to take the Teaching Museum on the road, bringing the programs to the children and sparing the time and expense of bussing students to the museum all the time. And she wants to introduce more art into the curriculum.

"The really cool thing about art is there are no right answers. Kids can think critically and on their own – think from their perspective," she said.

"They can see there are many possible 'right' answers. And when they get to see artifacts or a primary source from the subjects they are studying, it gives them content and

context."

Meanwhile, Sibille wants to get to know the museum better while she is building relationships with teachers and administrators: "Do a lot of listening and talking," she says. She has also learned a lot talking with Roswell natives about the days when the museum had been the school they all attended.

"I didn't realize the significance of Roswell Elementary and the connection it has to the community," she said.

So Sibille is settling into her job, making the Teaching Museum a unique experience for each one of the 28,000 inquisitive minds who will pass through its doors between September and May. It's a job she can't wait to tackle.