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Aleetzia Burns
Sociology 2000
Prof. Zachary Brewster
December 1, 2015
Service Learning Journal: VTS sessions DIA (October 3, 2015)
Today I attended a VTS workshop offered through Inside Out Literary arts, a non-profit
organization I intern with. Inside Out Literary arts project is a non-profit organization that sends
writers profession writers and Poets into inner-city schools, mainly Detroit Public Schools, and
those writers share the joy and power of poetry and literary self-expression.(Inside Out )
The mission of Inside Out is to inspire Detroit inner-city youth, K-12, to think broadly,
create bravely and share their voices with the wider world. Through the guidance of
professional writers and celebrated by publications and performances, Inside Out believes that
students can learn that their stories and ideas matter. By focusing on students engagement with
wring and performing their own written works, independently and with their peers, the program
wants to build not only the literacy skills of Detroit inner-city youth, but also prepare the students
to be leaders of tomorrow.
On October 3, 2015, I was one of the student representatives to receive training in the
area of VTS, or Visual Thinking Skills. I am receiving this training because Inside Out and the
Detroit Institute of Art are working in conjunction with one another to set up writing/ VTS
workshops on December 12, 2015. The October 3 rd VTS session was one of two five hour
sessions. Theses Workshops were based on the new, and first of its kind, 30 Americans Art
exhibit. Where the VTS training comes in is that about ten professional writers and three student
volunteers are to work together in groups in order to create plans for the workshops taking place
on December 12, and also VTS-ing an art piece in the exhibit.
Prior to the October 3rds VTS session, held at the DIA, I did not know what VTS-ing
was, I now know that VTS is a method often used by teacher, in this case, Museum curators to
facilitate discussions of art images. During this first session I attended the head curator of the

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DIA explained that there are three basic steps involved in VTS, which they use to engage
audiences ranging from as young as 5 to 85 with the art works of the museum. These three steps
involve asking the audience whats going on in this picture.
Next she waits and lets the audience think for a couple of seconds, and then phrases the
question again. After taking answer from a member of the audience, she paraphrases an answer
like a question to that person. She usually would begin be saying something like, so what john
is seeing is, or you noticed the symmetry of, or sothe white shadow behind this figures
head and the figures positioning in the painting, makes you think that the figure might be an
angel? The third step is to ask what more can we find? Asking this question causes the
audience to think more about what their peers have said in their comments or suggestions and
then make connections or add to the conversation.
The point of this process is to facility peer centered learning. There are no right answers
during the process. This means that the process is based solely on the inference, listening, and
creativity of the group. The students who usually are good at regurgitating right answers find it
hard to think critically or creatively which is what the process is about, making connections and
peer learning. While going through the process as a part of the audience I noticed that the VTS
process completely renders the Hawthorne effect.
This is due to the fact that there are no wrong or right answers. Once people understand
that they relax more, and are comfortable enough to give their opinions and share their comments
about a work or art piece. The Hawthorne effect is dismantled fairly early in the process because
the facilitator makes the process all about the work and what the views find and bring out of the
work. This makes it almost impossible for the audience to anticipate the facilitator and act
according to what they gage as a proper way to conduct themselves or present their views, there
is no right way so people are left to their own way of communicating and personal perceptions.

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And reminds me of the part of socialization, where we talked about how society makes
us human. In lecture the class talked about how we form our sense of self through socialization
and that each stage of our development is due to our ability to do self-reflection as well all place
ourselves in the roles of others. When we discussed Cooley and the Looking-Glass Self we
went over how there are 3 stages, much like VTS has three stages. The first stage is Imagining
how we appear to others (our perception of how others see us) , the second is imagining the
reaction of others to our (imagined) appearance, and the last is to evaluate ourselves according
to how we imagine others have judged us). (lecture notes)
In comparison to VTS, when facilitating a discussion about an art piece, the facilitator
has to imagine how the crowd perceives them. During the process the facilitator is not supposed
to directly give an opinion of what a piece is or means, they are simply meant to guide the
conversation along by paraphrasing what the audience is saying in a way that everybody in the
audience can understand and think about. Knowing this the facilitator has to be conscious of how
they interact and how the phrase what they say or paraphrase, so that they remain objective. This
is important because the audience will automatically place the facilitator in a position of
authority because of her role as facilitator. It is not VTS if the facilitator establishes themselves
as a person that has the answer instead making the audience feel that they are capable of
generating their own answers.
The next connection I made to the material was Meads role taking stages, which are
imitation, play, and game. At the beginning of the VTS session the facilitator stood at the front of
me and my peers, and presented us with an image of a large oil painting from the late 1600s and
went through all of the VTS steps. After having us participate two more times, we were split into
groups and basically had to imitate what we had just scene. After that we were asked to reflect on
our experience and think about what worked and what did not work. Then after listening to our

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peers and the facilitator, we gained a better understanding of what is expect of us when we take
on a role such as a facilitator.
From there we begin to full tackle the role by practicing it on our own and outside of the
classroom in order to become our own expectation of the role that we have developed by at first
anticipating the role. This is proof that human beings are both the producers and products of
society. When I entered the classroom where the session was to take place, the environment was
already beginning to take place. The atmosphere was comfortable yet kind of stiff being that this
was a new experience, new surroundings, new people and familiar people.
The group was made up of artists and intellectuals, published writers, certified professors,
and tenured museum curators. Me being a college student amongst so many established people
was a bit intimidating, but at the same time comfortable. Since I had already placed many of my
peers at higher level than myself, I unconsciously followed suit with their behavior, they were
quite so I was quite, etc. But once the process began, I noticed that the rest of the group was
feeling somewhat the same way, because they were all behaving in the same manor, no one
breaking the mode.
Throughout my service learning experience on October 3, 2015, I have noticed a how
much the things I have learned Sociology 2000 apply to the real word. I was really excite to the
connections because I like learning things that I feel can be useful in every day. I plan on trying
to apply every concept that I learn in class material to my everyday life and situations, because I
recognize how much better I retain and understand the concepts from class material when I
associate the new information with previous knowledge I have stored in my memory. As a result
of this experience I intend to continue volunteering in with other non-profit organizations and
continue the concept of service learning even after my time in Sociology 2000 is over.

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