Social Critical Thinking Through the Arts

HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE

Course Description
Do you care about social problems and what can be done about them? Do you wonder how you can choose good leaders or even become one? By using the Art of Looking practice, in this Yale College-based seminar, we will examine critical thinking strategies. The Art of Looking or Visual Thinking is a Harvard Education Department pedagogy used today by numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), that consists of learning through observation and immersive attention to content. This learning tool uses art as a great repository of wisdom for critical thinkers and offers human skill development (all too well-known leadership “soft skills”) while immersing us in evidence reasoning. The seminar will consist of open discussions about social justice in the Americas (inequality, corruption, racism, immigration, feminism, identity, and social movements) as we participate in detailed-oriented observation of modern and contemporary artwork, including the art collection of the oldest American university-based museum: the Yale University Art Gallery. Visual arts and art history knowledge is not required. This class is intended for the curious, who love innovation and learning.
Grades: 9-11
Time: 7:00pm EST (New York Time)
Category: HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE
Instructor: Ximena Benavides

William Scott

Ximena Benavides

J.S.D. candidate Law School - Yale University

Ximena Benavides is a Schell Center Research Fellow at Yale Law School and Lecturer at Yale College. She is a Doctor of the Science of Law (J.S.D.) candidate at Yale Law School, where she received her LL.M. in 2006. Before coming back to law school for her doctoral studies, Ximena practiced law both in New York and Lima and was a law professor in Peru, where she earned her law degree and B.A. in Humanities from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. At Yale, Ximena is a Fellow of the Information Society Project and the Solomon Center for Health, Law & Policy at Yale Law School, and an affiliate with the Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Ximena researches and writes on issues of institutional corruption, health care policy, and health care innovation, at the intersection of social human rights and development. Her recent article, “Disparate Health Care in Puerto Rico: A Battle Beyond Statehood,” is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change.

“This class was better than I expected it because we participated a lot and expressed our opinions instead of just listening or doing research. We were able to think for ourselves and develop our own points of view while also building opinions based on what everyone shares.”

María José Lozano - Mexico

Program Calendar:
July 19-30, 2021
(Monday – Friday)
Real-Time Classes Duration:
1 hour & 45 minutes long
(with a 15-minute break)
Max Class Group:
Small class size
(20 students max)

Grades 9-11

For grade 9 students all course options are available.



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