Cure for Mondays: Oct 20, 2012

Homeschool Event: National Museum Week

One of the perks of homeschooling is being able to work around a freer schedule. Of course, it helps to have a loose list of things to follow everyday but it doesn’t have to be monotonous that it would drive the kids to boreland (and me to cuckooland).

A homeschooling activity that I would like to highlight for this month is the National Museum Week. I find that the best way to let Cole, my ten- year- old homeschooler, learn about the greatest Filipino artists written in our history is to bring him to the National Museum of the Philippines and allow him to immerse in the works of Vicente Manansala, Juan Luna and Fernando Amorsolo. He can have as much time as he needs to absorb their works and ask as many questions as he can. This way, he won’t be staring at a school book with small pictures of paintings printed on newsprint like most of us did in grade school and high school. It is the experience of having to see the paintings themselves that will allow him to appreciate the artists, their works and hopefully, details on their style and temper. For the latter, I’d have to take his lead to know if he’s ready to talk about such things. If not, the getting-to-know-you stage is already a giant step into both the Philippine arts and history.

The other things that I can’t wait for Cole to see (I actually think “to experience” is a better term) are the sculpture gallery featuring the works of some of our National Artists like Graciano Nepumuceno, Isabelo Tampicino, Guillermo Tolentino and many others.

There’s also the “Kaban ng Lahi”, a gallery of archeological treasures and “Pinagmulan”, a display of items from pre-historic Philippines.

There’s a lot more to see at the National Museum of the Philippines. I confess, I have a lot of learning to do myself when it comes to Philippine history and so this trip will be parallel learning for Cole and me. I attended the Visual Literacy and Art Criticism Workshop in U.P. Diliman last summer. I obviously did not become a genius at it overnight (maybe never) but it did open gargantuan doors of learning for me. One of the requirements of the workshop was to write a review of an art work chosen from the Vargas Museum. Our mentors found it bizarre that I chose Severino Fabie's “A Man With a Newspaper" but it allowed me to sleep soundly on that decision. So mote it be.

The Philippine National Museum is located at P. Burgos Drive in Manila and is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 5pm. Phone Number: (02) 527 1215

Admissions are free on Sundays. However, in celebration of the national Museum Week, the entrance fees are waived for the whole month of October. Yes, everyone gets to go in for free!

Here's a table of the National Museum's regular fees for your future reference