The Museum of Ibero-American Crafts Tenerife (MAIT) activates the educational program that will reach 5,000 schoolchildren during the new school year. It revolves around the visit of schools to the Museum, choosing between didactic itineraries (guided tour) and designed workshops; and the visit of the Museum to the school center for the implementation of the School Craft Dayswhich include dissemination and training in traditional trades for students starting from Compulsory Secondary Education.
The educational itineraries are a guided tour of the MAIT rooms adapted to the level of the students, opting for a trip to the origin of crafts, myths and rites, musical instruments, Canary Islands and crafts, the rosette of Tenerife and the pottery of the Island.
The eight educational workshops have topics such as toy making and recycling, clay, jewelry, doll making, natural dyes, traditional pottery, masks and weaving techniques. It also offers the educational game Knowing the Canary Islands, aimed at students from the 2nd Primary Year onwards and which consists of questions and answers with which students learn a little more about the history, crafts and nature of the Archipelago.
the workshops
In detail, the toy workshop–Recycled is aimed at Infants and the first cycle of Primary and consists of making a toy by recycling the wooden blocks for clothing. The clay one has the same recipients and involves making a clay medallion (without firing) with the initial of the student’s name and then embedding it with stones (Extremaduran technique). He jewelry shop, designed from the second Primary cycle, consists of making a necklace or bracelet with kid skin and wood beads. The one of dollswith participants of the same level, will make a wool pompom (magician clothing pompom technique) to which are added pieces of felt and a ring for use as a keychain.
He natural dyes workshop, for Children, consists of learning about some of the historical dyes in the Canary Islands and practicing on a cotton support. Traditional pottery (second cycle of Primary) and is an approach to traditional techniques in the Islands and making an uncooked clay object. He mask workshop It is for all educational levels and consists of making a paper mache technique. Finally, the weaving techniques workshop is aimed at students from 5th grade of Primary and in it a fabric will be made.
In schools
The staff of Museum of Ibero-American Crafts of Tenerife holds School Craft Days in schools with two themes: traditional pottery and textile fibers and natural dyes. As a novelty, in this course educational centers can propose a traditional craft to work on, following the same methodology as the School Days, with a theoretical part and a practical part with a demonstration and workshop of the craft, with a minimum of two months in advance of the execution of the activity simultaneously contributing to the research, conservation and dissemination of the traditional crafts of Tenerife.
The advisor of Employment and Education, Efraín Medina, explains that MAIT’s programming “covers all educational levels.” The Museum of Ibero-American Crafts of Tenerife, located in the old convent of San Benito Abad (La Orotava), is part of the outreach program carried out by the Cabildo through the Insular Crafts Company.
Ricardo Cloguen, its manager, indicates that the main objective of MAIT “is make known the artisan reality of Ibero-America in an immediate and tangible way, creating a large permanent exhibition, representative of all Ibero-American crafts, both current and disappeared, paying special attention to Canarian crafts. The program was launched in 2010.
The technician of the MAIT Education Department, Domingo Reyes, highlights that the museum’s school teaching “has as a priority that the students know and value the origin, evolution and current situation of our Canarian crafts in order to in this way, and with a more broad, bring us closer to the artisan reality of other countries of the Ibero-American community.
