In many museums, "interacting" with the exhibits means walking by, taking a look, reading the wall labels describing the exhibit, and moving on. Anything more would probably draw a security guard.
Not so at the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C. Here, children are encouraged to explore their interests by taking an active role. An exhibit on "Simple Machines," for example, entices kids to pull ropes that hoist 18-kilogram cinder blocks on rollers up either a long and shallow or short and steep inclined plane, allowing the children to observe the amount of effort required in each case. In the "Metricville" exhibit, children can visit a greengrocer's, play with several varieties of fruits and vegetables, and use an adding machine, scale, and price list (70 cents a kilo for bananas; 39 cents a kilo for Spanish onions) to calculate the value of the produce. In other sections of the museum, children try on construction helmets, slide down a fire pole, make bubbles, or walk through an Ice Age cave replete with "cave drawings."
In every exhibit, a high priority is placed on learning through discovery. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the Museum makes sure that each exhibit has a rich context and includes several "hooks" that appeal to children's varying interests and learning styles, says Ann Lewin, the museum's director. The museum's exhibits also foster social interaction among children as they explore.
"Touching alone isn't enough," says Lewin. "What we've tried to do here is to put in a context and a tremendous stimulus for social interaction—things where something works much better if there are two of you or a group doing it."
In the past decade, museums designed for children—such as children's museums, youth museums, and science and technology centers—have grown in number and popularity. The Association of Youth Museums estimates that there are nearly 400 children's and youth museums in the United States, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers estimates there are perhaps 400 such centers worldwide, with another 100 under consideration.
In general, such museums differ from their more traditional counterparts in that they encourage hands-on interaction with the exhibits. And, of course, the design of the exhibits—from the objects chosen for kids to interact with to the simplicity of the wall labels—is tailored for the younger audience. Indications are that children appreciate the experience. "If children could drive to children's museums, our attendance would triple," jokes Jeanne Finan, director of the Children's Museum of Memphis and president of the Association of Youth Museums.
Finan says children who don't thrive in school are sometimes transformed when they explore a children's museum without the pressure of formalities such as grades. "I'm struck by how incredibly engaged they become," she says. "There are no wrong answers here—people don't fail `museum.'"
The rich resource represented by children's museums has drawn the notice of some enthusiastic educators. One of them is Howard Gardner, director of Project Zero at Harvard University, who has written and lectured in support of children's museums. Gardner cites the philosophy and practices of children's museums as having powerful implications for how schools might design curriculums that elicit students' deep understanding of material. In these museums, Gardner says, visitors can approach what interests them, explore objects and ideas in a hands-on manner, and discuss with others what they have observed. "This way of thinking need not occur downtown in a large glass-and-concrete building with fountains outside; it can occur in any school room or home basement, or yard in the country," he notes.
Closer Ties Sought
Moreover, as the popularity of museums designed for children has grown, many of them have strengthened their ties with schools, thereby supporting in the more formal setting of the classroom the constructivist, inquiry-based approach that is their hallmark.
The time-honored "field trip" to the museum, for example, has been revamped in many quarters so that such visits extend and build on the curriculum at school. In addition, many museums now offer teacher workshops or institutes (lasting from a few hours to a few weeks) and develop curriculum materials or classroom kits based on museum exhibits. Some museums offer opportunities for students to work for an extended time at the museum site, either on academic projects or as museum "apprentices" and guides. Others even house school programs full time. The Capital Children's Museum, for example, has two school programs operating on site—a nationally acclaimed preschool and a junior high program for students at risk of dropping out.
Museum educators and educators in schools are trying to determine how to make the collaboration between the two institutions as potent as possible. "That's what we're grappling with," says Andrea Anderson, director of the Teacher Educator's Network for the Association of Science-Technology Centers. "What should this relationship look like? How can we blur the boundaries [between schools and museums] to create something unique?"
Training Teachers
San Francisco's Exploratorium, an internationally recognized science museum built around the theme of human perception, is one example of the powerful and mutually beneficial links being established between museums and schools. Each of the Exploratorium's 700 or so exhibits is designed "to attract, puzzle, challenge, and deeply engage museum visitors as they investigate for themselves the richness of the natural and physical world," according to museum officials. More than 600,000 people visit the Exploratorium each year.
The Center for Teaching and Learning, based at the Exploratorium, represents the museum's formal approach to science education. The Center's offerings range from the field trips program, through which visiting students receive special guides to direct their exploration of specific subject areas, to a program in which 100 high school students each year are trained as "explainers" to help visitors as they go through the exhibits.
The museum also tries to influence the teaching of science in the classroom through two teacher institute programs that reach more than 500 teachers each year: the School in the Exploratorium (SITE) program for elementary teachers and the Teacher Institute program for middle and high school teachers.
At summer workshops lasting several weeks, teachers become students as they use the resources of the museum to learn about scientific phenomena. They are encouraged to "start asking again the questions you gave up when you were a kid," says Barry Kluger-Bell, a teacher-physicist with the SITE program. A major goal of the program is to increase teachers' own understanding of science, as well as their self-confidence, he says.
But the programs also take advantage of opportunities to take the lessons of the museum into the classroom. Several years ago, for example, teachers in the Teacher Institute program decided to try to create versions of some of the museum exhibits in their classrooms, says Karen Mendelow, project manager for the Teacher Institute. The result was the Exploratorium Science Snackbook, a compendium of classroom versions of more than 100 exhibits, all made with common materials and costing under $10.
The lines between the classroom and the museum blur in other ways, as well. Teachers who attend the SITE program are expected to do a classroom unit, using what they learned during the institute, says Kluger-Bell. Specialists from the Exploratorium visit the teachers' classrooms to help with integrating material into the curriculum, and teachers have access to the museum's lending library of curriculum materials.
Another collaborative program offered by the Exploratorium helps to prepare teachers as science specialists. Four "teachers in residence" split their time between the district's administrative offices and the Exploratorium for one year, helping with the staff training and curriculum development. After the year, they are prepared to become science specialists to serve other teachers in their district.
Lessons for Schools
As museums and schools attempt to work more closely together, some experts say that efforts to improve schools should build on the best attributes of successful science and children's museums. While conceding that schools face constraints and demands that museums may not, Gardner and others say that schools can draw on the hands-on materials and foster the discovery-oriented learning exhibited in the best children's museums.
"It is true that museums have a certain flexibility and glitz that are currently lacking in many schools," Gardner says. "But there is no reason why the children's museum way of thinking cannot permeate even schools with limited budgets."
Lewin, who is anonymous to visitors as she walks the halls of the Capital Children's Museum, recalls the time a teacher led her class through the interactive exhibit on Mexico. Thrilled at how engaged her students were in the exhibit, the teacher grabbed the nearest adult (who happened to be Lewin) by the arm. "Now I know what to do with all that stuff I brought back from Mexico and stuffed in my closet!" she exclaimed. The lesson, says Lewin, is that the resources needed to spark children's interests don't have to be prohibitively expensive, just rich in context and placed in a carefully planned environment.
"The children's museum is a model for what could be one cornerstone of the elementary school of the future," Lewin says. "There's no reason why in every school there can't be, at a minimum, one room like a children's museum," where students can explore real materials in a context rich with possibilities for learning.
Educators and museum officials need to form closer relationships to figure out ways to "wed the regularity of school with the engagement genius of the youth museum," says Gardner. "These relationships can work only if the partners are willing to work together over the long haul, to understand their separate but overlapping agendas, and to work cooperatively in matters of curriculum and pedagogy. Teachers and students need to feel that the museums are part of their world and not an alien institution; museum staff need to identify with the goals and the problems of the schools and have a genuine desire to work toward optimal education for a diverse group of students. This is a goal different from instant gratification, or from getting more visitors through the turnstiles each day."
Art Museums Exhibit New Programs
Last summer, Joan Tucker, principal of Mount Olive High School in Flanders, N.J., became a student once again. But this time, the classroom was the prestigious National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C.
Through a program run by the NGA, Tucker and three other administrators joined a group of teachers at a seminar on Modern Art 1900–1940. For one week, Tucker and her colleagues studied the museum's collection, heard lectures from art professionals, and participated in lively discussions about the subject matter. Through study, dialogue, and reflection, educators at the NGA seminars nurture "a bonding and a sense of shared mission," about the role of art and its importance in our lives, says Kathleen Walsh-Piper, head of the NGA's department of teacher and school programs.
The summer seminar gave Tucker a new perspective on the arts, as well as providing some practical materials to aid art instruction in her school, she says. For example, she was struck by the interdisciplinary nature of the arts, and that realization has helped to support her school's effort to integrate the curriculum. Moreover, she left the institute with a variety of study guides, bibliographies, slide presentations, and lesson plans. "My teachers absorbed those right away," she says.
The NGA program is just one sign of the closer relationship being forged between schools and art museums. A recent survey of 285 art museums by the NGA found that 85 percent had programs serving educators; 50 percent had been established in the past five years. Programs typically include such activities as teacher workshops or summer institutes and the preparation of curriculum guides, lesson plans, and materials, such as art prints and slides. Generally, these activities are designed around the exhibits and collections of the museum.
Through such efforts, museum educators have found that they can have an impact on kids' knowledge and attitudes about art, whether or not students visit the museum. "If you train the teacher to incorporate the art into the curriculum, you'll reach that many more students," says Danielle Rice, curator of education at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Classroom kits and materials are useful long after a particular exhibition is over, notes Marianna Adams, a former classroom teacher who is now curator of education at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
In Fort Lauderdale, as in other areas, teachers serve on an advisory committee to assist in designing appropriate educational activities. Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art has a number of programs for students and teachers, says Adams, including field trips, occasional exhibitions of artwork created by students or teachers, development of teacher resource guides (some of which are written by teachers themselves), and workshops for teachers.
The closer collaboration between art museums and schools yields many tangible benefits, those involved in such partnerships say. Schools take advantage of the rich learning resource represented by the museum's collections, while students and teachers become more knowledgeable about art.
And administrators like Tucker, who play a key role in determining the level of support for art programs, gain insight into the contributions art makes to the curriculum. With art programs frequently on the chopping block, activities such as the NGA summer institute can build support for art programs, Tucker believes. By attending the institute, Tucker feels that she has recharged her commitment to the importance of art education. "In an age of shrinking resources, sometimes the arts may be looked upon as peripheral," she says, "but I don't see them like that."
