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Sunday best behaviour
I’m still away! And if you know me, and some of you really do, you know how much I love museums. My love affair with museums began with my first visit to the ROM in Toronto in the 1950s, and the fire was stoked with a visit to the Dalziel Barn when I was in Grade Four. The Dalziel Barn, as some of you know, became part of Black Creek Pioneer Village. Black Creek Pioneer Village is the place to visit if you want to see where the old Roblin’s Mill is located. But here I am in museum land and, with two exceptions, we have been to a museum or gallery every day. In London and area, admission to public museums is free. They do ask for donations, but everyone who visits can view the bulk of collections without paying. This is the way access to culture and heritage should be, free to the public. So, what’s my point? Well, I do have a point.
lst visiting the National Gallery we quickly noticed there seemed to be a lot of school groups in the salons. And so there should be. Children, of all ages, should be exposed to the heritage and culture of their community and of places around the world. Each gallery we visited was swarmed by school-aged children accompanied by their teachers and a parent volunteer or two. The problem was many of the groups had obviously not received proper orientation for their visit with regard to their behaviour in a public gallery. Almost all of the students had booklets containing images and checklists. The chaos of fifty or sixty students rushing to a painting to “put paid” to an image in their image and checklist booklet was disruptive and annoying. On several occasions elderly codgers, like LOML and me, were pushed and jostled by young people eager to see an end to an “outing” assignment. Like I mentioned, part of their assignment should have been how to behave in public, and this should have been done well in advance of the visit. Many of the teachers and volunteers simply “opened the gates” and allowed their charges to “charge” ahead and, in the shortest time possible, make it to the doorway to the next gallery and on to the next checklist. Hardly a decent way to soak up the culture.
So, if you’re a teacher, or education specialist, who is planning to take your students on a school trip, (and I certainly hope you do visit our County museums this spring) you have to include a session on how to behave, as a group, in public. Simply telling your students to “be on your best behaviour” isn’t enough in a museum or gallery setting. A classroom provides structure, physical limits and an authority figure to help focus students’ attention and their behaviours. This is seriously diminished on a field trip, and often a class trip may end up having little or no educational impact on your students. Often an outing becomes an exciting socializing event and, put into an alternative setting, many students don’t have the discipline or interest in what they could be seeing. Prior to taking your group on a museum or gallery visit, speak to the museum/gallery director/curator/education planner about the story the site, or collection, has to tell visitors. Share this information with your students beforehand to help them understand what they are seeing. Be sure to help your students understand the narrative and ensure the visit is in line with the material they are studying. Let your visit be an extension of the classroom experience. Build breaks into your visit to allow your students to let off a bit of steam and to ask questions about what they’re seeing—away from the other visitors. It doesn’t hurt to tell your little darlings they should be aware of others who might be at the site, trying to have an experience.
Finally, don’t pour too much information into your students while on a field trip. Let them focus on one or two ideas, concepts or artists. Museum/gallery fatigue is more than tired tootsies at the end of the day. If you know children, and I’m sure you do, tired students and bored students are often the most disruptive. Monday, The Tate Modern. You’ve been warned.
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