Learning To Live MuseumEd
Learning To Live MuseumEd
Museums have
Learning to Live
Museums, young people and education
edited by Kate Bellamy and Carey Oppenheim
national
museum
directors’
conference
ISBN 9781860303241
£14.95
Learning to Live
Museums, young people and education
edited by Kate Bellamy and Carey Oppenheim
Institute for Public Policy Research National Museum Directors' Conference
30-32 Southampton Street Natural History Museum
London WC2E 7RA Cromwell Road
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7470 6100 London SW7 5BD
www.ippr.org www.nationalmuseums.org.uk
Registered charity no. 800065
© Institute for Public Policy Research and National Museum Directors' Conference 2009
About NMDC
The National Museum Directors’ Conference represents the leaders of the
UK’s national collections and major regional museums. These comprise the
national museums in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, four
leading regional museums, the British Library, National Library of Scotland,
and the National Archives. Our members operate in over a 100 locations
around the UK. While our members are funded by government, the NMDC
is an independent, non-governmental organisation.
The NMDC was founded in 1929 and today provides its membership
with a valuable forum for discussion and debate and an opportunity to
share information and work collaboratively. It works to inform and shape the
museums and cultural policy agendas across the UK.
Acknowledgements
The editors are grateful to the National Museum Directors’ Conference (NMDC)
whose funding has enabled us to commission the chapters of this book.
We are particularly grateful to the members of the project steering group
who provided excellent feedback and direction: Louie Burghes, David
Anderson (V&A), Sally Bacon (Clore Duffield Foundation), Nick Canning
(Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit), Paul Collard (Creative Partnerships), Dr
Michael Dixon (Natural History Musuem), Jean Francyzk (National Museum
of Science and Industry), John Holden (Demos), Ruth Mackenzie (Department
for Culture, Media and Sport), Sir Nicholas Serota (Tate Museums), Carole
Souter (Heritage Lottery Fund), Sue Wilkinson (Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council), and Erica Bolton (Bolton & Quinn).
Many ippr staff gave assistance, feedback and advice during the
project, in particular Carey Oppenheim, Jennifer O’Brien and Lisa Harker,
Julia Margo, James Crabtree and Kay Withers for their early involvement.
We would also like to thank the many contributors to the book.
Georgina Kyriacou at ippr edited and managed production of the book.
About the authors
David Anderson is Head of Education at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London
Rt Hon Estelle Morris is the Chair of the Strategy Board for the Institute of
Effective Education at the University of York and the Chair of the National
Coal Mining Museum
Sir Nicholas Serota is an art historian and curator, and has been Director
of the Tate since 1988
This collection of essays, authored by prominent and expert figures from the
worlds of culture and education, addresses key questions about the role of
museums and other institutes of material culture in young people’s wellbeing
and learning. Our aim in bringing their thinking together was to explore
what museums, working with policymakers and delivery bodies such as
schools, can and should be doing, both within and beyond the classroom,
to inspire learning and creativity among all young people.
The current economic climate gives added impetus to the issue. More than
ever young people need the chance for self-reflection, to think about the world
and their place in it, and the opportunity, which museums can provide, for
developing the creative skills for a new economy. Families, too, need affordable,
inspiring and uplifting things to do and places to go in the safe and inclusive
spaces that museums provide. Debates about children’s quality of life in Britain,
and the need for a more holistic approach to education – moving beyond the
three Rs – also provide the basis for a re-evaluation of the powerful contribution
museums have to offer (UNICEF 2007, Layard and Dunn 2009).
The chapters in this book are drawn closely from the authors’ own personal
experiences, whether as curators, educators, politicians or funders, and they
reveal how museums can and do make a difference to young people’s lives.
Our view is that museums as a sector offer a huge and still relatively untapped
resource which is relevant to, and can support, inspiration and learning – in
its widest sense – for everyone. To fulfil this brief, however, there will have to
be concerted action by museums, schools and government to:
• E nable children and young people to have equal status with adults
within museums
• P ut learning at the heart of museums and museums at the heart of
learning
• E mbrace a more holistic approach to learning: valuing informal and
formal learning equally
• R each out to all young people, including the hard to reach.
10 Learning to Live
The need for children and young people to have equal status
1 According to the Households with adults within museums
Below Average Incomes report,
2.9 million children – 23 per Sir Nicholas Serota opens Chapter 2 with a reference to the 1989 United
cent of all children – were living
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the United Kingdom
in poverty, as calculated before
housing costs, in 2006/07
is a signatory, and he cites Article 31 on children’s right ‘to participate freely
(Department for Work and in cultural life and the arts’.2 Thus a visit to a museum, he writes, should ‘be
Pensions 2007) a normal, familiar and everyday experience for all young people in this
Learning to Live 11
country’. Research now shows, moreover, that there is a strong link between
visits by children to museums and galleries, and their participation in the arts
as adults (Oskala et al 2009).
Museums have, indeed, increasingly responded to the needs of children and
young people by creating children’s projects and spaces, developing education
programmes, and bringing schools in. The Science Museum’s relaunched
Launchpad, for example, which aims to provide a fun and educational hands-
on science experience, received 1.2 million visitors in its first year, and families
praise the warm and welcoming British Galleries at the Victoria & Albert museum,
with their participative exhibits and interactive areas.
But is this enough? The task ahead, surely, is not merely to provide
some facilities which meet the needs of children and young people, but to
see them as partners with equal rights in museums, and in dialogue with
them treat them as equal participants in determining what museums offer.
There are already good examples of this happening, including the National
Portrait Gallery’s Youth Forum, whose young participants have a say in what
the museum does for them, are involved in developing events, and have
opportunities to try creative activities; and Museums Sheffield’s Youth Forum,
in which young people aged 14 to 24 years old, from across the city, are
able to be decision-makers alongside museum leaders.
The online world is now an intrinsic part of the existence of children
and young people and in Chapter 9 Jane Finnis explores how the cultural
sector has also begun to engage with this world, through sites like ShowMe,
specially designed for young children, which provides opportunities for play
and education and links to a wide range of museum sites. Finnis calls for
us to go further still to integrate culture into our online society and the online
lives of our young people and children.
David Anderson in Chapter 3 describes Every Object Tells a Story, the
large-scale online collaboration between the V&A, three regional museums,
Channel 4, and Ultralab, which encourages children (and adults) to
contribute meaning, understanding and interpretation of objects. Anderson
makes the case for museums to reflect our children’s cultural diversity and
be ‘of other societies, not just about them’. What is more, changes are
important not only for children and young people who have yet to become
museums visitors, let alone regular visitors, but also for those who may have
been taken at an early age but did not have good visiting experiences.
Exclusion, as Anderson says, takes many forms. He recommends that to
bring about fundamental change in museums we will need a Charter of
Cultural Rights for Children, embracing culture as a whole, from a child’s
perspective, and providing ‘a practical statement of the minimum provision
that any child could reasonably expect to receive from any publicly funded
cultural institution’. In tune with this, Dea Birkett’s Kids in Museums Manifesto
identifies twenty ways to make family visits more enjoyable and engaging.
If museums are to treat children and young people as having equal
status with adults, it will mean a radical overhaul in how they allocate their
2 Office of the United Nations
funds and their resources, in staffing, the use of space, and the choice and High Commissioner for Human
display of exhibits. It will involve a change in the relationship and dialogue Rights, 1989, Convention on the
between museums, children and young people, and the inclusion of children Rights of the Child
12 Learning to Live
and young people as participants, with a voice, visibility and places for
their own displays. The aim is not to persuade children and young people
to make a one-off visit, but for them to become the next generation to see
museums as an integral part of their lives.
children learn and experience in different ways, with input from passionate
experts, using visual and object-based approaches, and where they can find
new forms of creativity, self-expression and confidence. This includes giving
space for children to be producers of knowledge as well as consumers
and to learn about the ‘relationships, connections and interactions between
knowledge systems’, as highlighted by Mick Waters (Chapter 13).
But museums have two big challenges to face if they are to deliver
learning for all. The first – for some museums, at least – will be to make
learning a core priority for museum leadership, funding and structure. The
second will be to do this in a way that reaches out and has an impact for
everyone, including children and young people living in poverty, and those
who have been excluded from school or marginalised otherwise.
Museums have begun to tackle these challenges. As learning and
education have again become more central to their activities, more schools
visit, and more school children take part in tailored activities. In the decade
to 2007–08 the number of children under age 15 visiting the eighteen
national museums increased from 4.7 million to 8.7 million, and by 2008,
77 per cent of museums had dedicated educational facilities and 55 per
cent an education room (see Chapter 2). Museums funded by Renaissance
in the Regions are experiencing increasing contact with schools – including
a disproportionately large number in areas with high levels of deprivation,
more integrated ways of working with them, and greater teacher confidence
(RCMG and MLA 2006). Research shows that museums inspire children to
learn, and to acquire skills and knowledge, that they enjoy their visits, and
find museums exciting and good places to learn differently (ibid).
What, then, is needed to build on these developments and embed
learning and education for all at the heart of museums’ priorities? At least
three issues must be addressed:
museum learning in the schools curriculum as the best way to fulfil children’s
cultural entitlement. Measures to ensure the integration of museums throughout
the policymaking process should be introduced, including, for instance,
a shared Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Department for
Children, Schools and Families ministerial position, straddling culture and
education interests, created to provide joint leadership, and museums
should help shape the curriculum through involvement with the QCA. The
link also needs to be made at a local level through Children’s Services
departments and with individual head teachers. Twenty years ago every
county Children’s Director had a Cultural Adviser in their Local Authority
Education Department, and this is an idea worth revisiting.
Museum learning also needs to be championed with schools, particularly
those not yet working with museums, to show what it has to offer them and
their pupils, and how working together can be achieved in practice, and
obstacles overcome. Options for putting this into practice include museum
educators working with clusters of schools, or being twinned with the
head teachers of schools in more impoverished areas. Museum educators
and teachers could work together to develop educational objectives and
programmes. Mick Waters provides evidence that tightly planned museum
visits that fit in with specific stages of learning are significant for improved
pupil performance. Furthermore, the museum experience can introduce
young visitors to career options; Waters calls for the ‘wealth of jobs behind
the world of out-and-about learning’ to be made explicit. Diane Miller also
visits this subject: describing the YouthALIVE programme for children living in
state housing (the goal of which was to build interest in science), she shows
that ‘their idea of what you do as an adult changed as they interacted with
people working at the museum’ (Chapter 5).
How can museums ensure their learning initiatives are effective? The
Campaign for Learning’s definition of learning places an emphasis on
experience. It states:
The emphasis of this definition – which the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council used to guide its Inspiring Learning for All (ILFA) framework – on
experience and on the different ways in which people learn should guide
the development of museums’ learning programmes and resources and the
way in which they collect, display and interpret objects. Successful learning
initiatives actively engage learners, supporting them in making their own
meanings and developing their understanding. Successful initiatives require
experienced professionals to develop resources and build relationships.
Under-resourced local museums without dedicated learning staff can
struggle. Support for these museums, in terms of resource and expertise, can
be provided via partnership and support from larger museums and local
Learning to Live 15
authorities and really make a difference to their capacity and reach. And
digital initiatives, such as National Museums Online Learning Project, a
resource offering the combined collections of nine national museums online,
have a powerful role to play in enabling young people to use pre-eminent
museum collections as a learning tool without leaving the classroom.
Whatever action is taken to secure learning as a core museum purpose,
museums will need funds to meet the increased demand for it. This is, of
course, a difficult economic climate for funding calls. Arguably, though,
not least given the needs of the creative economy, it is exactly the right
time to offer all children and young people the benefits of museums, and
a good case can be made for a stable, ring-fenced funding environment
for museum learning that will enable them to do so. Estelle Morris, in
Chapter 6, suggests a capital funding stream from government to meet the
increased demands on museums’ resources, such as their physical space
and loans to schools.
For their part, even in difficult economic times museums should hold
faith with their learning and outreach role, or refocus their priorities to it, in
order to engage all children and young people with their collections and
knowledge-providing skills which they will need more than ever before.
We recommend that:
• E
ducational leaders are appointed to museum senior staff and Board
positions to champion cultural learning
• M
useums and policymakers ring-fence funding for their learning
programmes
• M
useums are integrated throughout the national and local policymaking
process to champion cultural learning in children’s cultural entitlement
and to contribute to curriculum development. This could include:
- A shared DCMS and DCSF ministerial position created to provide
joint leadership on cultural learning
- Museums to help shape the curriculum through involvement with
the QCA
- The establishment of a link between schools and museums, at the
local level, through Children’s Services departments.
• M
useums and schools explore new ways of working together, such as
clusters and partnerships, to overcome size and resource constraints
their communities. For some visitors, engagement with their local museum
may provide an avenue to regional and national museums. Projects working
with children and young people include the Image & Identity partnership
between the V&A, NCH/Action for Children and five regional museums4,
which encourages vulnerable and hard to reach children to respond creatively
to the collections through the theme of image and identity. In another project,
What Eye See, small museums in Surrey work in conjunction with youth
groups to inspire young people about their local heritage and museums’
collections. Programmes that reach out to excluded communities include
Liverpool’s long-term Engaging Refugees and Asylum Seekers project, which
provides cultural engagement and a supportive network, and the V&A’s
Shamiana: The Mughal Tent project, in which nearly a thousand women
participated, starting from a small number of, mostly South Asian women’s,
community groups.
To be successful in the widening of access, museums need to reach out
through deliberative engagement, to consult and enter into a dialogue with
the community, particularly those who are not regular visitors. They need
to discover who their community are and what they want their museums
to do for them. Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has been
particularly successful in consulting widely with both adults and children
about the museum’s exhibits and facilities through its Community Access
and Advisory Panel, embracing representatives from the diverse Glasgow
communities, and a Junior Board of twelve primary school pupils. Alec Coles
urges museums to ‘talk to our audiences’ and ‘…feel what they feel; find out
what they want, expect and need’ and ‘listen to what they consider to be
our impact’. For museums, young people’s participation needs to become
a core fact of life.
Conclusion
Leadership is a recurring theme throughout this book and museums will need
committed leaders and champions to achieve the four key objectives called
for here – to achieve an equal status for children with adults in museums; for
learning to be put at museums’ hearts; for a holistic approach to learning;
and for museums to reach out to all young people.
Museums and policymakers should not be daunted by the current
economic recession. Museum learning is more important than ever, as young 4 Birmingham Museums & Art
people now need to develop skills for the future economy. The resource that Gallery, Brighton and Hove
Museums, Manchester City
museums have to offer, the richness of their collections, the spaces and
Galleries, Museums Sheffield,
expertise they provide and their experience of engaging young people in and Tyne and Wear Museums,
learning, should be fully exploited and new opportunities for partnership supported by Strategic
working explored. Commissioning funding.
20 Learning to Live
The central tenet of this book is that museums – alongside other cultural
organisations – have a key role to play in meeting all children and young
people’s cultural needs, in inspiring them, in developing their skills and
talents, and helping them to develop personally and socially. Its aim is to
explore what more museums, educational institutions, and policymakers can
do to enhance this role.
References
Cambridge Primary Review (2009) The Primary Curriculum: An Alternative Vision, press
release, 20 February
Department for Culture, Media and Sports (2007) Taking Part survey
Department for Work and Pensions (2007) Households Below Average Income (HBAI), 1994/95-
2007/07, available at www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai/hbai2007/chapters.asp
Layard R and Dunn J (2009) A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age
London: The Children’s Society
Lupton R and Power A (2009) ‘Disadvantaged by where you live? New Labour and
neighbourhood renewal’ in Hills J, Sefton T and Stewart K (eds) Poverty, inequality and
policy since 1997 Bristol: The Policy Press
Oskala A, Keaney E, Chan TW and Bunting C (2009) Encourage children today to build
audiences for to-morrow. Evidence from the Taking Part survey on how childhood involvement
in the arts affects arts engagement in adulthood London: Arts Council England
Strategic Commissioning Education Programme (2007) Real World Science. Final Report
– 2007, available at www.cultureandschoolseast.org.uk/filegrab/?ref=69&f=RWS_
FINALREPORT2.doc
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(2006) What did you learn at the museum today? Second Study, Evaluation of the
outcome and impact of learning thought implementation of Education Delivery Plans across
nine Regional Hubs 2005 Leicester: RCMG, University of Leicester
UNICEF (2007) Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries
Report Card 7, Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre
2. Museums
and young people:
Where are we now?
Sir Nicholas Serota
The internet
Technology has provided new ways for museums to interact with audiences.
In 1998–99 the websites of the18 national museums received 5 million
Museums and Young People 23
‘Informal’ education
The fourth explanation for the burgeoning interest in museum learning
depends on the fact that, with the important exception of their contribution
to academic discourse, scholarship and research, museums lie outside
the formal education sector. For most visitors and learners – a category
that extends well beyond young people and is reflected in increasing
numbers of people from all age groups joining courses, attending lectures
and accessing online material – museums offer a ‘third space’. They are
neither school nor home, and there is greater opportunity for self-directed
study, with no need for accreditation and qualifications, where different,
more personal approaches can be explored. This is significant because
throughout history, some of the most creative people have failed to thrive in
traditional educational institutions: Albert Einstein and Salvador Dali were
both expelled from school; David Bowie gained only one O-Level and
the creativity of Richard Rogers and many other artists and architects was
unrecognised at school because of their dyslexia. Creative people like these
either need a different attitude to learning within the school environment, or
places away from school where they can grow.
Museums also occupy an interesting conceptual space, distinct both
from entertainment and from the exam room, a place of seriousness, but
also of wonder. As James Cuno, the Director of the Art Institute of Chicago,
has said, using the words of the poet Peter Sacks: ‘Museums should leave
us “at a different angle”, changed from who we were or thought we were,
before we experienced them’ (Cuno 2004: 52). Museums stimulate the
imagination and promote intellectual inquiry, but at the same time, they
are authentic, rooted in material culture. They make connections, putting
people in touch, sometimes literally, with the things that they wish to learn
about and explore.
Furthermore, as a ‘third space’, controlled neither by the market nor
directly by government, museums, like public libraries, have earned the
public trust. They have authority, which comes from their independence, and
although trust has to be renewed on a continuous basis, the British public
expresses very high levels of satisfaction with their museums (Mayo 2005).
24 Learning to Live
2003 to provide social welfare standards, which has as its aim that every
child should ‘Be Healthy; Stay Safe; Enjoy and Achieve; Make a Positive
Contribution; and Achieve Economic Well-being.’
Looking forward
In the future the drivers of museum learning – a search for identity, developing
creativity, new technologies and innovative ‘third spaces’ – will continue to
make their insistent demands. The provision of learning will become ever
more of an imperative for museums.
It is therefore vital that we continue to increase our awareness of
what museums can do for young people. Recent research demonstrates
that museum learning can take many forms. There are advantages and
disadvantages in different models of didactic, behaviourist, discovery,
constructivist and socio-cultural learning (Clarke 2006). The work of the
American academics John Falk and Lynne Dierking (2000), and MLA’s
Inspiring Learning for All Framework,7 have all added to our understanding
and knowledge and have led to improvements in practice. But issues still
remain about consistency of measurement when assessing the value that
museums add in this area. Straightforward cause and effect are difficult
to prove, and the measurement of things like creative skills and emotional
development demands an approach that is different from the traditional
‘marked’ examination.
There are, however, signs of improvement in the collecting of data.
Since 2003 MLA has been gathering information about the Renaissance
in the Regions hub museums, and in 2006 has added 32 other museums
(Designated Collection Holders) to the system, so that a detailed picture is
beginning to emerge about education visits.
School visits are on the increase, and more teachers are becoming
familiar with using the resources that museums have to offer: the University of
Leicester’s review of the Strategic Commissioning Programme for example,
found that 66 per cent of the teachers involved were using museums for the
first time. But increasing activity brings challenges of its own, including the
need for increased capacity within the museum sector itself. Even where
such capacity exists, the authors of the latest Renaissance in the Regions
report are concerned that ‘it may be that the market for Key Stage 1 and
2 (Year 1–6) visits has almost been fully penetrated and that even with
spare capacity, it may require significant additional resources to attract
“non-participating” schools’ (MLA 2008: 29). The same report reveals a
further challenge in that school visits to museums are dominated by primary
schools. Almost half (48 per cent) of visits by British schoolchildren take
place in Years 3 to 6 (ibid). Maintaining that momentum in secondary
schools is the most pressing task for museums, as for many others in the
cultural sector.
However, within the primary school sector there will be new opportunities
for museums as a broader definition of learning is adopted. In February
7 www.inspiringlearningforall. 2009, Professor Robin Alexander of Cambridge University argued that
gov.uk/default.aspx?flash=true testing, and a concentration on numeracy and literacy, have narrowed
Museums and Young People 27
References
Anderson D (1997) A Common Wealth: Museums in the learning age London: DCMS
BBC News online (2009) ‘Primary education “too narrow”’, 20 February, available at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7896751.stm
Clarke P (2006) Museums and Learning, MLA Southwest
8 See the California Cultural
Cuno J (2004) ‘The Object of Art Museums’ in Cuno J (ed) Whose Muse? Art Museums and the
Data Project at www.
caculturaldata.org/home.aspx
Public Trust Princeton and Cambridge: Princeton University Press and Harvard University Press
Museums and Young People 29
Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2009) The Independent Review of
the Primary Curriculum: Interim report, London: DCSF, available at http://publications.
teachernet.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&Prod
uctId=BLNK-01010-2008
Falk J and Dierking L (2000) Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of
Meaning, Lanham MD: Alta Mira Press
Fisch K and McLeod S (2007) ‘Did you know 2.0?’, YouTube, February, available at www.
youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
Holden J (2008) Cultural Learning: Towards a new Agenda London: Demos
Holden J and Jones S (2006) Knowledge and Inspiration: The democratic face of culture
London: Demos
Hunt J (2008) Arts Speech, 24 June, available at www.shadowdcms.co.uk/pdf/
JeremyHuntArtsSpeech.pdf
Jones S (2005) How old do you have to be to be an Artist? London: Demos
Jones S and Wright S (2007) Making Good Work: Realising the value of young people’s
creative production London: Demos
Leadbeater C and Meadway J (2008) Attacking the Recession, How Innovation Can Fight
the Downturn Discussion Paper, December. London: NESTA
Mayo E (2005) Playlist for Public Services London: National Consumer Council
McMaster B (2008) From Measurement to Judgement London: DCMS
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2008) Renaissance in the Regions DCH
Data Collection 2007-08 London: MLA
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2007) Renaissance: Results for 2006-07
London: MLA
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2006) Museum Learning Survey 2006
London: MLA
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2004) The Accreditation Scheme for
Museums in the United Kingdom London: MLA
National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) (1999) All Our
Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. Report to the Secretary of State for Education
and Employment, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
National Museum Director’s Conference (2004) Attitudes of Parents Towards Museums
London: NMDC
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NMDC
Nordling L (2008) ‘From soft skills to hard job offers’, Guardian Online, 2 September,
available at www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/02/students.highereducation
O’Neill M (2002) ‘The good enough visitor’ in Sandell R (ed) Museums, Society, Inequality,
London: Routledge
Serota N (2003) Keynote speech: ‘Why save art for the nation?’, 11 November, available
at www.artfund.org/policyandcampaigns/confpapers-nicholasserota.pdf
Travers T (2004) Valuing Museums London: NMDC
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Criticism and Management Research, August, London: City University, available at www.
city.ac.uk/cpm/ejournal/ejournal2_wu.pdf
3. The Listening
Museum
David Anderson
Many people inside and beyond the museum profession still question
whether education is central to the purposes of public cultural institutions.
Others accept that museums have a role as centres for formal and informal
learning, but believe that they cannot and should not try to address issues
of social justice. If we are to move forward over the next ten years, this
debate is fundamental to resolve. I believe there is no more important issue
for museums.
One day some 20 years ago, I stood outside the gates of the Royal
Observatory in Greenwich collecting data for a visitor survey. A young
girl and an older woman – perhaps her grandmother – approached the
entrance and looked at the prices on the board. “Can we go in?” asked the
girl. “It’s too expensive,” the woman replied. They turned away and walked
back down the hill.
A year or two later, in 1988, the National Maritime Museum staged
its hugely popular Armada exhibition. The Museum decided to create a
separate discovery gallery with a ship and storytelling area for children. I
recruited four student teachers from the Early Childhood course at nearby
Goldsmith’s College as staff for the centre. At the end of the project, I asked
the students if they would consider a career in museum education. They all
said that they had enjoyed the project but they felt that the Museum as a
whole did not welcome children and was not supportive of its education
staff, and they would not want to work in such an environment. What really
surprised me, however, was to hear that most of their fellow students had
not responded to my recruitment advertisement because they themselves had
had bad experiences in museums as children, and preferred to work in a
shop that summer.
A few years later, I was working at London’s Victoria and Albert
Museum. Our first South Asian Arts Education Officer, Shireen Akbar, had
developed a textile project, Shamiana – the Mughal Tent, with groups of
South Asian women. Each group had designed and made their own textile
panel, inspired by the V&A’s Islamic collections. A sample of the participants
The Listening Museum 31
were interviewed by an evaluator. In the past, one woman said, she had
lacked the confidence to go into her son’s school, and always waited for
him outside the school gate. Then she and a group of other women heard
about the V&A project. They created their own textile panel, and her son’s
teacher had invited her to come into the classroom to tell the children about
it. Through the project, she had found the confidence to do this. Her son had
told her that he had been embarrassed by her before, but now was proud
that she had done something special in front of his friends.
These few examples, from many that might have been chosen,
demonstrate that exclusion takes many forms, and its relationship to cultural
institutions is complex and sometimes unpredictable.
A study by the Sutton Trust9 reveals the very high rate of ‘leakage’ among
the least privileged pupils – those in receipt of free school meals (FSM).
Two thirds of those top-performing ‘FSM pupils’ at age 11 were not among
the top fifth of performers taking GCSEs at age 16. And a further half of
those who were among this top fifth at age 16 do not subsequently go on
to university. Pupils not receiving free school meals who go on to university
stand an 11 per cent chance of attending one of the 13 top universities (as
defined by the Sutton Trust); for FSM pupils, the likelihood is only 5 per cent
(The Sutton Trust 2008a).
The 100 schools with the highest admission rates to Oxbridge (2.8
per cent of all schools with sixth forms) are composed of 78 independent
schools, 21 grammar schools, and just one state comprehensive. These top
9 The Sutton Trust is an
100 schools gain an astonishing 31 per cent of all Oxbridge places. The independent organisation that
top 200 schools and colleges take up 48 per cent of Oxbridge places, aims to promote social mobility
leaving the remaining 3,500 schools in the UK to take only 52 per cent of through education.
32 Learning to Live
places (The Sutton Trust 2008b). The support, expectations, and expertise
that underpins the academic excellence of these universities is thus only
available to a tiny proportion of school pupils, mainly those whose parents
can afford to pay. Such parents also deploy other resources, such as
networks of professional contacts, to gain advantages for their children.
The impact of educational inequality extends into professional employment.
Only 14 per cent of the ‘top 100’ journalists in news and current affairs
have attended a comprehensive school. Just under two-fifths (37 per cent) of
the top journalists in 2006 went to one institution: Oxford (The Sutton Trust
2006). The Sutton Trust has not yet undertaken a comparable study of the
top jobs in the arts and museums, but it would be no surprise if there were
a similar pattern of inequality.
This is the education system from which children come to museums.
The key to the success of the galleries has been research, including
audience research. At an early stage, the British Galleries project team made
the decision to conduct a major visitor study, in 1998, in the old galleries
before redisplay, and another parallel study in 2002, the year after the new
galleries opened. As a result, the impact of the new design, including the
participative exhibits, can be profiled in some detail. The new galleries have
been rated an average 8.0 out of 10 for learning, with 67 per cent of the
sample scoring it higher than 8.0; this compared with just 4.1 out of 10 for
the old galleries, with just 19 per cent giving it a score higher than 8.0. A total
of 93 per cent of visitors said the new galleries are ‘just like a museum should
be’, and 89 per cent said they are ‘warm and welcoming’.
Over two thirds (69 per cent) of respondents used the Discovery Areas and
other interactive areas in the new galleries, well over 90 per cent of whom
felt these features enhanced their appreciation of the objects on display, and
helped them to improve their knowledge of the galleries’ subject matter. Only
1 per cent of the total sample felt these areas hindered their appreciation
of the objects or hindered their efforts to improve their knowledge of the
subject matter (Creative Research for the Victoria and Albert Museum [2002],
unpublished; see also Wilk and Humphrey [eds] [2004] for details of the
project and the thinking and research that supported it).
The message to museums from this visitor research is detailed, consistent
and could not be clearer: visitors to art museums such as the V&A welcome
high-quality participative exhibits that foster learning, and the opportunity they
offer to contribute and share their responses to the exhibits with other visitors.
of the textile panels’, wrote Deborah Swallow, then Curator of the Indian
and South East Asian Department (and now Director of the Courthauld
Institute) in 1999. ‘Few of us who were initially involved in the Mughal
Tent project had envisaged the technical skill, creativity and virtuosity that
would be released, and the richness of the objects that would result from it’
(Swallow 1999: 31).
The project was the idea of Shireen Akbar, the V&A’s first South Asian
Arts Education Officer, who took up her post in 1991 and within months
began to work with a small number of community groups of mainly South
Asian women. By 1997, when the project was exhibited in the form of a
large Mughal tent in the garden at the V&A, nearly a thousand women in
over 80 groups from Britain and overseas had created panels.
‘Focusing on the collections in the Nehru Gallery, the South Asian Arts
Education Initiative was set up to … bring the cross-cultural education
debate into the Museum … Groups of women from across the country were
invited to design and make embroidered textiles on a scale equivalent to
those at the V&A, following visits to the gallery. It would be a collaborative
process – all skills and knowledge would be pooled, undertaken mostly
in community centres, adult education institutes, colleges and homes, with
frequent visits to the museum.’ (Akbar 1999: 15)
Shireen recalled one group of female teenagers from Tower Hamlets, East
London, who were brought to the museum by their community worker.
The teenage visitors decided to create a panel. As the young women wrote:
Shamiana showed (as if evidence were needed) that groups of girls and
women no different to any others can produce works of art of extraordinary
freshness, originality and skill. What is lacking for most people is not
capability but opportunity. The project also showed that museums are
immeasurably enriched by the cultural traditions, philosophies and artistic
practices developed in other countries and cultures. There is no doubt that
many staff at the V&A learned far more from the women who participated
in the project than the women learnt from the staff. It is museums that so
often are culturally impoverished, not the cultural groups that are under-
represented in their audiences.
should not be construed in a narrowly political sense as, for example, the
right to vote; it also relates to having the power to influence public and
private organisations. Shue adds that the supplying of information is barely,
if at all, a form of basic participation. The implication for publicly-funded
museums is that they need to offer substantial and effective opportunities for
participation to all users, including young people.
Through education and participation children and adults can learn not
just how to understand design or to make a bowl, or painting, or film, but
also that it is their right to participate in cultural activities. The challenge
for cultural institutions is to find ways to draw from the participation and
contribution of audiences in a meaningful way – to learn from learners.
Looking forward
Britain is entering a period of austerity. Corporate mismanagement and
corruption have brought the financial system close to collapse. The public
mood has changed. The age of excess, with its conspicuous consumption
and celebrity events fuelled by the media and communications industries,
is fading.
All public institutions are being forced to undertake a fundamental rethink
of their strategies, to take account of these new realities. They will need
to identify and articulate their core values if they are to retain public and
government support. After two decades of frenetic capital works, neither the
lotteries nor the private sector can sustain continued construction on such a
scale. The next phase of museum development will be about using wisely
what we have still got, founded on clear and visionary principles of public
service. How should we meet children’s needs in response to this change?
Turn again
The contribution of museums as centres for learning, cultural rights and cultural
democracy for children and young people, and particularly those facing
inequality and injustice, is one of the strongest they can make to society.
This requires our institutions to listen, as well as tell. ‘A sign of health in the
mind,’ wrote Donald Winnicott in 1970, ‘is the ability of one individual to
enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes
and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same
to us’ (quoted in Phillips and Taylor 2009). Do museums as institutions have
such collective health of mind?
Do we really believe that museums can still pick and choose their
obligations? It was said of Irish society that, at a key period in the early
twentieth century, it reached a turning point and failed to turn. Museums,
too, have reached a turning point. Will they, too, fail to turn?
References
Akbar S (1999) ‘Introduction: The making of the Mughal Tent’ in Shamiana: The Mughal Tent
London: Victoria and Albert Museum
Anderson D (1995) ‘Gradgrind Driving Queen Mab’s Chariot: What Museums Have (and
Have Not) Learnt from Adult Education’ in Chadwick A and Stannett A (eds) Museums
and the Education of Adults Leicester: NIACE
Creative Research for the Victoria and Albert Museum (2002) Summative Evaluation of the
British Galleries: Overview of Findings (unpublished)
Fricker M (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Gemmell C (2008) ‘University is not for promoting social justice, says Cambridge vice-
chancellor’, Telegraph, 10 September, available at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
newstopics/politics/education/27780
Kroeker K (1992) Retelling/Rereading: The Fate of Storytelling in Modern Times, New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press
Phillips A and Taylor B (2009) ‘Love Thy Neighbour’, The Guardian Review, 3 January
Ross T (2008) ‘University Secretary John Denham sparked a new social class row with
Oxford today, demanding that “highly selective” colleges do more to help poor students’,
Evening Standard, 11 September, available at www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/
article-23554353
Shue H (1996) Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy New Jersey:
Princeton University Press (2nd edition)
Sutton Trust, The (2008a) Wasted Talent? Attrition rates of high-achieving pupils between
42 Learning to Live
for all children and young people, and also to the Government’s Every
Child Matters/Youth Matters Vision (Cabinet Office 2003, 2005), and
the Children’s Plan (DCSF 2007). A major focus for the report is local
authorities, with the recommendation that they make cultural learning a more
explicit part of their planning for children and young people through existing
Public Service Agreements. Organisations are encouraged to work together
on cultural learning by building local and regional partnerships through
Children’s Trusts11 and Local Area Agreements.12
There are several important recommendations around training, focusing
on initial teacher training and training for cultural educators. Funders are
encouraged to refine or develop long-term funding models that encourage
and support sustained collaborations between cultural and learning
organisations. And the learning and cultural sectors are encouraged to
come together to form a time-limited Cultural Learning Alliance, to develop
and advocate for a coherent national strategy for cultural learning, drawing
on the report’s recommendations.
The report focuses on sharing in the context of evaluation and research,
and of the dissemination of innovative practice in cultural learning provision.
It begs the question why is there not wider public and web-based sharing
and replication of exemplar projects, and this question is particularly relevant
for museums. Is it because of museums’ origins – that deep-rooted culture of
collecting and ownership that lies at the heart of so many of our museums
– is it that which makes genuine collaboration so difficult, and ideas that
are not self-generated so hard to take up? There is much of this kind of
sharing going on – the National Museums Online Learning Project is just
one example – but there must be more if the sector is to cohere in its bid to
establish cultural learning as more of a priority across both the cultural and
learning sectors.
All possible participants in cultural learning are addressed in the report
and its findings give voice to the experience of practitioners – teachers and
cultural educators – rather than providing a summary of the ambitions of
policymakers and funders. They have emerged from a wide consultation
process and therefore reflect the wide and complex views of the many,
rather than the few.
The original impetus for the formation of the Culture and Learning
Consortium was a concern about the centrality of learning to a museum’s
mission, and crucially about reality versus rhetoric. This long-held disquiet
evolved out of the Clore Duffield Foundation’s experience of funding learning
spaces in museums and everything they reveal about an organisation’s 11 Children’s Trusts bring
together all services for children
approach to their audiences. It developed following troubling conversations
and young people in an area,
with people who felt that too much importance had been attached to underpinned by the Children’s
education in museums since 1997 and that it was time for the curatorial Act 2004.
voice to re-assume supremacy. And it evolved, most specifically, in issues
around leadership. 12 Local Area Agreements
(LAAs) set out the priorities for
It is worth tackling the points about learning spaces and leadership in
a local area agreed between
more detail here than is presented in the Consortium’s report, and more central government and a local
specifically in relation to museums. Learning spaces present us with an area and other key partners at
exemplification of some of the wider issues surrounding learning, and the local level.
46 Learning to Live
creating the Clore Leadership Programme has given the Clore Duffield
Foundation wide experience of the inter-relation between leadership and
learning. When put together, learning spaces and leadership present two
of the cornerstones of what museum learning should be: well-resourced
and located – materially, physically, organisationally; and fundamental to
a museum’s core mission and vision as presented, and represented, by its
director and board.
Leadership matters
The Culture and Learning Consortium report revealed, perhaps not
surprisingly, that there is still a need to look further at how a cultural
organisation’s artistic and curatorial imperatives can co-exist with its
learning mission – and how any tensions between them might be resolved.
And it is for a museum’s director and board to dispel or perpetuate these
tensions. Leadership is critical: effective leadership for cultural learning
requires commitment from the top. As well as recommending that cultural
and educational leadership programmes should incorporate and promote
cultural learning as a core and valued element, the report proposes that
cultural leaders and leading educationalists should champion the role and
potential of learning.
The Culture and Learning Consortium report presents a vision of how a
cultural learning responsibility might take shape: a commitment to provide
cultural learning opportunities for all. And not enough emphasis is placed
on the notion of cultural responsibility, with its obligation on the part of
the cultural organisation rather than the individual. Cultural entitlement is
vital, as Nicholas Serota has noted in his reference to the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child, but cultural responsibility places the onus on
publicly funded cultural organisations to work to find ways of engaging with
people at all stages of their lives. Museums must visibly signal to the entire
community that they are centres of learning, and any museum that fails to
deliver on this is failing in its contribution to civil society.
Much has been written of the three types of cultural value: intrinsic,
instrumental and institutional (see Holden 2006). And about (among many
others) three types of leadership model: situational, action-centred and
transformational (Adair 1968 – present; see www.johnadair.co.uk/published.
html). And the triumvirate approach remains useful for considering museum
leadership styles. It has become clear to me over many years of working with
museums that there are three very specific types of museum director, each of
which has a particular set of behaviours when it comes to cultural learning.
48 Learning to Live
The first, let’s call him13 the Intransigent, pays lip service to cultural learning
but has no interest in it. He is a curator, and is not really in favour of the
democratisation – the haute vulgarization – of culture. He is a public servant
with a private agenda. He relies upon colleagues to deliver education and
gets involved only when he feels it is going too far and absorbing too many
resources, or conversely, when a positive spotlight is upon it and he must be
seen to be celebrating it (which makes him tricky to spot – he may sometimes
disguise his true nature, particularly with external audiences). Children are
useful for photo-calls with ministers but are generally noisy, demanding and
troublesome. I would like to think of him as an endangered species – but not
one worthy of protection.
The second, the Pragmatist, is in many ways the most interesting, and
has the most potential. He is a political pragmatist: he is not hostile to cultural
learning but his true concerns are curatorial. However, he sees the necessity
of engaging with his organisation’s learning work and in promoting it, as it
chimes so perfectly with his paymasters’ instrumental agenda – and with the
wider media agenda. He listens to his staff – and acts on it. The third is a rare
creature. He is a Believer, deeply committed to his organisation’s capacity to
change people’s lives and futures; deeply committed to building new audiences
and to creating memorable and transformative experiences for young people.
Little will change in an Intransigent’s organisation until he leaves his
post – and with luck he will have able learning staff who will deliver
excellent programmes in spite of his obduracy. But the Pragmatist’s and
the Believer’s organisations provide fertile environments for outstanding
learning programmes. All three, the Intransigent, the Pragmatist and
Believer, will set the tone for their respective museum’s programmes, staff
approach, and external perception. Brilliant programmes can be delivered
in an Intransigent’s organisation, but in a context of subversiveness,
embattlement and low staff morale which is neither healthy nor productive.
The Intransigent can be seen as self-centred – not caring for cultural
responsibility; the Pragmatist as public-centred – with a primary concern
for the museum’s public role (in the sense of its profile, rather than its
relationship with its audience) and a secondary concern for its engagement
with individuals; and the Believer as user-centred, absolutely committed to
individual experience and visitor engagement.
John Holden recently wrote that ‘What is at work here is the belief that
only a small minority can appreciate art, and that art of quality needs to be
defended from the mob. If the mob gets its hands on the art, the art will be
destroyed. Therefore art must be kept as the preserve of the few, because
only the few understand and value it’ (Holden 2008: 14). His words could
13 It is estimated that only
16 per cent of national
well apply to any Intransigent in the context of learning. He writes that the
museum directors in the UK ‘cultural aristos necessarily wishes to exclude the public, the demos, from its
are women. This percentage is ranks, because to admit the demos would undermine its own status’ (ibid:
calculated using the National 21). Our Intransigent is Holden’s cultural aristos. In his Foreword to Holden’s
Museums Directors Conference
paper, Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, writes that
membership list, as at the
date of publication: www.
Holden ‘takes on the cultural snobs, for whom a democratic culture is a
nationalmuseums.org.uk/ debased culture, and he challenges cultural professionals to acknowledge
members.html their responsibilities as educators and public servants’ (ibid: 7).
The Power of Cultural Learning 49
historic environments are deeply committed to seeing that the value inherent
in their collections resides in their value to those who can see, understand,
appreciate them and learn about them – that is, to their audiences.
The emphasis that the National Trust has placed on family membership
in recent years, and on activities for young people, demonstrates a sound
awareness of the need to cultivate interest in its historic holdings if it is to
retain its membership base, and therefore its primary income stream, into
the future. Which is not to say that there are not warring factions within,
but somehow the Trust has, by and large, found a way to reconcile these
tensions in terms of its public provision: which brings us back to the point
about marrying a museum’s curatorial imperatives with its learning mission –
and dissolving the tensions therein. I should add here that in some museums
the curatorial and learning functions co-exist entirely happily and extremely
productively – but we need to aim for that being the norm.
Another critical leadership point revealed by the Culture and Learning
Consortium report is governance. In recent years the cultural sector has
been recognising more widely the value of appointing educational leaders
to senior staff and board positions in order to advocate on behalf of cultural
learning, and to encourage a wider commitment to learning. This is largely
about subject-matter expertise: organisations are very good at seeking legal,
financial, media, curatorial or artistic expertise on their boards, but who will
be looking out for the learning agenda unless there is a board member with
responsibility for, and wide knowledge of, the education sector?
The report makes a further leadership point about high-level advocacy.
The performing arts education world – again, possibly because of its
inherently collaborative ethos – has been better at harnessing the support of
its stars (Sir Simon Rattle, Howard Goodhall, Julian Lloyd Webber) to promote
its cause. Powerful initiatives such as Youth Music, the Music Manifesto
and Sing Up have all followed from such engagement. All elements of the
cultural sector need to work together to identify and support well-known and
respected national and regional figures to act as high-profile advocates
for cultural learning, and we have to find the appropriate external figures
to become champions for museum learning. The cultural sector has to get
much better at pleading its cause in a cross-cultural, joined-up fashion, with
museums lined up alongside performing arts organisations. There is scant
reference to cultural learning in the latest Department for Children, Schools
and Families’ consultation, 21st Century Schools: A World-Class Education
for Every Child (DCSF 2008), and although the National Campaign for the
Arts and the Museums Association will surely respond, there is no coherent
cultural learning lobby to put the case for a more cogent inclusion.
All of this is thrown into sharp relief by the context in which we are now
all operating. Learning departments have grown during an economic boom
period overseen by a government committed to education. The key question
now is how much of that growth has been related to learning as a core
function of a museum’s activity, and how much as an add-on. If that growth
has been fuelled by financial opportunism, by sponsored learning posts,
and externally funded programmes, then what is left when that external
funding goes?
The Power of Cultural Learning 51
Only if the growth has been to the core-funded learning function will
it now be able to survive intact. Curatorial posts are more likely to have
been in place for decades, core-funded, and are therefore more likely to
survive the storm. We have to hope that whatever the funding struggles
now ahead, museums are very different entities in 2009 than they were
in 1997, and very much more committed to their young audiences. Those
led by the Pragmatists and the Believers are likely to be, but in the case of
the Intransigents, this may not be the case. There are clearly rocky waters
ahead: the headwind is set to increase and we must build up our tailwind
if we are to ride the storm.
A new approach
So what do we conclude? That museum leaders must take their cultural
learning responsibility seriously in the context of the schools Cultural Offer;
that leadership is crucial if museums are going to respond effectively to the
new cultural learning landscape; that traditionally prevailing orthodoxies
no longer stack up – learning should no longer be marginalised under
the curatorial domain in any organisational hierarchy; that there is a new
direction of travel and museum directors need to embrace and not ignore
it; that this new direction of travel is lent a new urgency by the current
economic climate. As the Culture and Learning Consortium Get It report
emphasised, ‘In an economic downturn, funding needs to be protected or
ring-fenced to enable cultural learning opportunities to thrive’: it becomes all
the more important to justify all our public expenditure.
With any luck the Intransigents will soon become the dinosaurs of the
museum world – although the Natural History Museum is unlikely to wish to
find space for them. Meanwhile, there is much great work going on, and
much still to be achieved. The Get It report and this publication can both
provide a spur for action in focusing attention on the civic engagement
and power of cultural learning for the collective good. The key will be a
new shared commitment, and thereby a new coherence, to cultural learning
across the cultural and education sectors. We need an active confederation
of cultural and educational stakeholders to work together, put the case more
effectively, work with existing structures and create new ones. And there is
no time to lose.
References
Bunting C (2007) Public value and the arts in England – Discussion and conclusions of the arts
debate London: Arts Council England, available at www.artscouncil.org.uk/downloads/
publicvalueartsdebate.pdf
Culture and Learning Consortium, The (2008) Get It: The Power of Cultural Learning, London:
CLC, at www.cultureandlearning.org.uk
Cabinet Office (2003) Every Child Matters London: TSO, available at www.everychildmatters.
gov.uk
Cabinet Office (2005) Youth Matters London: TSO, available at www.everychildmatters.gov.
uk/youthmatters
52 Learning to Live
Clore Duffield (2009) Additional Guidance for applicants submitting proposals for Clore
Learning Spaces, available at www.cloreduffield.org.uk/cms/user_files/files/
Additional%20Guidelines_11.03.09.doc
Department for Children, Schools and Families (2007) The Children’s Plan – Building brighter
futures London: TSO, available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/childrensplan
Department for Children, Schools and Families (2008) 21st Century Schools: A World-Class
Education for Every Child, London: DCSF Publications, available at http://publications.
dcsf.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&Produc
tId=DCSF-01044-2008
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2005) Extended schools: Access to opportunities
and services for all – A prospectus London: DfES Publications, available at www.teachernet.
gov.uk/_doc/8509/Extended-schoolsprospectus.pdf
Find Your Talent (2008) ‘About Find Your Talent’, web page, available at www.findyourtalent.
org/content/about.html
Holden J (2006) Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy: Why culture needs a democratic
mandate London: Demos
Holden J (2008) Democratic Culture: Opening up the arts to everyone London: Demos,
available at www.demos.co.uk/publications/democraticculture
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2004) Inspiring Learning for All London: MLA,
available at www.inspiringlearningforall.gov.uk
Rogers R (2004) Space for Learning: A Handbook for Education Spaces in Museums,
Heritage Sites and Discovery Centres London: Space for Learning Partners, available at
www.cloreduffield.org.uk/page.php?id=38
5. American museums
as a borderland
Diane Miller
risk for children with opportunities for positive youth development. The report
highlighted the developmental needs of youth and opportunities for meeting
them in community settings. More than 60 museums were funded to develop
and implement programmes that used museums as a resource to meet the
developmental needs of young people between the ages of 10 and 17.
My first grant, which was funded by ASTC, allowed me to develop a
YouthALIVE programme for youth between the ages of 10 and 13 years old
who lived in public housing. The goals of the programme were simple: build
interest in science by making it fun, make sure all youth successfully master
the content, complete all assignments, and that their work is honoured.
The students and their parents taught me a lot during those first six years.
The young people explored areas of interest to them and designed simple
‘exhibits’ to explain what they had learned to their families, friends, and the
museum staff and visitors. The youth in the programme became the Curators
Kids Club.
The students and their parents took the work seriously. The topics they
explored ranged from bubbles to kites, to silly putty, to plants to insects,
to fish, to building tops and yo-yos. They explored and examined and
explained. The more they explored the more they noticed the more they
wanted to explore, examine and explain.
The unexpected outcomes were that the young people’s attitudes to
learning changed. It went from something other people made you do
to something you do for yourself. Their idea of what you do as an adult
changed as they interacted with people working at the museum. When they
met their first PhD they were surprised to learn that he had not been a child
genius and had trouble learning algebra in the eighth grade. They thought
that smart people were born smart; they did not know that most of what we
know is learned. They were also surprised that he was an African American
like them and had grown up in an African community, like them.
After 16 years of working in the museum I now spend time working with
young people living in low-income American communities. I have a staff of
200 young people between the ages of 14 and 17 who each work for
me for four years. Usually I hire 40 a year. About 35 stay for the entire four
years. They all finish high school and at least 33 go on to college each
year. Just as I was the first in my family to go to college, the same is true for
most of our youth.
Their job is to learn Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths and
to teach those subjects to younger children and community partners. They
also work at understanding and acquiring skills necessary for success in the
world of work and college. They perform research and practise scientific
techniques. By the time they graduate from high school our youth have
a thorough understanding of how to function effectively within systems of
various types: school, work, church, museum and family. They know how to
learn and adapt to different systems.
After four years of having spent a part of each week in the museum youth
programme the young people develop into strong young adults with good
decision-making skills. They have built interest in various topics, especially
understanding the world around them. They have developed strong process
American Museums as a Borderland 57
Do museums matter?
You bet museums matter. They mattered in my life and they matter even more
to today’s youth. But I like the answer given by my friends at the American
Association of Museums the best: museums are:
‘Safe places for the exploration of ideas and experiences. Vital partners
in our communities. Economic engines. Sources of civic pride and
accomplishments. Catalysts of social change and partnerships in a
knowledge economy. Stewards of a shared heritage that represents
humankind’s greatest achievements and nature’s greatest treasures.’
Pressure to change
The arrival of the Labour government in 1997 brought pressure for the
sector to change more quickly. Free admission was introduced along with
extra funding but with the arrival, too, of targets on access and education;
the first specific grant for museums to work with schools was awarded in
1999. This approach of targets and ring-fenced money is often criticised
as over-prescriptive but it was designed to make sure that changes taking
place in social attitudes were reflected in the museum sector. Social
and political imperatives meant that the material, cultural and academic
education that museums can offer young people should be on offer to all
young people.
Whatever the criticisms about the way government has sought to
influence museums the results have been impressive. Interestingly, in a letter
to the Guardian newspaper in June 2007, in which a group of leading
directors from the national museums sought to defend the free entry policy,
it was the statistics on the increase in visits by young people that was at
the centre of their argument: 16 million visits by children, 78 per cent more
than a decade earlier; 6.5 million more people from lower socio-economic
backgrounds and in the preceding six years a 54 per cent increase in visits
from black and minority-ethnic people.
The pressure to change has not just been directed at museums. The
economic need to educate more children to a higher level and our greater
knowledge about how children learn has led to a culture of rapid change in
our schools, too. There have been seismic shifts in educational theory and
child psychology; from Skinner to Steiner and Neill to Montessori. Eighty per
cent of what we know about how the brain works has been discovered in
the last twenty years. We understand the forms of learning that are vital to
the cognitive development of any child and no one now thinks that schools
can operate separately from wider society or that skills other than those of
teachers are not essential in educating our children. There is a sense of
urgency in putting all this newfound knowledge into effect.
It is the coming together of these two sets of changes – the democratising
of museums and the growing body of research on learning, together with
higher aspirations from citizens – that has given us the chance to transform
the relationship between the education and the museum sectors.
We are not, of course, starting from scratch. Many of us will have had our
own first museum visit as part of a school group. However, the relationship
we need now must be deeper, sustainable, more coherent and focused.
Museums must be seen as an essential part of the education we provide for
children and young people, not just as an optional extra but because they
enable learning that is not found in schools.
‘We’ve put learning, through engagement with the collection, at the centre
of all we do. We’ve built robust relationships with our schools making that
learning relevant. We’ve worked hard to create a sense of place that everyone
can feel part of. One project, called Heather and Maple, involved sixth formers
researching emigration from the local area to Canada from 1830–1880.
With help from primary schools they then made a documentary that is now
part of our permanent display in the museum. It is all about giving ownership
and control, enabling the students and children to celebrate their past.
‘What we do is not about “one off” projects. It’s about building relationships
where the children see the museum as an extension of their classroom, where
they feel safe and secure to learn. As well as delivering cutting-edge project
work we deliver after-school clubs, family learning and traditional school trips.
We strive to shift away from folk coming to us as visitors; [instead they come]
as supporters of something that they feel is worth supporting.’
Yet the reality is that we have some way to go to make the most of the relationship
between the two sectors. There is always a danger that trying to structure things
that have developed organically dampens their creativity and spontaneity but
leaving it to the enthusiasm of individual teachers and curators leaves too much
to chance. We have enough experience and good practice to learn from
and we should now have the confidence to begin to shape a more ambitious
agenda. Our aim must be to make museum education an entitlement for every
child. It still too often depends on the location of the school, its proximity to a
major museum or the enthusiasm of an individual teacher or curator.
The school sector is hugely diverse – in size, geographical location,
pupil intake and social background. The museum sector could be said to be
even more diverse – not only in size or location but in funding, breadth of
expertise and capacity. There is no one model but there needs to be support
for the different models that develop.
the same time period (the North West and Yorkshire saw a 19.8 per cent
and a 16.2 per cent growth respectively).
Collaboration and partnership have taken other forms as well: touring
exhibitions linking the nationals with regional and independent museums
have meant that school children can see and learn from unique and rare
artefacts without having to leave their own town. Sunderland Museum
and Winter Gardens recorded its highest visitor total in 2006–07, in part
because it staged exhibitions from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the
National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum. Similarly, Bradford’s
staging of the British Museum’s Emperor’s Terrapin exhibition contributed
to 90,000 increase in visitors in 2006–07 and the Laing Art Gallery in
Newcastle achieved its highest level of Years 1–11 school visitors to date
when it participated in the National Gallery’s Passion for Paint project.
There comes a time when any good idea needs to attract those who
have not naturally signed up – those who do not see the benefits or do
not feel they have the skills to take up the chance. For these people it
must sometimes seem an insurmountable task. Indeed it probably would be
insurmountable if each school or museum had to do it themselves. Just as
partnerships between museums have been such a vital part of our recent
progress we need to encourage partnerships between schools and between
groups of schools and museums.
It is nothing new to suggest that schools should work in clusters. Most
already do. Working as a cluster with museums – and other cultural
institutions – would make the most of the time and resources they have and
give them the confidence they need. Each cluster of schools might have a
key teacher who liaised with a museum or group of museums. Schools could
share ideas about preparation and follow-up work; the link teacher would
be the main point of contact for the museum educator. Furthermore, there are
ways that these links can be strengthened that are not dependent on actual
on-site visits: for example, via websites with interactive learning programmes
that schools could subscribe to or loan-boxes of materials from museums for
children to explore in the classroom.
External support
No one is suggesting that the work between museums and schools should
have a statutory underpinning. Its success will instead depend on the skill and
commitment of those involved; but others can help or hinder and progress
will be easier if there is support from outside.
Museums must be given a high profile both by the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport and by the Department for Children, Schools
and Families, endorsing further the value of museums to education and their
commitment to innovative ways of teaching and learning.
Inevitably, funding is an ever present issue. All of these proposals are
more difficult to implement for the non-government-funded museums and
those with a small staff. Yet these activities do need funding. Only 22
museums are sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
and while they received £340.3 million from the Government in 2007–08,
others are not so lucky even though we need all our museums to play a part.
Museums and Schools 65
Reference
Hooper-Greenhill E, Dodd J, Gibson L, Phillips M, Jones C and Sullivan E (2006) What did
you learn at the Museum today? Second study. Evaluation of the outcome and impact
of learning through the implementation of the Renaissance in the Regions Education
Programme Delivery Plans across nine Regional Hubs (2005) Leicester: RCMG
7. Beyond the
school:
Museums and young people
Tim Desmond
Changing lives?
Are museums changing people’s lives and, just as importantly, are they
perceived as institutions that can change people’s lives? The simple answer
to both these questions is no; and the challenge is a mammoth one.
Government has shown through frameworks like Every Child Matters
and strategies such as Local Area Agreements that young people need
a multi-agency approach. Museums can play their part if they can build
organisational relationships outside the sector. They also need to work at
the relationships they create with their visitors and participants. There is a
desire for and a focus on educating young people, but this message is not
reaching young people or the agencies they are connected to.
Within government cross-departmental communication is not always fluid
and museums whose value is more noticeably cultural than social struggle to
reach beyond the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The challenge
and indeed opportunity now is to look beyond visitor numbers and exhibition
development to create a facility for social change. To do this a new way of
thinking is required.
Case study: National Centre for Citizenship and the Law and
the Galleries of Justice
The Galleries of Justice museum in Nottingham is a charitable trust occupying
the heritage site the Shire Hall and includes Victorian court rooms, a
Georgian prison and an Edwardian police station.
In 2002 the museum’s education department of five full-time staff became
the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law (NCCL) with the strap line
70 Learning to Live
‘Learn from the past, act in the present, change the future’. The aim was to
bring together the formal and informal learning programmes in the museum
including the day-long History-based school visits and the community-based
social inclusion programmes. The goal was that all the young people who
worked with the museum would gain an understanding of legal literacy,
community involvement and their rights and responsibilities, thus contributing
to their ‘Citizenship’ learning, and looking beyond a History market that
has been declining in importance in the curriculum. The NCCL sees itself as
an agent for social change and a progression from the Galleries of Justice,
which is a museum of social history.
Citizenship education has value within primary and secondary schools
and could also be targeted at young people at risk of exclusion from
mainstream education and involvement in crime.
The name National Centre for Citizenship and the Law reflects the desire
for education to have an equal status to the museum rather than being simply
a department of it. By giving the NCCL autonomy it allowed partnerships
to be formed outside the museum sector which brought about new projects
and funding. As such, it was conceived for both philosophical and practical
business reasons.
The museum, capital funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is rich in
resources and strongly supported by well trained, motivated staff. As funding
increased – over the last five years the NCCL has attracted over £2 million
for its citizenship and crime prevention programmes from a wide variety
of funders – and the education aspect grew rapidly, dedicated staff were
appointed to run programmes and projects both in the museum and through
outreach across the East Midlands.
Museums are often viewed as cultural organisations that facilitate visits
with ‘soft’ outcomes. The fact that a museum can use its resources to be
a social educator and also cultural entertainment is difficult for many to
reconcile. Yet the Galleries of Justice, with its court rooms, police station
and prison and its wealth of exhibition and activity spaces, offers a perfect
setting for stimulating learning. Add to this a sympathetic core staff, who are
trained to work with young people, and the ability to bring in specialists and
you have a real opportunity to take children out of their environment and
facilitate learning.
The understanding that the Galleries of Justice came to was that the
word ‘museum’ counteracted their social purpose to deliver citizenship and
crime prevention programmes and stopped them accessing the funding
they needed. The solution reached was to brand the National Centre of
Citizenship and the Law as an agent for social change and a separate
entity from the Galleries of Justice. While the NCCL was seen to deliver the
education programmes at the museum, it also had a life of its own when
delivering its crime prevention projects across the country.
The NCCL was encouraged to gain in status away from the museum and
divided the trustees to represent the two sides of the business. And the role of
education was given an explicit purpose beyond the collections – what was
originally set up as a museum has been divided into two complementary
parts of equal standing: a museum and an educational provider.
Beyond the School 71
Conclusion
The creation of ‘education syndicates’ to museums would need significant
funding to set up and develop, a process of training and recruitment and
a high-profile marketing campaign. The end result would be a series of
education facilities that would do justice to the museum sector and allow us
to play a significant role in the educating of all our young people outside
the limitations of schools and colleges.
The easiest way to do this is through adapting the existing Renaissance
in the Regions programme so that it enables an investment in ‘educational
syndicates’ and encourages future investment in learning from outside the
sector. This would also produce more measurable outcomes in terms of an
increase in educational attainment.
What we need is a ‘republic of museums’ with an education facility at
its core that connects with mainstream learning providers but also with those
young people who have fallen out of society, who can take a route back in
via the safe haven that museums provide.
8. Museums, Young
People and Social
Justice
David Fleming and Carol Rogers
to achieve. Museums are, after all, bursting with stimulating concepts, ideas
and images.
But the hard fact is that some young people, those on the margins of
mainstream society, are exceedingly difficult targets, so difficult that many
cultural institutions never succeed in engaging them to any worthwhile
degree. If museums are to make a real contribution to social justice then
they have to reach out and find ways to engage these young people. It is
not through winning over young people from comfortable backgrounds that
museums will make a genuine difference in society, but through attracting
marginalised young people who come from difficult backgrounds.
Understanding deprivation
What is it like to be living ‘on the margins of mainstream society’? By
far the most important feature is poverty. People in poverty are living on
low incomes with poor job prospects for adults. There is a high rate of
people claiming benefits, such as Jobseeker’s Allowance and incapacity
benefit. Infant mortality is high, as are the rates of GCSE failures, Key
Stage 2 failures, teenage pregnancies, recorded crime, childhood obesity,
underweight babies, binge drinking, bad diet, tooth decay; there is a low
rate of breastfeeding. There is a lack of basic skills in reading, writing and
communication generally. There is a lack of social contact, low self esteem,
anger. There is a mistrust of officialdom and of institutions, and people feel
stigmatised. The incidence of abuse of alcohol, drugs and other stimulants
is high, as is debt, which creates need, illness and stress.
We must not make the mistake of lumping together all people living
in poverty as though they were a homogeneous group or class, and
living in poverty does not inevitably result in family life that is devoid
of love, warmth, support and hope. Nonetheless, there are recurring
issues that museums need to understand if they are to make any impact in
disadvantaged communities.
As well as these issues, museums need to comprehend the sheer scale of
poverty in this country. While Britain is the fifth richest country in the world,
nearly four million children are living on less than ten pounds per day. In
some urban parliamentary constituencies more than 50 per cent of children
are living in poverty.
Research undertaken for the Liverpool City Region’s Find Your Talent
Pathfinder Delivery Plan in 2008 showed that lack of money crops up
time and again in young people’s responses to what dissuades them from
engaging in cultural activities (Liverpool City Region 2008). One response
to a question about what stopped a young person from doing creative and
cultural things was: “Money – it’s ok if your parents are on a good wage,
but my mum’s not got a job and my dad’s deceased.” Somewhat more
encouraging was another response: “All you can do now that’s free for
families is museums and galleries.”
One issue for museums is admission charges. It is obvious that museums
which, through choice or necessity, levy admission charges, will struggle on
simple economic grounds to attract anyone from a deprived background.
And even if admission to the museum is free, the practice of levying a
charge for special activities will, similarly, create a kind of cultural apartheid,
wherein young people from a comfortable background can partake and
those from a deprived background cannot.
National museums have a mixed track record in levying admission
charges, and only in 2001 when the Labour Government offered specific
financial incentives did they all begin once more to make admission to core
collections free for all. This is bound to have improved the chances of usage
of national museums by young people from deprived backgrounds, but there
is surely a contradiction in that many national museums continue to levy
significant admission charges for special exhibitions.
So significant a barrier do we feel admission charges are to running a
truly inclusive museum service that, here in National Museums Liverpool, not
only do we not have any admission charges for any exhibitions, but we do
not charge either for access to facilities such as our planetarium, or to any
educational activities and events. We offer all these routes into the museum
service for free because we believe in our responsibility to be inclusive, and
we structure our budgets accordingly.
The Find Your Talent research gave rise to more challenges in terms
of engaging the interest of young people: many young males simply see
‘culture’ in general as not interesting. One young female said “I have a
brother who doesn’t do anything; he just sits around all day playing on his
[PlayStation] 3…he knows he likes something but he pretends because it’s
not cool…it’s a boy thing….”
The importance of parental and family influence on younger people
aged 5–13 is critical, whether in terms of encouraging cultural involvement,
or in stifling it; the importance of what friends do, say or think is of supreme
importance to all young people but absolutely critical in the 13-plus age
range; ‘not knowing what’s going on’, the ‘old fashioned’ nature of cultural
buildings, lack of confidence and low self-esteem were confirmed as other
significant barriers to engagement.
Positive action
At the core of this challenge of engaging young people from disadvantaged
backgrounds is the need for positive action. Museums must take specific
Museums, Young People and Social Justice 77
“We’re going to be dead proud when we go into the Walker and see our
Lambanana, and people say ‘did you see that Superfiveadaybanana?’
and ask us ‘wow, are you the ones who did that?’. We think that people
will be surprised when they find out it is kids that have painted this
Lambanana! They might think that kids have designed it, but that it’s been
painted by professionals, but when they find out it’s us kids that have done
the painting, with a little help from Vince, I think they’ll be shocked!”
part in the project clearly relished its hands-on nature, which was technical,
physical and demanding, and they have a strong sense of pride in the result.
The work did not need to be related directly to issues surrounding asylum or
refuge-seeking to have a social impact, and the project clearly delivered a
range of learning outcomes for the young people involved.
There is tremendous promise locked up in the current Find Your Talent
scheme. This is currently being piloted in ten different locations across the
country, including Merseyside. NML is leading the Liverpool City Region
Pathfinder, which is a partnership including eight major cultural arts
organisations, working alongside children’s services strategic teams from
three local boroughs – Knowsley, Liverpool and St Helens.
The partnership aims to use the success of Liverpool, European Capital
of Culture 2008 as a catalyst to increase the participation of children,
young people and families in cultural activity. It will be based in the heart
of the most disadvantaged local communities, but will be connected to the
city centre. It will ensure the best universal cultural offer reaches every child
and young person regardless of where they live, stretching from the banks
of the Mersey to St Helens’ easternmost boundary. Targeting areas of highly
significant deprivation, the Liverpool programme will place a strong focus
on young people aged 11–19, including those currently not in employment,
education or training (‘NEET’) or at risk of exclusion.
It is to be hoped that the Find Your Talent schemes demonstrate once
and for all that cultural activity in general, and museum activity in general,
can make a significant contribution to the wellbeing of young people from
disadvantaged backgrounds. However, the pilot schemes will only work if
they abide by the principles of engagement that we outlined above.
It is rather frustrating that the full potential of this coordination has yet to
be realised, as the three-phase review of Renaissance, commissioned by
the MLA and currently underway, will almost certainly conclude (see MLA
2009). Nonetheless, the report will also conclude that Renaissance has
delivered many successes and must be cherished and nurtured. The fact is
that Renaissance in the Regions has not yet been seen at full power. When it
is, the role of the national museum sector will be clarified, and the potential
of the national collections released. As the keystone of a national strategy
for museums, under development as we write, Renaissance in the Regions
can be a powerful agent for creating social justice.
Conclusions
We must not underestimate the challenge of engaging young people from
deprived backgrounds in museum activity. The challenge will defeat all but
those with a thorough knowledge of what it means to suffer deprivation, and
all but those with iron determination and commitment, as it will defeat those
who devote insufficient effort, time and patience. Time-limited projects with
short-term funding are unlikely to achieve anything other than superficial and
ephemeral gains. We need realistic strategic thinking, long-term investments,
and a greater belief in our capacity to achieve social justice.
References
Liverpool City Region (2008) Find Your Talent Pathfinder consultation, June, see www.
liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) (2009) ‘Renaissance review’, web page at
www.mla.gov.uk/what/programmes/renaissance/renaissance%20review
Resource (2001) Renaissance in the Regions: A new vision for England’s museums Resource –
The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries
9. Online
Technology:
Unlocking opportunity, unlocking
collections
Jane Finnis
The new wave of web, with which our children are growing up, is already
having a huge impact on how children come to know about the world
around them and learn about life. But what values are driving this online
world? Where is culture in all this and what role could museums play to
add value to the online world for young people? In the chapter I look at the
current state of play in the sector as I see it and suggest a plan of action for
the next three years.
• In the way that many of the big social networking websites work,
especially the ones that have a specific focus such as Flickr (photographs)
or Last FM (music). These sites have huge online communities who are
building and sharing a knowledge base with each other that would
not be possible without the fast-networked world they rely on. They
make possible new ways to communicate that allow for synchronicity
and serendipity. Information is being shared, sorted, classified,
reclassified, republished and re-used in a way that is unprecedented in
any other media. The community is building the experience collectively
and at its best the end result is a shared consciousness of opinion,
personalisation and interpretation. You could say that cooperation is
built into the infrastructure.
• In the explosion of blogging and the changes that have been effected on
traditional media publishers like The Guardian. These publishers have had
Online Technology 83
• In the development of web widgets (small applications that allow a user
to add their favourite content to a personalised webpage or site) that
allow audiences to interact with the explosion of blogging (Technorati
2008) in ways that add value to the post itself. Video sharing sites like
YouTube have been doing this sort of thing for a while by allowing
the user to cut and paste code to embed a video into their site, but
widgets take this further as they allow for actual interactivity – drawing
a picture, leaving a note, or flicking through the person’s photos as if it
were a real album.
• In many of the mobile phone applications and gadgets that let the user
personalise their own online space and take it with them wherever
they go. Even the BBC now offers ways to customise a version of its
homepage based on the user’s own preferences, mirroring Google’s
iGoogle personalisation.
All these examples are part of the world beyond the basics, or web 1.0. They
are sometimes called web 2.0 or the ‘semantic web’ and all of the services
are developed with an understanding of the mindset that my daughter has
naturally. They are at the leading edge of online developments and are
based on similar assumptions about connectivity, availability and the ability
to personalise that are implicit in her question to me about picture libraries.
Many are social media sites that use tools for sharing and discussing
information between people. Many are mash-up sites that take things
published in one place and then allow them to be mixed up and filtered for
publication again in new ways somewhere else. Some are both.
Where is culture?
This new wave of web, the one where digital natives like my daughter are
growing up, is already having a huge impact on how children come to
know about the world around them and learn about life. But what values
are driving this online world? Where is culture in all this and what role could
museums play to add value to this new online world for young people?
Answers to these questions are not easy to find as the museum sector
itself is still in transition from the web 1.0 version of the online world,
where individual museum websites are built as islands to be visited and
explored, not as part of an archipelago that can be full of links and
bridges between different people, communities and content. They are the
authority on the content they create, they publish it on their own website
(where they can) and do not often allow reuse of their data by anyone else
after the point of publication.
84 Learning to Live
The reason for this lies deep within departmental divisions, policy
decisions and restrictive governance. A world where online technologies are
just tools and there is often a lack of understanding of how they have changed
and shaped user behaviour – and crucially, how user behaviour can change
and shape them. This is compounded by a lack of understanding of how
fundamental the structure of the online world is to the way that information
is communicated, shared or retrieved – no matter what the subject. When
I say ‘structured’, I mean literally the language used to describe something,
the metadata about that thing and the relationships between things and their
context (subject, location and time).
The online world is full of things that many in the museums sector and
Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) ‘don’t know they don’t
know’ and therefore making policy to support development becomes a
bit of a catch-22. My point is brought home poignantly by the fact that
within this book technology has been given its own chapter. Why, when
exploring and delivering the ideas and values within the other chapters,
could they not all be underpinned with digital infrastructure, methodology
and online promotion?
So what can be done? How might government, cultural organisations
and museums in particular begin to embrace the mindset of our children and
really begin to unlock some of the creative potential of the online world to
engage kids and young people in culture? What kind of leadership is needed
to move into this online world and embrace the risks of the unknown?
Developing new services like Flickr and Last FM is problematic for the
museum sector and perhaps inappropriate. They would need high levels of
understanding of what is possible, in-house production and editorial skills and
a commitment at an executive level to investment not just to build, but also to
sustain such a resource. An organisation like Flickr has many things: a user
interface, database functionalities, a community, brand, appeal, services and
a business model that is financially independent. There are probably only at
the moment about ten to twenty museums globally that have enough of these
things to take on online development of this magnitude. But even if they do
have the capacity, maybe they can instead work with those that already are
developing these resources instead of going it alone. This is exactly what
some have done. They have started to experiment by taking their content into
these other worlds and networks as opposed to trying to build their own.
In the UK one lovely example is Tate Britain’s How We Are exhibition,
which used the Flickr site to encourage submission of photographs via a
How We Are Now Flickr group15 to illustrate one of the four themes of the
exhibition: portrait, landscape, still life and documentary. The aim of the
exhibition, according to the Tate website, was to ‘take a unique look at the
journey of British photography, from the pioneers of the early medium to today’s
photographers who use new technology to make and display their imagery’.
Tate was able to in effect ‘borrow’ the Flickr community for the project.
This, combined with the Flickr toolkit, gave Tate a new way of running this
kind of open submission exhibition. The end result was a very balanced
15 www.flickr.com/groups/ mix of content created both on and offline. All of the more than 5,000
howwearenow images that were submitted were displayed as online slideshows, and 40
Online Technology 85
photographs (ten from each of the four themes) were chosen to form a final
display in the gallery16.
In Australia, Powerhouse Museum has been leading thinking and
experimentation on ways to open up collections. In 2005 the Sydney
museum built a system that allowed users to tag objects with words that
meant something to them. These tags added meanings that sat alongside
the curator’s tags and also created better links between data and search
engines. The result, unsurprisingly, was a vast increase in traffic and
through the interaction with people it brought new knowledge back into
the organisation about the museum’s own collection. The process could
be described as turning the museum ‘inside out’ (see Pratty 2006 for a
description of the ‘inside out web museum’). The collection is not simply
online; it is usable, user-centric, self-learning, and dynamic.
Powerhouse has shared its collection data in a variety of interesting ways
and the Fresh + New blog17 written by Seb Chan has been documenting and
evaluating the museum’s experiments and successes for years. Powerhouse
was also the first museum to join the Library of Congress in putting some of
its photography collection into Flickr’s ‘The Commons’ Project (which now
features 18 institutions, four from the UK).
This project goes further than the Tate’s as it brings together historical
photography from its collections with related contemporary photography from
Flickr users and is in effect a huge record of living social history photography.
But these are all big institutions that have the availability to reallocate
funding for building and ongoing maintenance. They have all involved a
level of internal commitment and human resourcing that can often be as great
as the budget, if not greater. What about the thousands of smaller museums
with great ideas, great collections and big ambitions? Should they even try to
inhabit an online space in any other way than as an information website?
Some museums are trying new things and experimenting with small-scale
publishing into social networks and the world of web 2.0, in particular to
try to target younger audiences, for example by:
user generated content (UGC) in the way that ‘The Commons’ project on
Flickr has begun to do. My personal view is that for most museums these
kinds of activities are still a step too far as without the resources to keep
these channels up to date, or the expertise to capitalise on them as effective
marketing messages, they can sometimes seem empty and trivial.
Unfortunately, advising museums not to invest resources into online
activities is only helpful to them if there is an alternative way to contribute
their digital content to something bigger and more sustainable; something
that could interface with other publishers and services, or connect them to
better-resourced social media and marketing campaigns.
At a strategic level within government, the problem is exacerbated by
the fact that there is often an ambition to produce showcase sites that target
young people in exciting and innovative ways – sites that can go live with a
big splash, a big marketing budget and an ambition to target an identified
need in a focused way. These kinds of sites tend to have high production
values and push content out to kids in well-packaged bites. Broadcasters
such as the BBC (particularly for children) and Channel 4 (particularly for
young people) have been leading in this area, along with some publicly
funded sites such as Film Street, SoundJunction and Artisancam.
I am not trying to argue against these kind of showcase sites because
at their best they can be very powerful and engaging. Their focus on
lively design, animation, games, sound and fun stuff is appealing, well
understood and works. Lots of museums understand this point well as the
process is similar to staging an exhibition in the physical world and they
have transferred these skills to online production and created a wealth of
great online interactive games. Examples include the Science Museum’s
Launch Ball, the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Create a Kaleidoscope and
the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery’s The Mummy Countdown. But
this is only one way of working and rather like the museums’ own websites, it
creates yet more islands and walled gardens that do not join up. In addition,
sometimes new sites reinvent the same wheels when it comes to infrastructure
behind the scenes and there is often a big problem with their sustainability.
Looking back at some of the past big government online initiatives
dealing with culture or young people, many of them have also struggled to
crack the sustainability issue. Some have closed or are closing and it would
be good to ask how things like the DCMS’s Culture Online, the now defunct
Curriculum Online and New Opportunities Fund’s digitised programme
NOF-digi could have been done better. What worked, what did not work
and what is still missing?
It seems to me that there is a lack of willingness to learn the important
lessons from these kinds of projects and be honest about why some of them
have shut down. Which might be called a ‘good failure’? How, in the spirit
of the McMaster Review (McMaster 2008), might the lessons help us to be
less afraid of taking risks in the pursuit of excellence?
Perhaps the problem comes down to lack of digital infrastructure within
the cultural sector in the UK. If you are big enough on your own you can (sort
of) overcome this, especially if you have a big brand and a big name. The
V&A almost has enough diversity in its collection to make a search for just
Online Technology 87
about anything come back with a few results, but many cultural organisations
are simply not big enough on their own. So any chance of creating an
impact is lost as there is no bigger infrastructure for them to plug into.
The ways that you can catalogue an object, photograph it, record it
and turn it into a digital record are not limitless. There are standards that are
needed and lessons that are common to all. This means that there is a lot of
data that is consistent and could be held within a common architecture.
Sadly, from a political perspective, infrastructure is not very cool. The
showcase sites can be winners and attract attention in a way that metadata
repositories or bridging classifications could never do. I believe what is
missing is the behind the scenes infrastructure of data aggregation, brokering
and sharing at a granular level (objects, resources and so on).
Let’s imagine that instead of building showcase sites, the DCMS’s Culture
Online had invested in infrastructure between cultural agencies (Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council, Arts Council England, DCMS, Department
for Children, Schools and Families) and those they fund. This would not have
won them a Bafta but it might have provided enough critical mass of content
that with the right leadership could be brokered to any number of potential
partners, commercially, educationally and globally.
An organisation called The Le@rning Federation has managed to
do something in this model in Australia. A collaborative initiative of the
Australian and New Zealand governments, it has assembled, through a
product called Scootle, content from all the big Australian museums and
made it available to all Australian and New Zealand schools to use for free,
forever. All copyright fees are paid upfront, so schools are not liable for
further copyright payments to collection agencies.
If the UK had some kind of shared infrastructure then we could have our
own version of Scootle, making data available to any publisher or producer
for use everywhere – in showcase sites, in international sites, in social media
networks and to aggregators. Furthermore, the examples I have mentioned
that push and share data into social networks do not specifically address
young people or children. This is a new challenge, as they will want to play
with what is in these collections in their own ways – and why not let them?
We should be:
• E
nabling kids to see cool objects from their local archive or museum on
the screen when they log into their local library
• M
aking museum collections available to search and use in every school
learning platform19
• P lacing museum objects alongside relevant features on high profile
public sector broadcaster television programme sites like Blue Peter’s
and Roman Mysteries’s
• P roviding APIs (application programming interfaces) of objects available
for developers to experiment with widgets for Bebo, Facebook and 19 A learning platform brings
together hardware, software and
mobile phones
supporting services to enable
• Linking to related cultural content alongside videos on YouTube (as more effective ways of working
suggested by the RSA’s Matthew Taylor at a January 2009 Fabian within and outside the classroom
Society lecture). (see Becta 2007)
88 Learning to Live
‘Digital Britain is about more than the domestic problems of the public
sector broadcasters. It is about how Britain is going to deploy the assets
that we have and build the skills we need to play our part.’ (Andy
Duncan,15 January 2009)
I would suggest that museums, libraries and archives are the champions and
custodians of many of those assets and we now need to consider how best
to deploy them.
It is these networks and services that need to contain the rich and fascinating
cultural objects that are in collections throughout the UK. These collections
are full of things that the public cherish and would love to explore further
online if they could.
A plan of action
So what should be done and who needs to do it? I would suggest a three-
point plan of action for the next three years:
1. Put in place the kind of partnerships, thinking and leadership that are
behind The Le@rning Federation’s ‘Scootle’
We need to insist on cross-departmental working when it comes to digital
strategy, vision and infrastructure. We need to address the duplication that
currently exists at all levels (regional, governmental, funded agencies and
so on) and reduce the proliferation of cultural databases, systems, URLs and
marketing campaigns. Some first steps have already been taken with the
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Collections Trust, UKOLN and
Culture24 producing and signing up to a set of digital values and principles
for all of their digital work, and working to bring together all MLA-funded
databases under a programme of work called ‘Open Culture’. Finally, until
we can begin to work out how best to exploit the potential of what we
already have, there should be a moratorium on digitisation.
2. Value joint promotion and marketing online and the fact that it works
better when things are joined up
Successful marketing is grounded in understanding the audience, their
needs, their profile and being clear about the aims of what’s being done.
Successful online marketing also requires an understanding of how search
Online Technology 89
engines work, and the impact of tools such as RSS (web feed formats used
to publish frequently updated works), Adwords (Google’s pay-per-click
advertising for text and banner ads), tagging, metadata (‘data about other
data’), churn (frequency of publication and updating) and so on. All of this
makes it harder for a small museum to make any kind of impact online on
its own. The lesson here is in working together to reinforce key messages
to audiences and joining forces to campaign and deliver targeted national
services. Culture24’s Show Me website was launched exactly in response
to this problem – see Box 1.
Culture24 went live with its Show Me website for children in 2003; its
tagline is ‘we show you crazy/fun/scary/wild/cool [word alternates] stuff
from the UK’s museums and galleries’. Show Me was unique in the cultural
sector in its approach to showcasing the work of others and it has quietly and
gradually been building a loyal audience (Show Me 2005).
Significantly, it also filled a gap as it was built for kids to use directly
and has championed the value of play despite a very small budget and
basic interface.
The next step for Show Me is to take its promotional role a step further
with a new project called Caboodle, which explores ways to mix up museum
collections with children’s own collections.
3. Explore new models and new ways of thinking that take a more open
approach to knowledge and ownership
We need to close the gap between the desire to be part of the 21st century
and the fear of losing authority over our data. This is a key challenge and
highlights the knowledge gap of cultural institutions about the behaviour of
young people and children online. We need a mind shift that embraces
personalisation, community and mashing (combining data from more than
one source into a single integrated tool using a mashup web application);
an online world where content finds the user (not just vice versa) and where
people do more with your stuff than just look at it! Professionals working
in the cultural sector have a speicial understanding of their content. This is
their unique selling point and we need to respect it and use it. At the same
time there are other voices, other perspectives, interpretations, values and
meanings and we need the online space to be somewhere where they can
coexist, either together or in isolation.
Museums are filled with highly educated, highly motivated people, most of
whom are crying out to get their collections online, their communities built
and lives networked. But for many they come up against barrier after barrier
in their everyday working lives – copyright restrictions, worries about quality
of user-generated content, fears about theft, safety, or simply the policy from
IT Services banning the use of blogging and animation software such as
90 Learning to Live
Wordpress and Flash. All of these things can crush enthusiasm and creativity
but they are not insurmountable.
Technology never stands still and neither should we. There will always
be something new to try, a new version to replace what we have just got
used to or a new way to do something that is better than the last. In many
ways trying to unlock the creativity of technology is a perpetual round of
R&D activity, with the best going on to inform the next.
But the big vision here, the future prize, the opportunity, is not about
technology, but about the integration of culture into our online society and
the online lives of our young people and children. This is something that
the museums understand and that there is the potential to make happen.
Who would want to live in a world without culture? Personally, I don’t want
to live in an online world without culture at its roots, popping up when I
least anticipate it and in ways that I did not expect. I want to see culture
readily available for consumption, play, appropriation and experimentation
by children, young people (and adults) in their online spaces of choice, in
ways that we cannot yet imagine.
This is just the beginning.
Thanks to Anra Kennedy, Nick Poole and John Newbigin for their invaluable
contributions and help with this chapter.
References
Becta (2007) ‘What is a learning platform?’, web page, available at http://schools.becta.
org.uk/index.php?section=re&rid=12887
McMaster B (2008) McMaster Review: Supporting excellence in the arts – from measurement
to judgement London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, available at www.culture.
gov.uk/reference_library/publications/3577.aspx
Pratty J (2006) ‘The Inside Out Web Museum’, in Trant J and Bearman D (eds.) Museums and
the Web 2006: Proceedings Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, available at www.
archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/pratty/pratty.html
Show Me (2005) ‘Show Me Up For Webby Award’, April 15, available at www.show.
me.uk/site/about/STO683.html
Technorati (2008) ‘State of the Blogosphere/2008’, available at http://technorati.com/
blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/
10. Museum Learning:
Not instrumental enough?
Alec Coles
Making a difference?
Let me begin with some of the impacts that museums claim for themselves:
Our museums may be full of the evidence of human creativity and endeavour,
and of the diverse wonders of the natural world; these may be accessible to
a larger number of people, to an unprecedented degree, and may be the
subject of any number of educational programmes. The number of school
students visiting the UK’s museums may be higher than ever – presumably
because teachers think that this is a valuable use of curriculum time. The
rigour with which we evaluate our learning programmes is greater than ever
before and the results are generally very positive; and yet, despite all of this,
according to some sceptics, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that
museums have a positive impact on learning. How can this be?
It seems that, to some critics, museums’ educational credentials will only
be established if they can prove that young people actually get higher
grades in their exams as a result of a museum visit. Similarly, the sceptics
would dismiss what they describe as anecdotes of life-changing experiences
as no longer enough (Burns Owen Partnership 2005).
In Britain, and particularly England, the Labour government of 1997
embraced a vision of cultural enrichment for all citizens. There was increased
investment in public cultural institutions based on an agenda of wider
engagement. There was a confirmed belief that public cultural provision
could impact on all of public life, notably health, wealth, wellbeing and, of
course, learning.
Not unreasonably, government expected cultural organisations in
which it invested not only to be accountable, but to demonstrate that
this investment was effective. A performance management and monitoring
regime emerged based largely on levels of engagement or, more
accurately, levels of attendance.
This approach served several purposes: it persuaded cultural institutions
to take their public role seriously; it strengthened the commitment among
those institutions to consider the nature and origin of their audiences; it
legitimised and embedded the learning credentials of the cultural sector; and
in museums, core business began to shift from merely preserving collections,
to a greater emphasis on using them for public benefit.
Consequently, every funding agreement with government, every service
level agreement and every local authority performance management regime
for museums was underpinned by a set of learning targets.
Many institutions embraced this new regime on the basis that it helped
them focus and monitor their activities, improve their performance and, let us
be honest, demonstrate their public value to funders (Holden 2004).
There was, however, some dissent and cynicism from a sector that would
have preferred to be allowed to carry on regardless. This arose from two
diametrically opposite points of view. On the one hand, there were those
who thought that public benefit was not part of a museum’s core business.
In short, they felt that using culture so overtly to address societal issues
was inappropriate (Appleton 2001). On the other hand were those who
questioned whether there was any real evidence that museum experiences
made a discernible contribution to learning (Mirza 2006a).
Since that time, there has been a plethora of publications, largely so-called
‘grey literature’, that have sought to demonstrate the value of museums in
Museum Learning 93
learning and education. These studies are useful, but they are often conceived
and produced as advocacy documents that show little objectivity or rigour,
and rely almost entirely on recounting single experiences through case studies
(Arts Council England 2006, Travers 2006, Hooper-Greenhill 2007) .
I have long refuted this taxonomy (Coles 2009) precisely because it has
been used, sometimes unwittingly, to undermine the public value of culture:
so-called instrumental values or impacts were characterised by those
who it suited as being less important than ‘intrinsic benefits’ which were
characterised as being more subliminal, harder to define, aesthetically
driven and, frankly, more pure. By contrast ‘instrumental impacts’ are often
denigrated even from within our sector: David Barrie of the Art Fund, for
instance, wrote, in 2001:
‘The real culprits are the politicians, who, having failed to grasp that
museums are valuable in themselves have insisted that in return for state
funding they must help deliver political goals like social inclusion or
urban renewal.’ (Barrie 2001: 51)
Education or learning?
If the semantics of instrumentalism are just a side-show, far more serious is the
charge that we are actually measuring (and I use the word advisedly) the wrong
things (Selwood 2006): that measuring the number of visitors, or participants,
or school visits is a crass and potentially tokenistic approach to service delivery,
with the associated danger that programmes could be designed to maximise
numbers at the risk of compromising the quality of experience. Cynically, some
have suggested, it was a case of Every Child Matters (sic.) (DfES 2003) as
long as we could count them as a performance indicator.
What is it the sceptics need to be convinced of? That school children
visiting should get better grades, more GCCEs, better jobs (eventually)? That
our visitors improve their crossword skills, or win more pub quizzes? Or, that
people (in this case, young people) have actually learned something?
With respect to the former, there have been many attempts at so-called
goal-based studies (Miles and Tout 1994). Such studies tried to explore
whether or not participants assimilate pre-assigned messages. The problem
with this approach is that it takes little account of the possibilities for additional
or alternative learning that might be affected by the individual’s motivation,
own interests or idiosyncrasies.
As Hooper-Greenhill suggests ‘“goal-orientated evaluation” has been
tried and left behind in the museum world’ (2007: 27); let us hope that
she is right.
This is where use of the terms ‘education’ and ‘learning’ becomes critical.
The two have become confused, variously interpreted and imbued with
sector-specific meanings. It appears that in this sector, learning characterises
something that people do, and that develops them, while education is an
organisational construct that describes a service commitment to transfer
knowledge to someone.
This distinction is helpful when considering what museums and galleries
can achieve, what they should aspire to, and the development of a learner-
centred approach.
Museum Learning 95
• K
nowledge and understanding
• S
kills
• A
ttitudes and values
• E
njoyment, inspiration and creativity
• A
ction, behaviour, progression
This approach was revolutionary because it gave the sector the opportunity
to express the impact of museums, libraries and archives learning in a way
that had not been possible before. The GLOs are user-centred in line with
contemporary learning theory and in accordance with the very essence
of the UK Government’s Every Child Matters agenda (DfES 2003). They
are non-parametric and do not masquerade as anything else; yet they are
manageable and helpful, as the Learning Impact Research Project went on
to demonstrate.
It is fair to say, however, that while the GLOs have been widely adopted
across the museum sector in the UK and beyond, they are not without their
critics (Newman 2008). Some find them too nebulous, frustratingly non- 21 www.inspiringlearningforall.
parametric and difficult to relate to educational attainment. I would contend, gov.uk
96 Learning to Live
however, that if used critically, the GLOs do demonstrate both the power
and the actuality of learning, particularly from the point of view of the
individual.
Through a mixture of good planning and serendipity, the LIRP was able
to evaluate the effectiveness of museum learning using the GLOs through
three comprehensive studies. Two were closely tied into the Renaissance
in the Regions programme under which substantial funding was injected
into England’s regional museums with a dedicated, ring-fenced sum for
educational work – specifically for schools.
The most obvious structural manifestation of Renaissance was the creation
of regional museum Hubs in each of the nine English regions – a kind of
federation of four or five museums services working together to enhance
opportunities for the public to engage with museums and to build capacity
within the sector. Three regions received ‘full’ funding, creating so-called
Phase 1 Hubs and the remaining six received a lesser level, initially, to
create Phase 2 Hubs. As part of the LIRP, in 2003, the three Phase 1 Hubs
were involved in an evaluation of their learning impact (Hooper-Greenhill
et al 2004b), and in 2005, a follow-up involved all nine regional museum
hubs (Hooper-Greenhill et al 2006).
The two evaluations of the Learning Impact Research Project looked at
levels of usage and, importantly, through a series of interview and survey
techniques, obtained feedback from teachers and pupils. Particularly
impressive was the number of responses received: a total of 2669 teacher
responses and 47,395 pupil responses across the two studies (Hooper-
Greenhill et al 2004b, 2006).
At the same time, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
and the then Department for Education and Skills (DfES) had co-funded an
education programme called Strategic Commissioning which encouraged
national museums to work with partner museums in the regions. If the focus of
the Renaissance programme was about widening participation, then Strategic
Commissioning was about deepening it. The Research Centre for Museums
and Galleries won the contract to evaluate this programme too. Using broadly
similar techniques, they were able to add a further 503 adults and 9,415
pupils to the database. Some of the findings are summarised below.
• 8 7 per cent agreed that they had learnt some interesting things
• 82 per cent agreed that museums are good places to learn in a
different way to school
• 73 per cent agreed that the visit had given them lots to think about
• 58 per cent agreed that a museum visit makes school work more
inspiring
• 55 per cent agreed that they might visit again. (Hooper-Greenhill et al
2004b)
These results were borne out by ‘testimony’ work carried out directly with
pupils (MLA 2006a, 2006b).
What do these results prove? Scientifically, not very much: we cannot
conclude that any of the pupils involved would perform better in their
assessment tests (SATS; now abolished for 14-year-olds) or GCSE exams.
All the results are based on testimony and opinion, although they are all
impressive in their own right and almost certainly are demonstrative, albeit
not empirically, of a real effect. So, in terms of the question of this chapter,
is this sufficiently instrumental?
The subsequent RCMG survey (Hooper-Greenhill et al 2006) went
further, examining the impact of individual influences on individual schools:
so for one comprehensive school, it appeared that the impact of a history
visit on pupils in a particular class was to elevate their predicted marks for an
assignment by two grades. All very compelling but of course a conclusion
drawn without the possibility of controlling all the other variables at play and
based on one visit, by one class, in one school.
Beyond this, there is interesting data from Renaissance North West
(Renaissance North West 2007, Select Committee on Science and Technology
2007) that claims that the evaluation of a literacy programme has shown that
museum visits have contributed towards enhanced performance, by pupils,
in their standard assessment tests for literacy. The summary publication about
the programme is called Write On, but it is followed by a strapline: ‘How to
use museums and galleries to improve pupils’ literacy’. The second section is
entitled, confidently, ‘How museums improve children’s literacy’.
The study concludes that the result of the particular partnership
programme achieved a 35 per cent increase in pupils’ performance above
Museum Learning 99
the expected levels (Renaissance North West 2007). Is it possible that this
is finally providing us with the direct impact evidence that we crave? Well,
once again, it is technically impossible to isolate all the other variables and
we are dealing with small numbers. A mealy-mouthed sceptic could even
point to the opportunity cost of the pupils engaging in this activity: what if
the pupils had used a library instead? What if they had enjoyed dedicated
time with story-tellers outside a museum context? Perhaps they would have
improved even further!
These circular arguments are pointless! The fact is that the North West
team developed a very successful programme which enjoyed the support of
teachers, advisers, pupils and parents. Given the design and delivery of the
programme, and the way in which it was embraced by its participants, it
would be unlikely not to succeed! As it happens, some compelling evidence
has been produced as well.
The review of the Strategic Commissioning programme (Hooper-Greenhill
et al 2004a) revealed similarly positive results. Furthermore, internal
assessment of these programmes showed their potential. In one instance,
the Natural History Museum worked with regional partners (Tyne & Wear
Museums, the Oxford University Museum, the Manchester Museum and
King’s College, London), to develop new ways of teaching of secondary
science in schools across England (Gay 2007). The project, entitled Real
World Science, and aimed at Key Stage 4 students, was a great success.
One of the key outcomes has been the high proportion of participants
that have indicated that they are more likely to consider a career in science
as a result of participating in the programme (Collins and Lee 2006); while
there is no guarantee that they will follow this through and secure a position
in the sector, surely we can celebrate this positive outcome and response as
a short-term win with long-term potential.
Other Strategic Commissioning projects included varying degrees of
student participation, but in all cases there were high levels of satisfaction.
For example, Tyne & Wear Museums, working with Bristol’s Museums,
Galleries and Archives, commissioned work from AEA Consulting in 2005.
The resulting information has shown that over 90 per cent of 63 people
interviewed felt that they had learned something even three to five years
after their original participation (AEA Consulting 2005).
of MGLI...’ a cynic might well still ask ‘How do you know it was because
of the MGLI?’
This is of course not unique to the museum and gallery sector but if we
continue to search for proof of learning impacts – irrefutable, empirical,
scientific proof – my fear is that we will be disappointed.
This does not mean that I believe that museums and galleries do not
have many, varied, significant and positive impacts on learning – quite
the opposite. It is just that if we try to saddle ourselves with the burden
of proving, for instance, increased educational attainment, we risk tying
ourselves in knots. We merely create a plethora of self-congratulatory and
self-justifying ‘grey’ literature that adds much to our bookshelves but little to
our knowledge and, worse still, creates an impression of a sector lacking
self-confidence and protesting rather too much.
In fact, I believe that there is huge amount of evidence that museums
are effective at promoting, supporting and creating learning. Most of it is
borne out by what learners say, what teachers say, and by their readiness
to engage with museums and galleries to assist them in delivering the hard
outcomes of exam success and demonstrable impact.
To those who say that the evidence is only based on the testimony of the
learners, rather than an objective assessment of their intellectual and cognitive
performance, I would counter that this is not about performance, nor could
it be, because unless we could invent an elaborate control experiment that
could truly disentangle the relative impacts of all different experiences on
learning and, indeed, on capacity to learn, then how will we ever know?
This leads me, finally, back to the proposition that museum learning is
‘not instrumental enough’ and my issue with the word ‘instrumental’. It is, in
my opinion, this obsession with a mechanistic and reductionist approach
that leads us down this intellectual blind alley.
My counter question is: ‘Why instrumental?’ Why are we intent on
discriminating this aspect of the holistic benefits of cultural experience from
any other?
Can we not accept that enriched cultural provision probably does mean
enriched minds and improved learning? How we provide this must, of course,
be the subject of ongoing, deep and longitudinal evaluation. We must
continue to seek to provide excellent experiences for our users in the spirit of
McMaster (2008) and to improve our ‘offer’. We must, equally, never let our
confidence in our potential hoodwink us back into the old elitism.
Above all, we must be prepared to talk to our audiences. We need
to feel what they feel; find out what they want, expect and need; in this
context, we need to listen to what they consider to be our impact.
I would embrace a new empiricism if I believed it truly empirical, but I
do not. I do believe, however, the testimonies that have been collected in all
the studies referenced in this chapter (and many that are not) do represent
overwhelming evidence of the role of museums and galleries in supporting
and enhancing learning.
Indeed, if no one had coined the term ‘instrumental’ then this debate
would probably be unnecessary. And to those who decry testimonial
evidence, I would respectfully suggest that it is rather patronising not to trust
Museum Learning 101
the opinions of our audiences; after all, if they believe that they have learned
something, then it is fair to assume that they probably have!
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my friends and colleagues Jocelyn Dodd, Morag
Macpherson, Andrew Newman and Sue Wilkinson for helpful conversations
in the development of this chapter. I would also like to pay tribute to the
work of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of
Leicester and particularly that of Eilean Hooper-Greenhill upon whose work
I have drawn heavily. The opinions expressed in this chapter are, however,
mine alone.
References
AEA Consulting (2005) Social Impact Programme Assessment Tyne & Wear Museums and
Bristol’s Museums, Galleries and Archives (unpublished)
Appleton J (2001) ‘Museums for “The People”’, in Appleton J (ed) Museums for “The People”
London: Academy of Ideas
Arts Council England (2006) The Power of Art, Visual Arts: Evidence of Impact London: ACE
Barrie D (2001) in Appleton J (ed) Museums for the People, London, Academy of Ideas
Burns Owen Partnership (2005) New Directions in Social Policy: developing the evidence
base for museums, libraries and archives in England. London: Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council
Coles A (2009) ‘Instrumental death of a reductionist’ Cultural Trends 68 17 (4) pp. 329-
334
Collins S and Lee A (2006) How Can Natural Science Museums Support Secondary Science
Teaching and Learning? London: DCMS
Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Education and Employment
(2000) The Learning Power of Museums: A Vision for Museum Education. London.
DCMS
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2003) Every Child Matters Green Paper London:
TSO
Gay H (2007) Making Science Exciting in A Global Agenda: Natural History Museum Annual
Review 2005-06 London: Trustees of the Natural History Museum
Gould H and Wood C (Ed.) (2004) Where are they now? The Impact of Museums and
Galleries Lifelong Learning Initiative London: Campaign for Learning in Museums and
Galleries
Holden J (2004) Capturing Cultural Value London: Demos
Holden J (2006) Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy London: Demos
Hooper-Greenhill E (2002) Developing a scheme for finding evidence of the outcomes and
impact of learning in museums, archives and libraries: the conceptual framework RCMG
internal document
Hooper-Greenhill E (2007) Museums and Education: Purpose, Pedagogy and Performance
Abingdon: Routledge
Hooper-Greenhill E, Dodd J, Phillips M, Jones C, Woodward J and O’Riain H (2004a)
Inspiration, identity, learning: the value of museums. The evaluation of DCMS/DfES Strategic
Commissioning 2003-2004: National/Regional Museum Partnerships Leicester: RCMG
102 Learning to Live
The answer to this question might seem obvious: besides the fact that young
people have as much right as anyone else to visit museums, they can enjoy
and learn from the experience, as illustrated by these comments from young
people visiting Swindon Museum and Art Gallery:
‘I have never laughed so much – if all history could be taught like this it
would be fantastic.’
A social commitment
In the past, learning in museums often implied supporting schools’ visits to
museums and focusing on a knowledge-based approach. However, research
into learning processes by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries
(RCMG) at the University of Leicester and others has helped show that museum
learning is actually much broader than that and often includes providing
inspiration, altering attitudes and developing motivation to learn more later,
as well as knowledge and skills. It is also clear that different people learn
in different ways, perhaps through listening, reading, practical activity, or
through solving problems (Gardner 1996) and that they will also be interested
in different subjects and in learning different things. Thus, many museums have
taken on the challenge, through careful planning and research, to offer wider
learning opportunities to a wider range of audiences.
Many professionals in museums are also now addressing social
inclusion, exploring ways for museums to ‘engage with and impact upon
social inequality, disadvantage and discrimination’ (Sandell 2007: 96).
There is an increasing desire for a shared professional and institutional
responsibility to respond to local community need. Some museums, Sandell
suggests, have resisted this change through their desire for autonomy and
have thus become disengaged from society and its concerns. However, an
acknowledgement of the potential to contribute to social change can bring
exciting challenges and possibilities.
Working towards social inclusion does not imply that combating
inequality becomes the sole aim of museums, nor are they alone in tackling
it (Sandell 2007). New government policy has focused on embedding
social inclusion within many public institutions including museums, although
some have criticised this for its short-term political objectives and leading to
museums becoming tools of government. However, others suggest that there
needs to be a paradigm shift in thinking so that museum principles are in
Why Young People? 105
step with society and its values (for example, Hein in Sandell 2007). Such a
social responsibility requires an acknowledgement of the ‘meaning-making
potential of the museum and an imperative to utilise that to positive social
ends’ (Sandell 2007: 108).
Setting suitable objectives helps to refine the project’s focus and is also
essential to assessing and reporting the full impact of any intervention.
Qualitative approaches to evaluation are key to capturing individual
experiences and providing a rich picture of what happened. Evaluation
needs to address weaker aspects of the project, and to look beyond the
short term, which Pontin, in Lang et al (2006), says has lacked in many
projects in the past. Evaluation needs to be more rigorous and to consider
anomalies as well as successes, and, critically, to find out more about
the longer-term impact, which although difficult to measure provides a
greater understanding of the true impact on audiences, their attitudes and
visiting patterns.
For example, through interviews with members of an outreach
programme at the Museum of London, 20 per cent of whom were under
25 years old, Information Officer Lucie Fitton found that the long-term
impact showed a change in attitude and values as well as skills (personal
communication with the author). The young people reported a positive
change in attitude towards themselves and others, as well as towards
museums, and improved social and communication skills, and confidence.
It was apparent that they valued the long-term social impacts of the
programme most highly, which illustrates that the less easily evaluated
areas were most referenced by the respondents.
Evaluation of projects should where possible consider project
management, too. Building relationships with both partners and those
participating in projects is important to gather a full picture and to contribute
to ideas within the profession about best practice.
Why Young People? 107
Realising Potential, a report from the Campaign for Learning and the
Foyer Federation (Maxted 1999), adds that at a management level there
is a need for clear objectives, sustainability, strong leadership, and good
partnerships. Senior management in museums need to prioritise audience
development work, making sure funding and staff are available. They need
to ensure that museum policy prioritises its commitment to inclusion. Short-
term funding often fails to provide such long-term commitment unless it is a
planned element within a longer-term development programme. Relying on
the commitment of individual staff is not enough.
Planning exit strategies for the end of a project is essential but often
forgotten. Will the young people be ‘abandoned’ after the project finishes?
How can they continue to be included even though funding has ended?
How are other young people going to be attracted? How does the museum
intend to change to make this possible? In Birmingham, Represent started
the museum service on a long path of improving its services and attracting
wider audiences from communities throughout the city. The recent temporary
Hair exhibition held at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, for example,
originally developed by a community action panel, has attracted new
visitors and in particular a significant number of young people. Recent
changes have also been made to staffing and staff structures to support new
audience work. It is this longer-term commitment to changing the museum
itself that is essential.
Conclusions
Museums, in designing projects for young people, need to work with skilled
partners, plan carefully and with consultation, and be flexible and open to
new approaches. Crucially, they must have a desire to respect, believe in and
enjoy the young people. This takes us back to the philosophy underpinning
the museum and its senior management, which needs to become a more
central element of policy enabling museums to become better equipped
to develop inclusive programmes. Management needs to consider how
the museum sees itself within its own community. What is the museum’s
overall mission? How does attracting new audiences complement the more
traditional audience base and how will success be defined? The success of
the projects described here did not depend on the size of museum, budget
or scale of project but on the commitment of the staff, having realistic goals,
and strong partnerships.
Below is a summary of the key factors for success, as suggested here
and elsewhere (Rider and Bates 2004):
• Developing partnerships with those who have the skills and experience
of working with young people and are interested in participant
development using a variety of approaches
• Taking time to recruiting the participants; working with a partner can
be very useful. Working with only a small group is likely to be more
manageable and productive
• Developing a style of interaction that treats participants like adults and
Why Young People? 111
takes time to get to know them. Their advice on the programme and
its development should be sought and adaptations made to suit their
needs, whether it is timings of meetings, or the need to stop for regular
refreshment breaks
• W
orking out how to continue contact once the project is over and
ensuring it finishes with some kind of celebration or certificate of success
• M
aking sure the project is a museum priority, with time and money
dedicated to making it work.
Those projects that do not follow this approach are likely to find the process
harder and more stressful. The young people may not engage as extensively
and the long-term goals for the museum may be less reachable. The extent
to which the young people participate will also depend on many other more
personal factors and these are often much more difficult to control. Using a
reflective action research approach to evaluation as the project develops
will help make it responsive to the young people’s needs and interests.
Whether or not museums are able to successfully build new audiences
through offering specially focused project work to young people will not
be evidenced for many years to come. In the mean time developing our
understanding of what museums can offer, breaking down barriers and
understanding best practice through evaluation and research will help us
establish a closer relationship with tomorrow’s adults. There is a need to work
together to make sure future communities still value their heritage and their
museums and have a greater role in making sure they continue. Museums
will have to become genuinely involved in engaging with the community
agenda and offering what they want. Success in working with young
people and other groups will depend on whether those that run and work
in museums believe that they should be exclusive or inclusive organisations
(Lang 2006) and whether museum workers have positive attitudes towards
others, finding common interest in a joint heritage.
References
Drisko J W (1997) ‘Strengthening Qualitative studies and reports standards to promote
academic integrity’, Journal of Social Work Education, Vol 33, No 1
Gardner H (1996) ‘Multiple Intelligences’ in Durbin G (ed) Developing Museum Exhibitions for
Lifelong Learning Gillingham, Kent: Group for Education in Museums
Lang C (2006) ‘The Public Access Debate’ in Lang C, Reeve J and Woollard V (eds) The
Responsive Museum: Working with audiences in the twenty-first century Farnham, Surrey:
Ashgate
Maxted P (1999) Realising Potential, helping homeless and disenchanted young people back
into learning Campaign for Learning/Foyer Federation
Morris G, Hargreaves J and McIntyre A (2002) Start with the Child: The Needs and Motivations
of Young People, lateralthinkers.com
Pontin K (2001, unpublished) Represent: An Evaluation report for an inclusion project run by
Birmingham Museum Service, available at www.katepontin.co.uk/REPBRUM.pdf
Pontin K and Hawthorne E (n.d.) Museum Fever and Represent, lessons for working with young
people in museums, Resource, West Midlands Regional Museums Council and NWMS
112 Learning to Live
Rider S and Bates L (eds) (2004) Opening the Doors, Museums and Young People Hitchin,
Herts: Opening the Doors
Sandell R (2007) ‘Museums and the Combating of Social Inequality: roles, responsibilities,
resistance’ in Watson S (ed) Museums and their communities, Oxford: Routledge
Woollard V (2006) ‘UK Museum and Gallery Visitor Figures’, in Lang C, Reeve J and Woollard
V (eds) The Responsive Museum, working with audiences in the twenty-first century Farnham,
Surrey: Ashgate
12. Science, Learning,
Museums and Young
People
Jean M. Franczyk and Alexandra Burch
‘Then there were our trips to the Science Museum in South Kensington.
What a wonderful place that was, and still is! Photoelectric cells and
calculating machines, pulleys and radio valves – I didn’t understand
much of it, but I loved it all. It meant excitement and wonder and
amazement; it meant the sense that anything was possible, and that
the Universe was huge and full of exciting things to discover.’ Philip
Pullman (2007)22
technology have created the lifestyles we enjoy today and they are the tools
we will use to address the global problems those lifestyles have created.
Yet at the very time at which there is a great need for scientific literacy
among future generations, there remains a drop-off in interest in school
science as students move to secondary school and a decrease in the number
of students opting to take up science subjects at an advanced level in the
UK (The Royal Society 2008). Why is it that young people are disengaging
from science when its influence is all around them? It can be argued that all
children start out as scientists – testing, observing, and analysing their world
– and research suggests that throughout the early primary school years,
children express a strong interest in science. However, interest in school
science tends to wane towards the end of primary school and then drops off
precipitously by secondary school (Porter and Parvin 2007).
There is a range of research documenting this phenomenon, as well as
evidence that it is out-of-school experiences, interests and influences that are
key determinants in sustaining an interest in science. The highlights of this
research, from a variety of sources, show:
This declining student interest in science has led government to support and
initiate policies that ensure future generations are prepared to make sense of
our ever-changing world, create solutions to global challenges such as climate
change, and remain competitive in an increasingly interconnected world. For
young people, the most significant of these initiatives are the new science
curriculum at Key Stage 4, the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics) initiative, including Project ENTHUSE (a £30m fund to
improve science teaching, a partnership between industry, government and
the Wellcome Trust) and the national and regional Science Learning Centres
which support teachers’ professional development in science.
The above initiatives have been based in the formal education sector.
However, research shows that society’s attitudes towards science can
have a profound influence on young people. For example, the Sjøberg
2006/ROSE (Relevance of Science Education Project) report (Jenkins and
Pell 2006) showed that there was a negative correlation between student
attitudes to school science and a nation’s wealth. Jonathan Osborne (2007),
in discussing the implications of the ROSE findings, has argued that attitudes
to science are deeply cultural and this must be recognised when addressing
declining student interest in science study and STEM careers.
In other research, there is evidence that the attitudes of adults closest
to young people also have an influence. For example, we at the Science
Museum, London, have generally found that for adults science can be
Science, Learning, Museums and Young People 115
When we talk about young people and science learning we tend to think
of school as the primary learning environment. However, Bransford (2006)
suggests that 85 per cent of our learning hours are spent outside of formal
school environments, even during our most intensive years of schooling.
Museums form part of that vast learning landscape that exists outside of
school. While school visits to museums are important, they are far from the
only way museums welcome young people. In fact, a museum’s greatest
potential for impact is when young people visit in non-school groups. For
example, while the Science Museum, London, annually receives more than
320,000 visitors in booked education groups, this is only 12 per cent of its
overall audience of 2.7 million. By far the largest number of young people
visit in family24 groups which comprise 47 per cent of the Science Museum’s
audience (The Science Museum 2008).
In family-type groups the influence of accompanying adults is potentially
greater than in school groups, not least because the ratio of adults to children
tends to be one-to-one and is rarely greater than one-to-three while it is
anywhere between one-to-eight and one-to-fifteen with booked education
visitors. Adults in family groups are also more likely to know the children
in their charge and are thus more able to connect to the young visitors’
prior knowledge and experience. Within these smaller family groups, there
is greater opportunity for the adults to scaffold information to children, to
reinforce the reflective nature of the museum learning experience, and relate
the subject matter to day-to-day life, all of which serves to extend the impact
of the experience well beyond the length of the visit. These family learning
experiences form an important part of the Engagement leg of Jolly’s ‘Trilogy
for Student Success’.
Museums are places where visitors of all ages and backgrounds can
engage together with a topic, where they develop interest and motivation
to learn more that can be transferred to formal learning environments that
build Capacity and provide Continuity. And while museums have a role to
play in Capacity and Continuity, they perhaps have the greatest role to play
in Engagement. As seen from the arguments presented above, the attitudes
of students to school science can be negative and that of their parents,
teachers and carers can have a large influence. Why is it, for instance, that
in the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
(Sturman et al 2008) researchers found that England’s 10- and 14-year-
olds’ exam performance had improved while their enjoyment of science
simultaneously declined?
In addition, teachers find themselves constrained by the framework of
the National Curriculum and report not being able to do ‘practicals’ due to
time, health and safety concerns and the emphasis on examination areas
(Dillon 2008), and that their students find it hard to relate what is done in
the classroom to the outside world (Porter and Parvin 2007). The Learning
Outside the Classroom Manifesto (managed by the CfBT Education Trust
24 By family group we mean
on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families) does much
any intergenerational group
comprised of a mix of adults and
to assuage these concerns but it is too early to tell if the Manifesto itself
children, excluding those visiting has increased the number of beyond-the-classroom learning experiences
in booked education groups. available to young people.
Science, Learning, Museums and Young People 117
A 2008 Ipsos MORI poll showed that 79 per cent of physics teachers
regret the lack of opportunities for children to learn outside the classroom and
51 per cent said there were too few opportunities for hands-on experiments
in the classroom. Science museums are unique learning environments which
can provide access to real objects and phenomena, and opportunities
for self-directed and cooperative learning. They place an emphasis on
discovery, exploration and intergenerational learning opportunities, and
often provide the motivational hook into a subject that comes before
acquisition of advanced knowledge and skill. Therefore they can provide
the type of learning experiences that often cannot be provided in school and
they can effectively cater for a range of different learning style preferences
and outcomes. Science learning with museums therefore complements the
formal learning sector and addresses cultural attitudes to science.
A January 2009 report from the US National Research Council (Bell et
al 2009) supports these findings and concludes that informal environments,
including museums, science centres, zoos, aquariums, and environmental
centres, promote science learning through experiences that ‘kick-start’ and
sustain long-term interests that involve sophisticated learning for adults
and young people. The report indicates that structured non-school science
programmes can feed or stimulate the science-specific interests of adults and
children and may positively influence academic achievement for students
and expand participants’ sense of future science career options. It also notes
that participation in informal learning experiences can significantly improve
outcomes for individuals from groups historically underrepresented in science
and further concludes that these experiences can promote informed civic
engagement on science-related issues.
At the Science Museum, London, the UK’s science collection puts
science research, discovery and application into an historical, social,
artistic, personal, and scientific context. The application of science and its
influence on society is on display in a manner that welcomes audiences of
all ages and backgrounds to enjoy science. In enjoying it, we can explore
it, aim to understand it, and support its advancement and application for
the betterment of people and our planet. In this way, we can show directly
the relevance of science for society both through its past impact on people,
society and the environment, and through its future potential.
The question then becomes what role does ‘enjoyment’ of science
have in learning science, and, potentially, in addressing national concern
about the numbers of young people choosing to pursue advanced science
studies and careers? Consider the Science Museum’s newly redeveloped
Launchpad – the hands-on interactive physics gallery. When we started the
project, we knew from previous research that there was a perception of
science as remote and something that is done by other people. The intent of
the gallery, therefore, was to:
By design, the gallery bridges primary and secondary school audiences, the
very transition point at which interest in science declines, and is aimed at 8- to
14-year-olds and their accompanying adults. The new Launchpad, opened in
November 2007 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is a sophisticated, bright,
beautiful and active space and welcomed 1.2 million visitors in its first year.
However, it is not just that this gallery is popular. Evaluation by Teixeira and
Burch (2007) has shown it to deliver on the objectives above, in particular:
• E
njoyment, inspiration and creativity: evidence showed that visitors
found the Launchpad experience enjoyable and left them feeling that
science could be ‘fun’. Launchpad fostered visitors’ confidence to try
things out without fear of getting things wrong, and it was clear that
visitors felt a sense of achievement from their interactions with the exhibits.
• Action, behaviour and progression: visitors were observed sharing
and discussing ideas, questions and experiences. Parents were
observed actively supporting their children’s interactions and thus
helping them to learn.
All of these outcomes are about building an interest in the subject matter. It
is clear that provision of this type of experience fulfils the Engagement leg
of Jolly’s ‘Trilogy for Student Success’. And it is clear from talking to young
people, parents and teachers that this sort of provision is welcomed and
wanted. Furthermore, these types of outcomes are not restricted to interactive
displays and hands-on experiences. Our evidence shows that similar levels
of engagement with difficult science subjects can be achieved through
object-rich spaces, such as the Science Museum’s ‘Challenge of Materials’,
about chemistry and material science, and ‘Who am I?’ about biomedical
science, and with visitors of all ages.
When developing Launchpad, the Science Museum did not set out to
create a gallery that people would leave with a comprehensive knowledge
of physics. That is not the purpose of the gallery and it is not the purpose
of a museum. The purpose is to engage people with the content, to trigger
an interest that has not yet been tapped into and to act as a springboard to
motivate visitors to delve deeper into these subjects themselves. Museums’
strengths lie in their difference from formal schooling. With that difference
they can complement the school experience and strengthen the broader
net of cultural support for any subject, but particularly for science. When
this is done we have consistently found it appreciated by our audiences:
independent adults, teachers, parents and young people. Therefore, while
we want policymakers to recognise the power of out-of-school activities like
these, they should not seek to make them more school-like.
Conclusions
Museums play an important role in science learning for young people. But
for the potential of that role to be realised fully, the following things need
to happen:
1. S
cience needs to be recognised as part of ‘culture’. This would bring in
science from the fringe, encourage broader engagement with science,
challenge the negative stereotypes of science, and open new avenues
for engagement, funding and resourcing.
not just about school group visits to museums – and ensure that science is
a part of major initiatives like Find Your Talent, that support for Learning
Outside the Classroom continues, and that young people’s participation
in informal learning experiences has a recognised value in the eyes of
qualification and degree-granting institutions.
3. It is clear that engagement matters and that it is essential for learning.
When it comes to science there must be positive engagement at young
ages and it is vital that we invest in young people and the activities
that will encourage their interest in science – not simply replicate the
classroom experience.
4. To make a museum a truly valuable learning experience for young people
we must also support the adults who visit with them by understanding and
designing intergenerational learning experiences.
References
Bell P, Lewenstein B, Shouse AW, and Feder MA (eds) (2009) Learning Science in Informal
Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits Committee on Learning Science in Informal
Environments, National Research Council
Bransford JD (2006) ‘Toward a 21st Century Learning Theory: Some emerging thoughts’ Paper
presented at the Annual Conference of the National Association for Research in Science
Teaching, San Francisco
Burch A and Gammon B (2001) The Summative evaluation of ‘who am i?’ Gallery Audience
Research and Advocacy Group: Learning, London: Science Museum
Crowley K, Callanan MA, Tenenbaum HR and Allen E (2001) ‘Parents explain more often to
boys than to girls during shared scientific thinking’ Psychological Science, vol. 12
Dillon J (2008) A Review of the Research on Practical Work in School Science London: Kings
College
Gribbin M and Gribbin J (2007) The science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Laurel-Leaf
Books
Ipsos MORI (2008) ‘Research with physics teachers (in support of the Launchpad Outreach
Programme launch) for the Science Museum and Shell’, available at www.sciencemuseum.
org.uk/about_us/press_and_media/press_releases/2008/03/science_museum_shell_
survey.aspx
Jarvis T and Pell A (2005) ‘Factors Influencing elementary school children’s attitudes toward
Science before, during, and after a vistit to the UK National Space Centre’ Journal of
Research in Science Teaching, vol 42
Jenkins EW and Pell RG (2006) The relevance of science education project (ROSE) in England:
a summary of findings Leeds: Centre for Studies in Science and Mathematics Education,
University of Leeds
Science, Learning, Museums and Young People 121
Jolly EJ, Campbell PB and Perlman L (2004) Engagement, Capacity and Continuity: A Trilogy
for Student Success GE Foundation Report
Osborne J (2007) Engaging young people with science: thoughts about future direction of
science education. Paper presented at Linnaeus tercentenary 2007 symposium ‘Promoting
scientific literacy’, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Porter C and Parvin J (2007) Learning to love science: Harnessing children’s scientific
imagination. York: Chemical Industry Education Centre, University of York
Royal Society, The (2008) Science and mathematics education, 14-19. A ‘state of the nation’
report on the participation and attainment of 14-19 year olds in science and mathematics
in the UK, 1996-2007 London: The Royal Society
Science Museum Visitor Research Group (2004) Naked Science. Evaluation of 18 months of
contemporary science events London: The Science Museum
Science Museum, The (2008) Science Museum Visitor Profile 2007-2008 London: The Science
Museum
Sturman L, Ruddock G, Burge B, Styles B, Lin Y and Vappula H (2008) England’s Achievement
in TIMSS 2007: National Report for England Slough: National Foundation for Educational
Research
‚
Tai RH, Liu CQ, Maltese AV and Fan X (2006) Planning early for careers in science’ Science,
vol 312
Teixeira T and Burch A (2007) The summative evaluation of ‘Launchpad’. Audience Research
and Advocacy Group: Learning London: Science Museum
TWResearch (1998) Summative evaluation of ‘Challenge of Materials’ London: Science
Museum, London
13. Creating a
Learning Adventure
Mick Waters
Most young people respond well to learning about these issues. They are
interested in themselves, their community, their society and their world. They
want to know about the influences that have shaped our world, why we
have developed as we have and they want to do something about it. The
development of the work on Curriculum Dimensions is an open door for
anyone involved in ‘out-and-about learning’.
The gauntlet has been taken up by museums, libraries and archives
across the country. Bristol Museum, for example, has used the ‘big picture’
thinking as a basis for planning its new building and is working closely with
schools in the area to design valuable, ongoing, structured experiences for
schools to exploit.
delight in the make-believe miniature books about the Ashanti tribe further
brought to life in the novel by E Nesbit. How many children have made
miniature books about their own lives? The National Football Museum at
Preston will stoke the imagination of many a child who believes the world of
sport awaits. And what child, or adult, enters the Keswick Museum without
trying to play a tune on the slate xylophone?
People stand enthralled at the ancient texts and scriptures at the British
Library. As they realise that they can request a copy of any book published in
England, they start to understand what archiving means. To see the big events
reported differently in the newspapers of the day helps young people to see
the way information is mediated. Years later, the scholar poring over medieval
texts in the Rylands Museum in Manchester has a touchstone for judging
authenticity, not just of the manuscript but of the content of the writing.
The excellent publication and exhibition, ‘1001 Muslim Inventions’ (Al-
Hassani 2007) provides a travelling museum. The opportunity for people to
see, consider and wonder about the way in which cultures have influenced
civilisation affects community cohesion, developing respect for identities and
diversity. History is comparative as well as narrative. Exhibitions of Egyptian
pharoahs, alongside Chinese dynasties and Aztec rulers, show different
perspectives on the pace of invention, ritual and social change.
And careers? Underneath it all, we need to constantly emphasise to
young people that their learning can lead to something. Being explicit about
careers is vital. For too long, teaching has left the link between learning and
the world of work to the careers teacher to offer information, advice and
guidance. To make explicit to Primary aged children and to teenagers that
there is a wealth of jobs behind the world of out-and-about learning is part of
the fun of teaching. From marine archaeologist, to photographer, surveyor,
cartographer and conservationist, an educational visit offers a chance
to dwell on the job being seen. To meet the curator, the tour guide, the
administrator is to meet the team behind the scene. A few minutes on where
the interest started, what the training was and why the work is fascinating
could open a door that a youngster did not know was there.
What of knowledge? In this move to a curriculum that is designed to be
coherent for the learner, there is a belief by some that ‘knowledge is out’.
Knowledge can never be ‘out’. We cannot make much progress without
knowledge and museums, libraries and archives are built on the resource
of accumulated knowledge. It is the way that knowledge is used in learning
that is changing.
Learners should see themselves as producers rather than consumers
of knowledge. We need to leave behind the ‘swallow and spit’ outlook
to the use of knowledge in learning. Youngsters need to see knowledge
being demonstrated and used in many modes, from print to images, sound,
photographs, body shape, pictures, websites, charts and models. Museums,
galleries, archives and libraries ooze with this multi-modal knowledge. The
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, the film
archive at the University of East Anglia, the maps of wartime Britain at
Disraeli’s home, Hughenden Manor, in Buckinghamshire, or the Bletchley
Park collection of code cracking by Alan Turing and colleagues are examples
126 Learning to Live
same questions and they make links between what they are seeing and other
examples from their previous experience… and they say the same things.
Lifelong learning is about whetted appetites. Through technology, we
can take a virtual visit to NASA, go inside an Egyptian pyramid and take
part in a tour of the Alhambra. The thousands of people who visit the Great
Wall or the Tomb of the Terracotta Warriors are trying to piece together
their learning journey through civilisation. Robyn Island teaches about
incarceration, determination, and resilience as much as it teaches about
Mandela and Apartheid. This interest in museums, libraries and archives,
and other out-and-about learning is a worldwide and lifelong endeavour…
it is a learning adventure. We want our young to join the club.
References
Al-Hassani S T S (2007) 1001 Inventions: Muslim Heritage in Our World, 2nd Edition,
London: FSTC
CLMG (The Campaign for Learning Through Museums and Galleries) (2006) Culture Shock:
Tolerance, Respect, Understanding…and Museums Bude: CLMG
Ofsted (2008) Learning outside the classroom London: Ofsted
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (2008) ‘A big picture of the curriculum’, available at
www.qca.org.uk/libraryAssets/media/Big_Picture_2008.pdf
‘The past decade has seen a revolution in museum education. Museums have
Learning to Live
Museums, young people and education
edited by Kate Bellamy and Carey Oppenheim
national
museum
directors’
conference
ISBN 9781860303241
£14.95