Recenty we ran a special program. Over 170 year 7 students from a local school were booked in to find out how museums present history through a museum display. So Deb, Linda and I tweaked our Interpreting the Museum program to suit the year group and numbers. Normally we only run it for years 9–12 and for a maximum of 30 students at a time. However, we education officers love a challenge and it gave us an opportunity to think about the core aims of the program (important with the Australian Curriculum as the wild-card on the horizon). So we went for broke and decided to run the program for all 170+ students at once to make sure they all got the same message at the same time.
‘Interpreting the Museum’ is always an enjoyable program to run because students get to look at the inner workings of a museum (given my last blog, right now is a particularly appropriate time to be running such a program) and to see things that other students might not normally notice. For instance:
- How are those objects fixed in that position?
- Why do people notice one object more than another? It could be because of the light shining on it, its position in the display, or simply that it is the biggest object there.
Any visitor can find out what story a particular display tells. But they may not question why and how the story is told in that way, and why those objects are used to tell the story and not others.
In order to modify the program to suit year 7 we simplified it to the core aims. Year 7 are still pretty straightforward in their thinking. We demonstrated how a story can be added to and altered by the objects used and their position in the display. We were very lucky to have the services of Anne-Marie, a senior curator from the Landmarks gallery which is currently being developed. Anne-Marie gave a great talk to the students about the challenges of creating not just a new display but a whole new gallery. She also gave insights into the practical concerns of mounting a display, for instance, how do you install a 1.5m kangaroo specimen into a glass case so that it won’t fall over at inopportune moments?
When there are 170 students doing a program all at once it is important for the program to be highly organised. We had a schedule written out to account for every last minute. Extending a program beyond its normal limits in terms of the year group we offer it to, and then compounding the degree of difficulty by dramatically increasing the number of students involve, can put us into seriously deep water. At the beginning of such a program we are a bit like surfers paddling out beyond the break waiting for a wave. Are we going to get the perfect wave to ride – to dance over the water until we reach the shore safely, or will we be dumped?
It was like surfing the perfect wave. Everything came together: the teachers and students were prepared and interested, there were very high standards of student behaviour (and an expectation of that, from the teachers), the program and shedule flowed smoothly and the museum was filled with the buzz of students who were really engaged with the activity. I had students bounce up to me announcing with glee: “We found the kangaroo! We looked over the balcony at the new gallery and we saw it!” I’d repeat that, any day.
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