Debunking Myths

 

Mayer’s article, Looking Outside the Frame: “Demythtifying” Museum education, is all about shaking up our preconceptions on what a museum trip should be. Educators both in schools and in museums should read this article, because the myths that are getting debunked exemplify my typical museum trip growing up. Throughout my years in the school system, I visited many museums both with teachers and with parents; when reading this article I found many of Mayer’s points very enlightening.

The first of which being that you are actually allowed to talk above a whisper; going through museums I would often find several paintings that I wanted to discuss but was silenced as if I was screaming during the presidents inaugural address. I was told to always whisper in museums to respect others, who at the time were in deep thought; like Mayer I always thought that it was beneficial to hear others thoughts on paintings, but sadly, I think I was before my time. I remember a teacher once telling us that if we thought we were talking normally, that we were probably too loud, and that it was best to keep our thoughts to ourselves until we were outside the museum. Of course by the time we actually got outside all of us had forgotten what we had been thinking and when asked if we had any questions, just politely stared back saying nothing of value. As a result we gained nothing from the experience except downloading a blur of art work that made no conceptual sense.

 Another thing I found myself doing towards the high school years was trying to answer questions that “had no wrong answer” with the right one. Let’s be honest here, we have all had those teachers that have promoted answering questions by saying that they had no wrong answer, to only go back on that and correct a student’s statement or painfully search for better answers with the classic  prompt “anyone else want to add to that?” I feel like it has become a norm among not only the museum educators but in the everyday art room as well. While it is true that some questions only have one correct answer like 2+2=4, but it is often the case in the art world that many of our questions have no true answers and I think we as educators need to realize that.

This also fishtails into another myth Mayer debunks in her article that while museum educators and docents may be well trained, are they necessarily right? To answer I will tie this question in with another myth; some museum educators think their visitors are not knowledgeable in the art world. This is often the complete opposite. People who come into the museum often have a great interest in the art world or in the case of school groups they are learning about art in their classrooms. Museum educators should keep an open mind about what is right and wrong in relation to the art. Museums should closely resemble a cooperative learning environment rather a stale environment where facts should be spouted at the patrons. Museums should inspire ideas or pose questions within the work they chose to display and how they go about explaining that work. I have attached a video of a school museum visit created by The Art Institute of Chicago that is meant to be from the perspective of the students; given what I have just said does this video accurately portray the students or do museum educator’s preconceptions show through?

References

 

Art Institute of Chicago. (November 17, 2009). For Educators: Your Museum Visit. Retrieved from   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3G85Umn4Js 

Center for the Future of Museums. (2012). Word Cloud. [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html  

 

Mayer, M. (2012). Looking Outside the Frame: “Demythtifying” Museum education. Art Education. pages 15-18.