At the Bergen Museum in Norway, a group of children are building a city hall without physical performances. Masons are moving stones from the quarry, and carpenters on the other side are picking and cutting wood. They have a clear division of labor and close cooperation, and everything is going on in an orderly and unhurried way.
Wendy James entered the meeting, and the teacher introduced to the children that this was a guest from England. She can't speak your language, but it doesn't matter. You can work together.
So Wendy joined the construction team. She moved the air stone and built the air house with the children.
This is a role-playing museum course. In this way, children studying in the museum can better understand the exhibition area and thus understand the history of their country. Wendy James, as the initiator of the project "I went to primary school in a museum", came to visit the overseas achievements of the project.
"I can hardly believe what I saw. These children are really' building' something! " In an interview with Southern Weekend, Wendy James smiled and used gestures to restore the children's house-building actions at that time.
The project "I go to primary school in a museum" originated from 20 16 in Britain. It was put forward by Wendy James and undertaken by the Institute of Culture of King's College London, sending kindergartens and primary school students to museums for daily courses.
The background of the origin of the project includes: in recent years, the society hopes that primary and secondary schools can provide more innovative, flexible and participatory education for young children, but the school space is seriously insufficient; Museums have always hoped to cultivate loyal and diversified audiences.
Wendy James, who advises students to take classes in museums, is not a teacher or museum worker, but an architect with many years of experience.
When interviewed by Southern Weekend in April, 2002/KLOC-0, she was still working at home, with her back against the windowsill and dressed in a simple sports style. With short hair and deep eyes with European brand, she always raises her tone when talking about projects and achievements in interviews, telling them together with gestures, and her dark green pupils are glowing.
Now, this project has landed in many countries, and the "center" of project development and coordination in Britain has also been undertaken by oxford brookes university, "it has a new home". Wendy is a consultant to the teacher training steering group in this project.
One of the first pilot projects of "I go to primary school in a museum" is the cooperation between Kensington Children's Center of Life Bank and Tate Liverpool Art Museum. One day, a little boy who had never spoken in class spoke for the first time and asked the children around him a question.
The child who was asked was surprised: "Wow, you know my name!"
Mary Harper, executive director of Kensington Children's Care Center of Life Bank, described this scene when summing up the project. Many children have improved their self-confidence and social skills.
In the museum, children will be interested in different exhibits and discuss them in small groups. In some projects, children will eat in the small restaurant of the museum, and some children from backward families will be exposed to table manners for the first time. ...
"After the project, all the children became adults," Wendy said with a smile.
In the pilot stage, "I attend primary school in the museum" promoted three experimental projects, involving students ranging in age from three to four to five. The duration of the three events is positively related to the age of students:
Children aged 3-4 (from Kensington Children's Center of Life Bank) attend classes at Tate Liverpool Gallery for two weeks. Two groups of children aged 4-5 (from St. Thomas Community Primary School) spent five weeks in the British National Seaside Museum. Grade five students (from Hadrian Primary School) completed a semester (three months) of study in the Roman Castle and Museum in Albia, South shields.
Wendy has worked with museums before, and it is not too difficult to contact them for this project. It is difficult to communicate with teachers, who will worry that the environment of the museum can't bear the classroom, lack the corresponding digital teaching system, and children will have safety and management problems in the museum. ...
In the process of coordination and communication, the principal of the school can always see the potential benefits of the project and give permission. When the project is about the second week, the teachers who are uneasy at the beginning will relax and even follow Wendy to preach in Norway.
During the project acceptance and evaluation, the team of "Heritage Insider" consulting company visited various project areas on the spot and interviewed a large number of museums, schools, students, parents and other related people.
The evaluation results show that the project first opened the eyes of these children, made them lively, got to know the museum and liked it. Secondly, children's understanding of museums can be fed back to their parents, which also increases their understanding of museums.
Different children will be interested in different exhibits in the same museum. Many children regard the museum as their home after the first week of classes and look forward to next week. At the same time, when they come home from class, they will share their experiences with their parents with great interest, take their parents to visit the museum on weekends and explain the knowledge of the museum to them on the spot.
Song Jiang, a domestic museum expert, mentioned in Why We Must Take Children to Museums that one of the functions of museums is to educate the public and educate children of different groups and ages in museums.
Children will not be too young to understand the "adult world". When telling a class of children in grade two of primary school about art history, Song Jiang once asked them to observe a famous painting quietly and give their first impression. For the Mona Lisa prepared by Song Jiang, no one can tell the children who painted it and where it was collected. However, when discussing their own impressions, they will tell the key points in the painting: "The smile is mysterious", "The scenery in the background is foggy" and "The hand painting is beautiful".
On March 20, 2020, Britain imposed a blockade because of the epidemic, closing schools and opening them only to the children of workers in some basic industries and those in need. A famous charity warned that "a whole generation of young people" may be deprived of education during the blockade of COVID-19 due to the lack of online learning resources.
In May 2020, the British Institute of Education conducted a survey of more than 4,000 parents of 4- 15-year-old children, showing that children from wealthy families spend far more time studying at home than children from poor families. During the 34-day school suspension, the richest children have studied more than the poor children for seven whole days.
To make matters worse, according to estimates by the British Communications Authority, 9% of British children don't have computers, laptops or tablets at home. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, only 5 1% of the families with an annual income of 6000- 10000 have access to the Internet. Among families earning more than 40,000 pounds a year, the proportion is 99%.
"The direct gap between children with certain resources and children without resources is widening." Wendy James told Southern Weekend that those children with poor economic conditions were trapped in houses surrounded by their families during the epidemic, and they didn't even have the conditions to play, let alone study. On 20 16, the experimental project of "going to primary school in a museum" alleviated the knowledge gap caused by insufficient economic conditions to some extent, and gave children locked at home the opportunity to continue their studies and get in touch with historical and cultural knowledge.
Up to now, most of the schools cooperating in the project are public schools, which are usually located in areas where the economic conditions of students' families are relatively backward.
The project originated from Wendy's brainstorming.
Wendy is an architect herself. Before starting the "Primary School in Museum" project, she was responsible for the renovation and design of many museums, including providing introduction and design management for tate modern. During the project, she received many questions about the children who came to visit, such as where the school bus came from, where the children entered, where to hang clothes, how to eat lunch and so on.
In this process, Wendy indirectly contacted the campus groups that visited the museum. She feels that visiting museums two or three times a semester can't maximize the educational effect of museums. Wendy has a bigger plan brewing in her mind.
"In this country, everyone says there must be a school, but no one says there must be a museum. Then why don't we combine the two? " When Wendy came up with this plan, she asked one of her former clients, david andersen, who is in charge of all Welsh museums, "What do you think? If you say this is ridiculous and absolutely impossible, I will give up. Because I have many other things to do at hand. "
David expressed his support for the plan. Later, after Wendy put forward this plan, the Institute of Culture of King's College London was also interested in this plan and provided a sum of money to start this project.
Before the project was officially launched, Wendy began to collect relevant information on the Internet, and finally confirmed that she could safely call herself a "concept initiator"-going to a primary school in a museum without precedent, and the closest one was Bhopal, India.
"As an architect, it is easy for me to take my children to the museum, but it is often the poorest children who need to study in the museum most. Although most museums are free, parents of many poor families often feel that museums are not the right place for them. " Wendy said. Most museum staff who have worked with Wendy hope to attract more poor children.
Zheng Yi, the author of "The Combination of Museums and Primary and Secondary Education: A Study on System Design", director of Fudan University Museum and professor of the Department of Cultural Relics and Museums, said: "This project is the first time to set the school curriculum in a museum for a long time, and its significance is particularly unique. Generally speaking, although the Museum Primary School is only testing water in the UK, the project has brought great opportunities, prompting the education, culture and tourism departments to work together to cultivate more adaptable and literate teenagers and children. "
Up to now, the project has expanded from Britain to many countries including the United States, Norway, Germany and Ireland, and the number of projects is not less than 12.
A project extended to Germany aims at helping traumatized children. In this project, a little boy found something he likes in a folk museum: taking care of pigs on the farm. In addition to knowing how to feed and care, he also began to explain relevant knowledge to museum visitors.
"The most important thing is to believe that every child can do one thing well." Wendy concluded. She believes that a teacher's experience is sometimes limited, and the museum collects cultural treasures from ancient times to the present, which, combined with the teacher's teaching, can inspire children's future life.
The French Museum once conducted a long-term survey of children, which lasted for 20 years from the time when children first came to the museum at the age of six. Even if these children don't engage in museum-related work when they grow up, their intimacy and cultural identity with the museum will keep them coming back to the museum all their lives.
It is the direction of museums all over the world to integrate museums into the national education system and life as soon as possible.
From 65438 to 0938, Frank Markheim, Secretary General of British Museums Association, mentioned three levels of cooperation between museums and schools in his report on venue education: internal visits, contact services and museum schools.
According to Zheng Yi, the "museum school" in the United States has a history of nearly a hundred years, and a series of museum-based learning institutions can be labeled as such, including primary schools operated by museums alone, museums operated by campuses alone, and museums in schools, as well as the integration of institutions-through strong partnerships, informal education represented by museums is combined with formal education represented by schools.
In 2002, the National Science Foundation of the United States established the Center for Informal Learning and Schools, and conducted a special study on museum schools. Among them, the teaching goal of the science and technology museum school is to integrate the science-centered method with the commonly used teaching methods in the school, and learn from the former's methods of using things, experiencing, taking the initiative and participating to help students acquire high-level thinking and key skills. In the end, museums and schools will benefit from it, but the biggest beneficiary is students.
According to Zheng Yi's recollection, the educational development of China Museum was also concerned as early as 1905. At that time, Zhang Jian personally funded the establishment of the first public museum in China-Nantong Museum. The original intention is to develop a new school with education as its purpose, including "learning more about birds, animals and plants in the name of teaching".
Since the 20th century, museums have been paid more and more attention by governments at all levels. In 2008, a number of ministries and commissions jointly issued the Notice on the Free Opening of Museums and Memorial Halls in China, and in 2020, the Ministry of Education and National Cultural Heritage Administration jointly issued the Opinions on Using Museum Resources to Develop Education and Teaching in Primary and Secondary Schools, and the combination between museums and schools became increasingly close.
There are also many cases of cooperation between libraries and schools. On 20 13, the National Museum and Shi Jia Hutong Primary School opened the course "Walking the National Expo-Historian" and established a long-term cooperative relationship. In 20 14, primary and secondary schools in Beijing held classes at least half a day a week in the off-campus museums. Anqujiang No.2 Primary School signed a contract with 12 Museum to offer museum classes in the school, with each class having one class every month to learn about museums.
Zheng Yi said that the further combination of museums and education "has accumulated a lot in quantity, but made little leap in quality", and it is necessary to establish a long-term mechanism and related system design for the combination of museums and primary and secondary education, so that young people can visit and use museums in China.
The museum is a big school. Perhaps in the near future, the cooperation between the museum and the school can really bring this big school to everyone's life.
Southern Weekend Special Contributor Lu Yuting