Daring Experiences - Museums and Visitors Taking Risks - Thursday 10:30-11:45

In this session, I learned that people mean many different things when they say "risky."  It was a bit of a grab bag.  I thought it was going to be primarily about "risky" play, but only one of the speakers addressed that topic.  Two of the speakers talked about the risks associated with building new museums.  Allen Boerger of ROTO (a museum design company) spoke about a big, beautiful new museum his company had designed, and how they had pushback from the community because they had replaced some of the old, outdated but still beloved exhibits that parents remembered from their childhoods and wanted their kids to experience.  Hopefully that won't be a problem for us since we're brand-new, but it does remind me of some of the battles over card catalogs that happened around the country some years ago, and the dangers of saying to the public, "we know what's best for you" rather than asking them if we're really giving them what they want.

Nichole Myles of Children's Museum of the Low Country in Davenport, Iowa spoke about how she and her staff undertook a crazy, ambitious effort to build a science center to replace their 150-year-old museum in two years starting with no funding.  A couple of tips she mentioned to impress donors and government funders: Show your potential for inspiring interest in science.  The dropout rate in the area where the museum is located is high, and the area has a strong manufacturing tradition that is slowly dying off.  There's a need for workers trained in high-tech fields.  Her pitch to donors focused on the ability of a children's museum to make science accessible and attainable.  Too many students when they are very young get the idea ingrained into them that science is hard and that they can't understand it.  A science museum, by teaching scientific concepts in a fun and understandable way, can help dispel this notion and possibly inspire more children to accept their potential as scientists.

Ellen Bari of the Manhattan Children's Museum covered their exhibit on Muslim art and culture, and the intensive preparation process they went through.  Because they wanted to get the content right, and because they knew the subject might be controversial among certain elements of the public, they consulted with anyone and everyone they could think of, from local community members to scholars in and out of the US to the NYPD and other security experts.  The exhibit looked neat, but it had to be the most overproduced exhibit in the history of children's museums.  It took six (!!) years to plan and must have cost a fortune.  I can't imagine what people in smaller, scrappier children's museums must have thought about the lavish outlay of resources.  Nichole Myles and her staff were able to build an entire museum in less time (and possibly for less money).

Katie Slivosky of the Chicago Children's Museum talked about two exhibits at her museum and how they tied into the concept of unsupervised, open play.  One was called Forts.  It was a large room filled with furniture, sheets and other assorted objects, large and small.  Knobs and loops are attached to the pieces so that they can be easily attached to one another.  Kids are turned loose to build "forts" and create their own environments and narratives.  Katie told us that research shows that kids love to create their own spaces, and that it is what's known in the children's research community as a "universal pursuit of childhood," meaning it cuts across race, gender, age, class and culture.

Katie also talked about here museum's tinkering lab, and the idea of real vs. perceived risk.  In their tinkering lab, they allow kids freedom to use real tools and materials in an open ended way, with just as much adult supervision as necessary.  They don't want to make the space too safe, because it will ruin the creativity and testing of limits that children experience.  They don't expect their exhibit to be injury-free, but they do aim for only "ice pack injuries," small bumps, bruises and cuts that require an ice pack or band-aid.  They try to avoid catastrophic injuries, which is why they require eye protection for all children.  How do they answer the objection that "This is unsafe"?  They say that they think it's a greater risk to now allow kids to take controlled risks and test their own limits.

She said something that I thought was really profound.  "Children think like scientist when they explore their own ideas.  Children think like engineers when they use real materials and tools."

One other fun thing she mentioned.  They once had an exhibit called "Human Wrecking Ball."  Kids could stack up a bunch of bean bag chairs, climb onto a platform, swing on a rope suspended from the ceiling, destroy the "tower" of bean bags and land on gym mats.  Sounds like a blast.  I can see some kids wanting to do that over and over and over.

-Jason