A strong, fundamental connection links children,
families, and communities–including museums–that works in multiple, on-going,
and sometimes surprising ways and directions. Frequently we assume this
relationship flows in a single direction. We are certain that children need to
see the community. We say, children should visit the fire station on a field
trip, take public transportation, or go to the library. Equally important is
that the city sees its children. Bus drivers, fire fighters, parents,
librarians, pedestrians, neighbors, and shopkeepers also need to listen to children,
hear their questions, engage with them, take notice of their curiosity, and take
seriously the ideas and thinking that excite them.
This earlier post explores the relationship between
children and the community and considers the community’s and museum’s long-term
interest in engaging children’s potential.
Some weeks I want to write about children building with blocks or exploring with
loose parts. Other weeks I am thinking hard about how museums build public value or community-level change. Both
interest me. They interest me intensely. They may seem unrelated or perhaps
even opposite. For me they are inextricably related. Strong children need strong
communities; resilient communities rely on capable children who feel connected. Museums have a
role in contributing to both.
Seeing Children
Children are inherently capable with great resourcefulness
and great potential. Before even entering school where we expect they will
start to learn, children have learned to communicate, to walk and talk. They
get themselves dressed, help here-and-there around the house, show compassion,
and even make jokes. All in just about 4 years.
Yet, we tend not to recognize children’s competence. Rather
we describe them as being deficient in some way. Often this is due to their not
being older or bigger than we know they are. Have you heard someone say to a 3
or 4 year old, “when you can read…” or “when you can ride a bike…” or “when you
are big…”? Our preoccupation with what children can’t do interferes with our
appreciation of their remarkable abilities and capabilities at every age. I
would love to hear a 3 or 4 year-old pipe up and say, “I am just fine as a 3
year old, thank you!”
No sooner are we pushing children to be older, but we are
saying, “when they were young…” or, “oh, when you were little, you were so
cuddly.” First we overlook how remarkable they are; then we regret they are no
longer that way. In between we have missed their wondering, investigating, and
discovering.
So often we remark that children
look at things in really interesting ways. Actually, I think we’re surprised by
how fully children look at things. A child notices how a bird walks or wonders
whether she will see her face in this mirror too. Children are excited
to tell us what they see and what they think about it. Their language is fresh,
inventive, and expressive. It tells us, if we are listening, of their ideas,
understanding of relationships, and theories about the nature of things.
When I work with museums, I frequently hear language such
as, “we’ll make the children try…” or “this will let children,…”. I do this as
well, in spite of myself. We often speak and act as if children are passive
learners, rather than the natural, active learners they are. They hardly need
our permission to be curious, touch something, ask a question, or make sense of
what is going on around them.
Children don't need our permission to be curious, but they
do deserve recognition and support for their fascination with the world, their remarkable abilities, and
great resourcefulness. They also need adults to pay attention, listen to their words,
observe their response to materials, see their excitement, notice their
learning strategies, and think about their interactions with others. They
benefit from the experiences and encounters that engage their creativity,
knowledge building, and individual action. While I think building towers,
structures, and designs; exploring rich and varied environments; and playing
with loose parts are really important, these are only a few of the kinds of
activities children should be able to experience, enjoy and draw from.
Networks of Relationships
The same qualities children bring to accomplishing their
greatest learning feats are those that make a difference in school, the
workforce, families, neighborhoods and civic life. Taking initiative, being
resourceful, asking questions, listening, acting on ideas, and communicating
with others prepare children and youth to have relationships within their community
and to become contributors and thoughtful critics in their communities as
adults. Developing these qualities happens in the context of strong
relationships with caring adults in many roles from infancy through young
adulthood.
Strong children mean strong communities. This
may sound like a cliché, but it’s not. Evidence of this connection comes from
several areas.
The Search Institute’s research-based work for 50
years has focused on strengthening how citizens and communities raise children
and adolescents. The Institute has identified 40 Developmental Assets for
healthy development. Assets are positive experiences and qualities that help
influence choices children and youth make and help them become caring,
responsible adults. The more assets young people have, the more likely they are
to thrive and the less likely they are to engage in a wide range of high-risk
behaviors.
The Search Institute’s work and their Healthy Communities •
Healthy Youth initiative recognize that raising strong and successful children
takes more than just one single family or a school. An entire community must be
engaged. This requires many people—educators, faith community leaders, parents,
aunts and uncles, governmental figures, and others—to come together and nurture
strong, active relationships with children and youth.
An interest in children and youth brings members of a
community together. Examples readily come to mind of informal “mom’s groups”
that meet and connect around childbirth, the playground, or other parenting
interests. Parents and neighbors working together have made preschool coops,
scouts, and children’s sports run. They have been vital to starting children’s
museums all across the country.
A landmark study of civic engagement, Working Together: Community Involvement in America,
sponsored by the League of Women Voters reinforced this when it concluded that,
“A focus on children and youth is key to engaging Americans… children and youth
registered among people’s top concerns and [the subjects] most likely to
motivate community involvement.”
The Habits of a Community Develop the
Habits of Children
Several years ago the Kettering Foundation produced a report on why
some communities work. Research presented in Communities at Work pointed
to many factors. One, in particular, stood out: “One of the characteristics
common to communities that are able to manage, if not solve, their problems is
that citizens take responsibility for their future.”
Neighbors, parents, or citizens who come together to solve a
problem, address a concern, or realize a hope initiate a cycle of reciprocity.
First they change or improve conditions by sharing ownership and taking action.
Then they create a lasting example of community engagement and believing in a positive future for their children.
Children grow into the lives of the people around them; they will renew the
community in the future.
One city’s remarkable educational and civic project has been
evolving in the infant and toddler schools in Reggio Emilia (IT) over
the last 60 years. Based on an image of the child as strong and capable and of relationships
among children, teachers, parents, and citizens at the heart of learning, the
schools have become known worldwide for integrating theory and practice to work
at the intersection of strong children and a vibrant community.
A sense of co-responsibility for children’s education and
their futures is deep and wide spread. In fact, in June 2010, Pedagogista
Tiziana Filippini was honored by Louisiana Children’s Museum with one of its
Great Friends to Children Award. In acknowledging the award, Tiziana also made
a polite yet important clarification when she said, “My city is the great
friend to children.”
In St. Paul (MN), a group of neighbors and organizations has
been involved since 2004 in creating the West Side Neighborhood Learning
Community. Their vision for All Around the Neighborhood is “a community alive
with learning where youth develop their potential and become productive,
contributing adults.” Children and youth are involved in planning and
co-creating learning experiences as they learn in and about their West Side
neighborhood. Parents, neighbors, and businesses are actively involved as
planners, teachers, learning sites, and in documenting learning
activities. One result of these activities is that West Siders have been
engaged in rethinking and designing new public play spaces.
Strong
Children, Strong Museums, Strong Communities
Where do museums fit in? Along with libraries and schools,
museums are part of a civic infrastructure that is critical to vibrant,
resilient communities and to the well-being of their citizens including, of
course, children. While schools have a particular civic function–to provide
basic education–museums and libraries do not. They do, however, have a
responsibility to use their resources to contribute to a rich, shared, public
life.
Museums also have a tremendous opportunity to leverage their
knowledge, assets, and relationships to deepen connections with the community
and to enrich and expand their understanding of its children. Contributing to
strong children and strong communities as museums also strengthen themselves is
a decidedly rich, complex, and long-term process. A few dimensions and the
interactions among them interest me, in particular.
- Take the wealth of children’s potential seriously. Involve people from across the museum in actively pursuing ways to make children’s thinking visible. Develop, adapt, and practice documentation. Develop museum-based practices for observing, noticing, responding to, scaffolding, extending, recording, and revisiting evidence of children’s learning.
- Use the museum’s growing knowledge of learning and learners in informal settings along with its expertise in creating learning experiences with objects and materials to design encounters for children to follow their interests, pursue their explorations and extend their thinking.
- Pursue the considered and deliberate thinking required to develop public value and explore the authentic give-and-take dialogue to define what a stronger community means to a particular community that Nan Kari encouraged in her comment on that blog.
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