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| Photo credit: InnerOuterPeace |
Some of my most satisfying
thoughts have come from misinterpreting the written or spoken word. (And,
admittedly, many have not.) One recent misreading has led me through a satisfying
reflection.
I have been struggling to write
a blog post about caring, compassion, and empathy in museums. Museums have both
a responsibility to their community to exhibit empathy and compassion and a
range of opportunities to tap into care and compassion among visitors, staff,
volunteers, partners, and the community. How might museums foster a kinder
society? Create the conditions to encourage kindness, caring and compassion?
Help raise moral children?
Others have taken on this
complex topic in thoughtful blog posts and articles. Gretchen Jennings has
written about the Empathetic Museum here.
Rebecca Herz has explored how museums can foster empathy in Museum Questions. The Empathy Museum is an “experiential
arts space dedicated to helping us all look at the world through other people’s
eyes” that travels internationally. The
Opal School at Portland Children’s Museum has worked on defining what the school means by
empathy.
With these and more provocations
to consider, I’ve asked myself, what useful perspective I might bring to this topic.
Uncertain, I have put away a working draft for awhile. That is, until a few
days ago when I enjoyed a moment of creative misreading.
I misread a column heading
in a museum publication, as “They are asking open-minded questions.” In fact it said, “They are asking open-ended questions.” The second and
actual version explored the results of a study. The first, and more intriguing,
launched me into thinking about what “open-minded questions” might be and what
they might contribute to museums cultivating caring, compassion, and empathy.
Open to the Possible
Questions are powerful
tools for exploring, thinking, and learning. This is certainly true for
open-ended and open-minded questions. Both help us stay in curiosity. Questions
rather than conclusions, assertions, or statements engage interest, fire up
thinking, solve problems, and invite creativity. Open-endedness taps into what someone knows, encourages thinking,
and yields more information. The open questions we are familiar with invite
possible answers rather than brief yes
or no responses.
In spite of the overlap
between both types of questions, they differ in where they lead. For instance,
while concerned with thinking, open-minded questions help us imagine other ways
of thinking, feeling, believing, or connecting that are generally not typical
of open-ended questions. Here lies the source of their capacity to cultivate
empathy, caring, kindness, and compassion, to make room for acceptance and
inclusion.
Open-minded questions create
openings for connecting with others. When we ask an open-minded question, we
are exhibiting an interest in the other person, a curiosity about their
perspective, a willingness to hear their ideas. When someone asks us an
open-minded question, we sense their readiness to recognize who we are and
connect with us.
As much as open-minded
questions lend themselves to conversation and listening, they do so in a way
that invites us to push further, listen harder, and dig more deeply. They
signal a willingness to move us beyond well-known assumptions and conclusions
that can limit listening and conversation. In facing new directions we can find
ourselves in challenging territory yet responsive to possibilities and giving
fair consideration of the unfamiliar.
Open-minded questions help
us understand others and ourselves better. In posing an open-minded question,
we can imagine ourselves in the other person’s situation, expose ourselves to
the possibility she might have a better idea, or consider revisiting cherished
ideas.
We may be called to caring
and compassion as our open-minded questions convey concern about someone’s
well-being. We may set in motion a call to action, to reach out and respond to another
person and their hopes and needs. Open-minded questions invite the change we
both seek and fear
Cultivating Compassion
In interactions across,
within, and beyond the museum, open-minded questions help nurture compassion,
empathy, tolerance, and connection. Our open-minded questions can open us to
listening to co-workers more intentionally, suspending our certainty, and
strengthening our interconnections. With partners, open-minded questions can
convey a genuine interest in another’s perspective, in their well-being, and in
their experience that challenges the museum’s view. In interacting with
visitors and learners in the museum’s exhibitions and programs, open-minded
questions help shift from a focus on the museum’s interests to the visitor’s,
and from the obvious to the unknown.
Everyday and everywhere
individual's open-minded questions help grow the museum’s capacity to cultivate care and
compassion beyond the walls and beyond now.
Framing Open-minded Questions
Developing a really good
question is difficult. This is especially true in trying to understand open-minded
questions and how they might move us towards greater connection. We might start by asking:
What might this other
person be experiencing?
How can we better
understand what someone else might feel?
How can I grow my
relationship with someone whose ideas are different from mine?
What interests you about
how someone else thinks, or thinks differently?
What did people take away
that was different from what I thought or hoped they’d take away?
What did you hear in that
voice that spoke to you?
What did you discover
about yourself?
How can we act for others?
What can I learn from this
person?
What am I not hearing?
What would make you feel
more welcome?
What will we discover
about ourselves through this experience?
What
open-minded questions do you bring to your museum conversations?
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