Children gathering information about the city (Photo courtesy of Humara Bachpan) |
Among the top 10 global trends ranked by international experts, according to the World Economic Forum, is the growing importance of megacities. Increasingly, life is lived in the world’s urban centers where more than half the world’s population of nearly 7 billion is living. Global urban growth is expected to continue. By 2030, 60% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities.
If city
museums are about strengthening the connections between the city and its
inhabitants, they should be considering children and youth in their vision for
themselves and their cities. Children comprise about
50% of the population in
urban areas and will soon make up 60% of the urban population growth. More than a billion children live in cities worldwide.
For city museums, this is enormous potential. Increased attendance and income from serving even a small percentage of this part of
urban population has significant implications for institutional health and attendance. Serving children intentionally in city museums is also strategically important. Children are a big part of the opportunities and
challenges cities currently face and will deal with in the future. Children
have a valued and different way of seeing their city that the city needs.
Jane Jacobs, American-Canadian urban theorist and author of The Death
and Life of Great American Cities would agree. She insists that, “Cities have the capability of providing
something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by
everybody.” Including children and youth.
Ghent Museum Family Day (Photo courtesy of Ghent Museum) |
City museums currently do serve children in a variety of
ways. Many host a “kids day,” produce a magazine for children, and offer programs for students. While certainly not representing the
full extent of children’s place and presence in city museums, these examples also
don‘t correspond to the size or significance of children in urban settings.
To bring children into a vision for themselves and their cities, city museums need to strengthen their connection with
children on the one hand and grow children’s
connections to their city on the other.
Children
as Learners, Explorers, and Citizens
Imagining
ways to strengthen connections with children and with the city is difficult without viewing children as learners, explorers, and citizens.
Through their
senses, movement, observation, thinking, reason, and language, children notice,
follow hunches, organize information, seek out others to engage. They construct
and reconstruct knowledge, revise ideas, and share meanings and stories with
others. Highly resourceful as learners, children observe others doing something
they can’t do and imitate them; then they do it by themselves. With a natural zest for testing
and trying, they are constantly making
connections between what they see, hear, smell and touch and the experiences
they have accumulated in even the first few years of life. Searching for the reasons
for things and for meaning, children are learning everyday.
Active from their
earliest days as eager explorers, children are finding their place in the world. In ever-expanding
circles, they are interested in knowing where they are, where they live,
where they are going, and what is beyond. Initially, children’s experiences are
mediated by adults, but rapidly children direct explorations themselves. They
explore around home and the neighborhood, become familiar with routes and
pathways, and gradually come to know the larger, shared landscapes of their cities.
The city of
the child is not history, landmarks, postcards, and transportation networks. It
is not the past. Rather, the city is immediate, present; it is a compelling
invitation to notice, wonder at, and explore. Children spot power lines and trash
bins; they make a game of the paving stones, and shout down the storm drain to
hear their voice. They watch people at work, pass houses, move among shoppers
carrying packages, and hear the sounds of traffic. For the child, even a trip
to the market is an encounter with the city's rich complexity.
Moving through the city, accompanying a parent on errands, going to school, visiting
family, or meeting
friends, children and youth are developing relationships with
the city. They form relationships with places–physical, social, public, civic–and
with people. They become enmeshed in daily rhythms, shared events, and a city’s
cultural expressions. When children grow up in and with in the city, they forge
identities about belonging, sharing with others, and participating in a
life embedded in the city.
Children as explorers (Photo of Jeanne Vergeront |
We are inclined
to think of children as future
citizens. Children, however, are not waiting for the future. They are writing
the future now in their everyday lives. More than just residents or short-term
visitors, children are participating in the only real life they know. They learn
the stories of their city, feel its spirit, recognize its many faces, and share
its pride. Part of a changing city they know first hand through their everyday
comings and goings, children are citizens now.
Building Connections to the City and to the
Museum
Inspired by an image of children as critical and valuable for a city’s long-term vitality, city museums can shape
a broad agenda for growing children and youth’s connections to the city. Going beyond expanding children’s programs, another kids’ day, or a pretend city exhibit, this agenda
begins deep in the museum, reaches into the city, and returns to enrich the
museum.
The city is
a compelling invitation to children to explore and discover. With so many
possibilities, a museum needs to align its interests around engaging children with
its mission and strengths and choose where to focus. What, for instance, does it
know about children and their city? How might it deepen its knowledge? What larger issues around safety, well-being, or welcoming
immigrants is the city addressing that the museum could also explore? Readings such as those listed below and city plans for children and youth offer valuable information
about city children.
Questions
frame a museum’s interests and guide its inquiry. A museum may want to know
more about what children think a city is, where it starts and ends; how they
experience the city; or how they view nature and the
city. Along with reading and discussing, museum staff also need time for observing
children out-and-about in the city, interviewing them, and listening to their insights
to appreciate their ideas and questions.
Ideas,
places, and partners for projects and explorations are likely to emerge from this
exploratory research and from children themselves. When invited to
think about what is fascinating about their city and what they want to
show others, children have answers and ideas. Fresh perspectives on a
seemingly familiar places and new lines of inquiry emerge. Giving children tools such
as maps, sketchbooks, pencils, binoculars, old photos, and cameras assists
and extends their explorations of a place, an interest, or a route. In growing
their knowledge of the city and its places, they are documenting discoveries, formulating
questions, inventing ideas, and gathering information valuable to city planners. Where does this stream come from? What was here when this tree started? How far
do these tracks go? What is on the other side of the bridge? Discoveries about
how parts of the city connect, new routes, and how to get their bearings as
they cross the city on a bus or tram spark museum projects, exhibits, guides,
programs, tours, and expo events.
Children
Seeing the City
In the Municipal
Infant-Toddler Centers and Preschools of the city of Reggio Emilia (IT),
educators invited children three to six years to be interpreters and guides of
their city. In this project, Reggio Tutta: A Guide to the City by the Children, children were asked first
to think about their image of cities in general. As they then thought about
their role as guides for Reggio, in particular, their perspective shifted.
Using words, making maps, creating symbols, postcards, a rich, layered portrait
of Reggio emerged: a city with boundaries, relationships among parts,
distances, and stories. Overall the children depicted a city that is positive,
livable, and welcoming.
A large
project like Reggio Tutta can inspire
smaller projects in various formats for a city museum to suit its size,
readiness, and partners. A project, Our City at Play, might focus on places to play and what makes a good place to
play. Children could interview parents and grandparents about their play
memories from childhood; they could draw or construct models of playscapes for
park planning. The exhibit could be laid out around the city on an audio trail
or bike tour with stops at related sites. Drawings, words, models, and
maps about play could likewise be installed at city hall bringing visibility to
children’s insights and ideas about a playable city.
Children’s
investigations of fascinating places in the city can be the starting point for
designing urban adventures for themselves and others using games, scavenger
hunts, and maps. Geotagged objects or
intriguing places from the city’s past could be incorporated into an augmented
reality app like one created to enliven places in historic Ribe (DK).
Inviting children to
participate in the life of the museum engages them as learners and
citizens. Museu de les Ciències Princep Felipe (Valencia, ES), one of several science centers that has set
up a children’s board of 10 and 11 year olds, it offers an opportunity for participation in museum governance. While not city museums, the work of these museums suggests other ways children build connections with the city through authentic participation. Here, children
meet and work with children from across the city. Their ideas for activities
and programs are vetted by the museums’ internal processes.
City museums often create
spaces for young children as the Helsinki Museum’s Children’s Town,
Chicago History Museum's Sensing Chicago and other museums have done. Planning for a museum expansion or
renovation can also engage children in the
thinking of the next phase in the life of an important city
landmark. Like their adult counterparts, children’s voices can be added to
ideas about building design, amenities, and exhibits. At many points in a museum’s life,
children might create a guide for the museum–or its neighborhood.
Children's Peace City (Photo courtesy of Cavan County Museum, IE) |
Museum collections also offer
opportunities for engaging children in making connections between the city and
the museum. A museum might frame a
project around children’s interest in objects in its collection that connect
with a current city issue or civic campaign. Working with a curator, children might
explore public transportation memorabilia, workers’ tools, or old signs. Looking
over the objects children consider who used them, equivalents today, possible future versions, and what they would put on a label about the objects.
Becoming
Part of the City
Cities
are constantly changing and adapting. Children are part of this process and can
help make cities better. When museums involve children now on different topics,
they are also engaging them in thinking about what
those changes might be. What might a possible future for their city look like?
What would make the city better for children and youth? What would make it
friendlier to newcomers? How will the city meet challenges around water?
Crowding? Transportation? Children will see a different city. Starting
conversations now will inspire them to imagine a new future.
When
children are engaged, when they feel heard, when they contribute to their city,
they become part of the city. City museums with their partners–schools, public
housing, libraries, community organizations, city departments–have a large, active,
and valuable role in creating opportunities and
experiences that grow children’s connections with their city. Questions, interests, and
possibilities–children’s, the museum’s, and the city’s–move back and forth
creating strong connections. Authentic encounters with places and
people which evolve into substantive museum projects, exhibits, and programs allow
children to contribute in meaningful ways to the cities they live in, are
growing up in, and will lead.
A version
of this post is included in the spring issue of ICOM's CAMOC Review. I encourage you to explore the other articles about city museums in the Review.
Suggested Reading
• Bernard van Leer Foundation. Early Childhood Matters
• Derr, Victoria, Chawla, L. and Van Vliet W. (2015). Children as Natural Change Agents:Child-friendly Cities as Resilient Cities
•
Growing Up in an Urbanizing World. (2002) Chawla, Louise (Ed.) UNESCO: New York
• Mara
Krechevsky, Ben Mardell, and Angela N. Romans. (2014) Engaging City Hall: Children as Citizens, The New Educator, 10:1,
10-20.
•
Municipality of Reggio Emilia (2000). Reggio Tutta: A Guide to the City by the Children. Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio
Children.
Wow, great project. This is what we are trying to do in Ahmedabad, India. https://www.facebook.com/museumsofahmedabad/
ReplyDeleteAvani, thank you for sharing the link to the FaceBook page for your museum work in Ahmedabad. Sharing ideas, being inspired by work from cities, museums, and schools around the world will make city museums stronger and better experiences for children.
ReplyDelete