These shifts of seeing again are precisely
what the word ‘respect’ means. To look again is to ‘respect.’ Each time we look
again at the same thing, we gain respect for it and add respect to it.
James Hillman, City and Soul
Over the
past few months, I have been thinking about observation and its value as a tool
for learning, stretching our thinking, seeing new possibilities, and being
better museums.
Daily, we
walk through our museums and what do we notice? We watch a family move through
the lobby and pause before the door to a gallery. What is this moment about for
them? We see someone step in front of a painting and lean in, peer closely at
the lower right hand corner, and step back again. What new insight has that
closer look added? We watch someone slowly
brush away gravel to reveal the form of an enormous bone. What happens next?
What does it mean for them? What might we do differently knowing this?
These,
among so many questions, reveal our on-going search for a deeper understanding
of visitors and a greater familiarity with the conditions that encourage and
support exploration and meaning making in museums. So much is going on in a
single exhibit, program, gallery, or classroom in any one moment. Without
thoughtful observation, what can we know and understand about what is happening
around us in our museums, in the experiences we create, and the connections we
hope to foster?
Yet, as powerful
and valuable as observation is in advancing our understanding, thinking, and
imaginations, we rarely engage in it extensively in museums–at least, from my
experience and in my own work.
Of course,
we do observe in museums. We engage in both formal and informal observation in
research and evaluation, during prototyping, and sharing visitor comments. We
follow visitors’ movements through an exhibit and sometimes sit in observation
booths and videotape. This kind of observation, however, is typically short
term and narrowly focused. It is intended to answer a single question, assess
and fix a problem, or confirm what we already believe. Often it is to check
whether exhibits are being used as intended.
Brief observation
episodes that are ends in themselves or serve other agendas have a limited
capacity to build new knowledge with long-term value that changes perspectives
and reveals new possibilities about how people interact with objects and learn
in museums.
With this
view of observation, we are unlikely to take time to study how families explore
together in our museums; how visitors negotiate turn-taking with one another; how
children of different ages approach open-ended materials; what traces of use
and engagement visitors leave to offer glimpses into their thinking; what
having an idea looks like; and what building on someone’s idea looks like.
What We Don’t Already See
How do we
go beyond the obvious behaviors we are able to identify and code and the minutes
we can count to glimpse the extraordinary moments in museums and other settings?
There is
no quick, easy, or particular way to engage in deeper observation. More and
longer observation episodes are likely involved. Time to give our careful and steady
attention to what is around us without deciding too soon what is before us is critical.
In opening ourselves to being present to what is happening we can create room
to notice what we don’t already see.
Observation
is a process of attending, noticing, capturing, and revisiting. Keeping notes, taking
photos and videos, and charting and mapping give value but not certainty to
what we notice. What we have captured even temporarily allows us to return to
the traces of those moments and ask, what am I noticing? How can I account for
it? What does it mean to me? To others? What might others bring to the process
to probe what matters here?
As good
observers, we must also be observers of ourselves, studying our attention, checking
our assumptions, and registering our focus. Questioning ourselves as we observe
reminds us that we arrive at subjective interpretations, partial findings, and,
hopefully, new questions.
Seeing Differently
As I was working
through these thoughts, the subject of observation surfaced in my Thursday study
group with Lani and Tom, two recently retired educators in the Twin Cities. As
these weekly conversations so often do, this one pushed my imagination not just further, but into a different realm: from seeing more to seeing differently.
Lani had
marked a passage to read from Art and
Creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the Role and Potential of Ateliers in
Early Childhood Education by Reggio atelierista, Vea Vecchi. This brief, but extraordinary
account of when Vea started in the Reggio schools in the 1960’s describes her
year of observation.
At the direction
of Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy, Vea was
asked to observe children in the school. She invited 4 children at a time into
a studio space to work with paints in a nonfigurative way. Her observations of
90 children of different ages in the school continued over the year with Vea taking
notes on her observations of children and their paintings. She also referred to
books by more knowledgeable guides like Jean Piaget, Herbert Read, and Viktor Lowenfeld
that Malaguzzi had given her. Malaguzzi then poured over her notes and the
children’s paintings. He commented on her observations and shared his interpretations
with her. At the end of the year, using his notes and comments, Vea wrote a
report for the school on the children’s work; it later became a book.
Vea has described Malaguzzi’s strategy that changed her mental framework and identity
from a secondary art educator to a professional in a new role as an
atelierista. Malaguzzi helped create the conditions for change with a process of
observation, formative reading, notes, discussion and shared interpretation,
and documentation through which Vea unlearned her certainties and opened her
eyes to the potentials of the children.
See, Un-see, Re-see
Tom
called this process: see, un-see, and re-see. In observation, as in many
activities we engage in, we think we are being neutral and seeing the truth. Actually
we are often affirming what we already think, reinforcing beliefs we have
arrived at by other means. This happens for a number of reasons. Learning,
memory, expectation, and attention shape what we perceive, see, and believe. Pressures
of accountability in schools and other institutions subtly insist we see what
we are asked to see around standards and benchmarks. In museums we are
susceptible to a dominant view of learning imported from schools that is content
focused and teacher directed. We are also eager to demonstrate our value to supporters
with evidence. These factors influence what we see when we observe in
galleries, study exhibits, and describe museum visitors.
Even when
we do see something new, we are likely to name it something else, something we
have seen before. Twentieth century philosopher and public intellectual,
Marshall McLuhan, expressed this as, “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t
believed it.”
Realistically,
un-seeing is difficult, if not literally impossible. But we can work to undo
old learning, find ways to displace certainty, and see fresh versions of what we
are viewing. The conditions of Vea’s extraordinary journey are not easily replicated,
but her effort and goal can encourage us to observe from a new stance. We can shift
our observation from looking for what we expect, to looking for what we haven’t
seen before. We can be open to what surprises us.
Tom, Lani, and I thought together about what might create
movement from seeing to re-seeing to create a crack in our thinking through observation
by:
• Being
curious, open, and eager to be surprised
• Wholeheartedly
pursuing the opportunity of the moment
•
Revisiting the experience and its possible meanings
When we are open, curious,
and eager to be surprised, we are:
-
Awake
to our surroundings and the people, spaces, and materials
-
Accepting
uncertainty and the complexity of what we are noticing
-
Comfortable
with not knowing what we are seeing
-
Exposing
ourselves to other thinkers and knowledgeable guides
When we
wholeheartedly pursue the opportunity of the moment, we:
-
Are
prepared to capture traces of the experience in multiple ways: notes, video,
photos, images
-
Are
open to what we may be seeing that is contrary to the apparent direction and we
follow it
-
Observe
until we are surprised
When we revisit the experience
and its possible meanings, we:
-
Return
to all of the collected traces of observation: notes, photos, images, and
videos
-
Pursue
questions to reflect on what we have noticed: how do visitors influence each
other in exploring an exhibit? How do ideas about how something works change over
the course of an experience?
-
Attend
to strategies, not outcomes: ways that individuals engage with the group; patterns
of choices; leaps in thinking; the roles conversation plays
-
Share,
and invite others to contribute what they see
-
Stretch
to consider what something might mean that is beyond our imagination
-
Think
together: what might we do to make this or that unusual gesture or activity more likely to
happen again?
This is a
bigger, more complex, process than can possibly be captured here. In fact, the
above list, or any list, is fundamentally at odds with deep, open-ended observation. We must keep in mind that seeing what we already see is a poor strategy for the positive change and transformation we seek for our visitors, our communities, and ourselves. Fortunately, the benefits of what Lani calls a radical
openness to what’s out there and what it means are ample and worthwhile: a livelier, richer
experience of our work and its potential value. Are you ready to be surprised?
Related Museum Notes Posts
Thank you, Lani and Tom
Stand aside awhile
and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do and then, if
you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different.
Loris Malaguzzi
