Nine Things Children Are Great At

MUSEUM NOTES

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning 

How often do you find yourself surprised by children and their capabilities? I mean really surprised and by true capabilities. Not like when a 4-year-old spells Mississippi correctly; or when a 2-year-old knows their numbers; or when a child repeats a smart remark. Often that is memorization or mimicry, which, while important, is also part of children’s everyday repertoire of words and ways of engaging with caregivers. Very young children (especially infants and toddlers) are absorbing information at an astonishing pace, learning to use language —gestures, vocalizations, smiles, call-and-response—to invite the attention and care of bigger kids, parents, and anyone they engage with. 

Are you sometimes caught off balance by a child’s thinking? Do you pause, check your assumptions, and appreciate children’s insights, for instance, when 4-year-old Jake comes up with a timeline of world history as: “the dinosaurs, Baby Jesus, the knights, and me”? Does that just seem cute? Or do you recognize there is something more complex behind these and other insights? 

This matters. How we see children shapes how we engage with them, shape opportunities for them, step back or forward as they find their place in the world. Regrettably, when we consider children’s capabilities, we often highlight what they can’t do. Babies can’t feed themselves, toddlers don’t share, preschoolers can’t read or ride two-wheelers. We confuse children’s being novices with their being deficient. Using adult yardsticks to assess their capabilities, children not surprisingly don’t measure up. 

When, however, we slow down, look closely at children with genuine interest; when we are

open and appreciate the remarkable ways they make sense of the world, we see competence, capabilities, possibilities, a spark. The more we pay thoughtful attention to children, the more we discover their extraordinary strengths and capabilities. We notice that children have some great capabilities we hadn’t recognized. What are children great at? You might be surprised. 

1. Children are great at… making connections. They make connections between previous experiences and knowledge and new knowledge and new experiences. Young children connect actions and consequences; understand that symbols stand for words and numbers; find similarities between very different objects; and understand that expressions reflect feelings. This work starts early. When 2-year-old Gwen eats something she likes, she says, “I eat it all gone, none left for Mommy.” Later looking out a window watching a squirrel eat grass she says, “Squirrel eat grass, none left for Gwen's feet.” 

Parents, educators, and adult friends play important roles in creating the conditions that encourage children to make many, varied, and fresh connections. When adults step back and allow children to explore spaces; select unscripted materials; invite them to notice details and incorporate them into their play; when adults respond positively to children’s curiosity, ask open-ended questions and talk about shared experiences, they are nourishing children’s inclination to make and build on connections. 

2. Children are naturals at… developing theories. We don’t have to be scientists and run randomized control groups or develop theories. In fact, we constantly construct, test, and revise our theories about the world. Children do too. Driven to explain the world, they develop theories about how the world works. As young as 4 years, children develop a “theory of mind.” They gather information from interactions and observations about what others think and feel that are different from their own wants and beliefs. They analyze evidence based on what they experience, drawing conclusions and revising their theories. And they test their theories by asking questions, making new connections, and making predictions. 

The process of developing temporary explanations about all sorts of things is a precursor to critical thinking. Why did it happen this way? What will happen if…? Children notice patterns of evidence; they understand about contingencies and how different actions and objects have causal effects. 

Developing theories benefits from having time to understand nonobvious causal relationships. And that’s what happens when children play, explore material-and object-rich spaces, and learn with and from other children. 

3. Children are impressive at helping and finding helpers. While we often say children are self-centered, they, in fact, both help others accomplish their goals and enlist helpers in accomplishing their own goals. Children tend to know when to turn to others for help. Early on, they count on adults to act on their wishes and goals: to be fed, comforted, or reach something up high. Babies are reading us and our feelings. As they watch adults help, children learn to help others, including dolls and animals. 

When children see someone in trouble, they want to do something to help. They like helping. Children step in to help because they have an idea, a skill, or strength they enjoy using. They like being part of the group, playing with others, and accomplishing something bigger with others. 

Adults can show empathy, and act on behalf of others. Rather than socializing children to focus on their own work (Keep your eyes on your own paper), adults can invite children to think together and share ideas, offer multiple avenues for input. Mixed age and ability groups offer opportunities to help and be helped. It’s important to let children be helpful even if it means a bit more of a mess. 

4. Children are accomplished at… pretending their way to more complex understandings. They are curious; they ask questions, think about possibilities, and imagine different ways the world might work. They do this through their theories, understanding something about an object or subject matter, and through pretense—in play. In imagination-based thought during pretend play, also known as counterfactual thinking, children imagine alternatives to the current picture of the world and reason about what might happen if? 

Children are adept at generating possible worlds in every day moments, about the house, in play, drawing on their growing knowledge of objects and events. Possibilities emerge as children imagine various ways things might go and bring new worlds into existence. They might pretend there is no gravity. They know that the world doesn’t act that way, but what if it did? How would we walk? fly? eat? These unreal scenarios draw on what children know about gravity, weight, movement and develop their ability to reason counterfactually. 

Adults can support children’s play with possible new worlds by encouraging imagination-based play, inviting children to think about alternatives and, predict what might happen. 

5. Children are naturals at… having wonderful ideas. Often launched with the  exultation, Hey, I got an idea! children talk to, play with, and connect with each other through ideas—how to build something, propose a story idea, solve a problem, make up a game, or make something work in a new way. Children are not just consumers of other’s ideas and creativity. Everyday they generate possibilities from what fascinates them, what they wonder about, their knowledge of the world, and their imaginations. There’s joy in the movement of ideas, ideas that build on other suggestions. Children delight in their ideas adding, I know what we can do and Let’s try this. 

Having wonderful ideas contributes to children’s intellectual and social development. Wonderful ideas help grow more wonderful ideas giving children a sense of the power of their minds, their imaginations, and their relationships. 

When adults step back, observe and listen to children’s ideas; provide space and time for children to make, test, and modify connections between ideas; and let children take their ideas where they need to go, children feel empowered in having and sharing ideas. 

6. Children are experts at… being informants on what they like, notice, value, and what is meaningful to them. In areas where they have first-hand experience, expertise, and familiarity, children have abundant and valuable information. They are eager to share their adventures, stories, and accomplishments; feelings emotions, ideas, and possibilities that excite them. They tell us who they are and are becoming, giving us a glimpse of what matters to them that is not otherwise available to us. 

When we don’t involve children as participants and co-constructors with us in making decisions on their behalf—in research, design of places for play and learning, creating activities, and selecting materials and objects— we miss insights we need if we are to empower them and serve them well. 

When we do partner with children, however, they talk, draw, act out, and use materials, to share their views and express their thinking. They narrate adventures, mention details adults overlook, and make novel connections. We find clues to how they view and make their place in the world. 

Several approaches—here, here, and here—inspire us with examples of engaging children in meaningful ways on topics that affect them, and places to live, learn, and play. 

7. Children are great at … making metaphors. We’re accustomed to thinking of metaphors in art, literature (she has a heart-of gold), and scientific advancements. Metaphor is, in fact, a way of understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Basic to human communication, metaphor is something we use consciously and often unconsciously. 

Children are thinking metaphorically when they perceive a visual similarity between two very different objects that are not usually yoked together. Knowledge of the one object amplifies knowledge of the other. Play is full of metaphor, both verbal and visual. In play, the light may have a voice, a feather may evoke a sword, a bald head might be a “barefooted head”. 

There is something more complex behind these charming images. Children are using their knowledge of the world and their creativity to exploit the possibilities of an object’s features, opening up rather than confining its perimeters. Object- and experience-rich settings, opportunities to manipulate objects, freedom to explore their features and sensory qualities, varied ways to express ideas and solve problems, and questions such as what does it remind you of? invite metaphor and metaphorical processes. 

8. Children are natural … democratic citizens. Curious, engaged, born researchers, wanting

to belong, and attuned to the interests of others, young children possess the habits and dispositions related to democracy. They feel a sense of us which is evident when the child introduces an idea with, Let’s… When other children add, I’ll be the dog or I’ll drive the spaceship, they are playing with a shared mindset. Through listening, talking, and considering other points of view, they think and act for themselves. They create their own activities, make up their rules, solve their own problems, share narratives, and collaborate on projects—together. They create a world. 

Children’s interest in the common good is expressed on behalf of a group of children in a class, on the block, or an informal group at a museum or library. Space that children can claim for themselves—on the front stoop, the sidewalk, in a fort, or under a tree—is space shared with other children, thought about collectively, and an opportunity for learning to live together. 

Rather than teach—instruct—children in democracy, adults can model inclusive approaches and provide environments that value differences; invite varied points of view; use language children can use such as I think, in my opinion. Offering children opportunities to see the community and be seen by the community and engaging them in research and planning brings insights into our understandings that are not otherwise available. 

9. Children are born creators of a culture of childhood. More than an age cohort, the culture of childhood is children’s shared experiences of growing up and finding their place in the world. It is a continuous dialogue: children form the culture of childhood which, in turn, forms them, shaping their social identity, creating a sense of community, and opening possibilities. Encompassing the hallmarks of culture—language, objects, materials, expression, meaning, and symbols—it is a continuing force of connection, community, and hopeful futures. Play in many forms is the native language of the culture of childhood. Children find and solve problems together; figure out, communicate and negotiate rules; and they fill roles that adults take when they were present. 

Adults can recognize and encourage the culture of childhood and make it visible. This may involve expanding the cultural space of childhood by engaging children, families, educators, and community members in co-constructing outdoor spaces, museum spaces, nature areas, play environments, and other informal learning settings where children can come together, experiment, and creatively explore using multiple modes of expression, materials, and media. And make their mark on the world. 

Before Our Very Eyes 

These and other capabilities fundamentally challenge our assumptions about what children can do early in life. When we are optimistic about children’s competencies at a young age, we discover extraordinary strengths and capabilities and are less preoccupied weaknesses and limitations. We don’t need to wait for these capabilities to emerge later in childhood. They are, in fact, present early in children’s lives, bringing joy, and enriching childhood. When we encourage and support these capabilities in children in rich, varied, and welcoming settings, children see themselves as thinkers and doers, makers and creators, friends, and helpers. 

Museum Notes 

• Becoming a Museum with a Strong Image of the Child 

• Engaging the Child’s Potential

• Observation: Seeing, Un-Seeing, Re-Seeing 

Also

• The Culture of Childhood: We’ve Almost Destroyed It

Seeing Joy: Part 1

MUSEUM NOTES

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning

How can we invite and encourage children to feel and express joy in our museums? 

This question has intrigued me. It comes from a long-standing interest in Reggio-inspired practice in children’s museums and planning in partnership with children. 

But it was photo above, this look of joy on this little guy’s face and the joy expressed in his body that made me wonder, how can we keep this joy alive? Where can we find it in our museums? Can we open our doors wider to welcome joy? 

Social Emotional Learning 

If we didn’t have a clear notion of the importance of social-emotional experiences in children’s lives before the pandemic, children’s absence from social settings and experiencing isolation has provided us with many examples and insights about this critical aspect of children’s growth, development, and wellbeing. We are seeing signs in our museums of children (and adults) emerging from social isolation being stressed out. 

Early social emotional development has lasting effect on our lives. Supporting children’s social emotional learning is complex, on-going, important work. Many children’s museums are focusing on this aspect of children’s development for the first time. Museums that serve children have a special opportunity to create possibilities for children to develop, learn, grow socially and emotionally with others; to build relationship skills, manage themselves, and become responsible decision makers. 

Museums are social places. They are spaces where families go to spend time together; where children and adults meet and connect with other children and adults. They share these public spaces, amiable environments, and novel materials with friendly strangers. They watch others try something and try it themselves. Children learn about sharing, taking turns, friendship, being part of a group. After a visit, families talk together and remember what they did, what they liked, what was new or hard. And they come back for more! 

Places of Joy 

Children’s museums want to be places of joy. Joy is referred to often in children’s museums. 

• We say… “Children play for the sheer joy of it.” 
• We highlight “joyful play” and “joyful learning” on social media 
• Our missions aspire to: 
•  … bring the joy of learning and wonders of the natural world to life
• … create unparalleled experiences to inspire excellence and a lifelong joy of learning

While we believe joy is important in children’s lives and finding their place in the world, we don’t seem to have a shared understanding of what joy is; a sense of what it looks, feels, and sounds like; its importance and benefits; and how we might support and encourage children’s experiences of joy in our museums. Looking at research, we know that: 

• A dose of joy boosts our immune systems, and fights stress and pain 
• Positive emotions like joy and excitement powerfully impact physical and mental health over the whole lifespan 
• Joy is a form of resilience: moments of joy can help our bodies recover from the physiological effects of stress 

These benefits get at why joy matters. And then there’s this:

"Joy, particularly through the activities that result from feeling joy, provides the individual with the opportunity to learn new cognitive and behavioral skills and forge new social relationships and skills which enhances resilience to future obstacles and threats." (1) 

If joy is important and we want to grow its presence in our museums, we need to be attentive and attuned to children’s experiencing it; to reflect on their expressions of joy; notice conditions that might have sparked joy; and invite joy in. 

Learning About Joy in Children’s Lives and Our Museums                                                 

For several years I have been working with WonderTrek Children’s Museum an emerging museum in Brainerd, MN. Our planning work includes co-developing a collaborative inquiry process for exploring how children direct their play. 

As part of this, I’ve been exploring joy. The museum’s mission includes, The joy of play and the wonder of learning and Experiencing joy is among a set of essential experiences in WonderTrek's learning experience framework. A site has been secured and a new building is being designed. WonderTrek believes it’s not too early in the process of opening a strong regional museum to use a research-and learning approach in: 

• planning experiences at a temporary 900 s.f. PlayLab 
• offering activities at locations across the region’s 5 counties 
• developing exhibit concepts and design 
• growing WonderTrek’s Center for Play and Interactive Learning 

WonderTrek’s project team has developed a collaborative, iterative inquiry process that actively engages children and adults including staff and consultants. We use a variety of methods to investigate and document roomy questions around children’s play, exploration, and learning; the role of the environment and materials; and how they understand place. 

We’ve mashed up and adapted several processes to fit the Museum’s interests. WonderTrek Inquiry (WTI) process brings together Team Based-inquiry from the NISE Network; Reggio-inspired documentation; practice-based research; and collaborative action research. We’re making up the process as we go along: developing and modifying it, sometimes at the same time. 

Supporting this practice-based research is a belief that, if we can recognize joy in our museums and find ways to encourage it, we can shift from hoping that children will experience joy to greater confidence in creating the conditions that support joy in exhibits, programs, environments, and interactions. We can invite more joy into our museums, tweak experiences, nurture resilience, and contribute to children’s long-term well-being.

WonderTrek Inquiry Process 

This is the WTI inquiry process in its neat and tidy form. Walking through it, this work clearly requires time. So far we have been able to prioritize time for several reasons. Not only is the approach key to developing museum experiences and environments, but its continuous professional development is core to creating shared understandings of WonderTrek's foundational ideas and putting them into practice from the start. 

Taking a quick spin through the cycle, the process starts with a Question, developed collaboratively. Often one person offers a question that has been floating around and we polish it together. Sub-questions support the lead question and focus the inquiry. At this point we probe why this question is important to the Museum. We've learned to value the time for thinking about importance.

The Question leads to an Invitation to Explore, which challenges us to think together about how we might shape opportunities to engage children and adults in exploring our question.

When we think about Investigation and documenting, we look for activity- and play-based methods—visual, digital, participatory methods that fit the question, setting, children and families, and our capabilities. We are particularly interested in ways to bring in children's voices and perspectives. These might include: brief written observations of children, conversations with them, photos, videos, a talk-back board for parents, and traces of children's works: drawings, constructions, stories.

We move into action, setting up the PlayLab, observing, listening, documenting. After reviewing and summarizing data, we debrief and synthesize. As part of Interpretation, we ask ourselves, "What are we seeing? What might it mean?" Moving from Interpretation to Advancing the inquiry, we do a group reflection, boil down or insights to a few take-aways and Re-frame questions. And we are ready to roll again.

In my next post, I will write about the work-arounds we needed to come up with to continue our exploration of joy when we encountered a challenge. We needed to grow our understanding of joy before we could proceed with an Invitation to Explore.

(1) Johnson, M. (2020). Joy: A review of the literature and suggestions for future directions. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 15(1), 5-24

I Have a Problem with Failure

MUSEUM NOTES 

Jeanne Vergeront 

Vergeront Museum Planning 

I have a problem with failure. Let me be more specific about that. I have a problem with how we celebrate failure, especially for children. 

How many times have you heard, or said yourself: children learn from failure, failure is good for children. We say, fail forward with such certainty and confidence that we believe it. How do we know children learn from failure? Or that it’s good for them? 

Yes, failure is a part of life. Mistakes are inevitable. It’s valuable for children to be able to deal with setbacks. Distress or frustration tolerance is an important life skill to master. And fostering protective factors and resilience has life-long benefits. Is celebrating failure the way to accomplish all that? 

Children, as novices in this world, take on many new things every single day: forming words, riding a bike, making friends, learning to read, helping around the house, understanding the physical world. But block towers crash. Estimates are off. A cherished toy is left on the plane. It’s what happens. Children get hurt and they will experience disappointment. Some setbacks are difficult to observe. 

When there is so much to marvel at in children’s urge to play, their eagerness to try so many things, and their delight in their accomplishments, why are we so eager to celebrate their failures? Remarkably, we even ask them to enjoy their failures.  

Our assumptions about children and failure suggest that we underestimate them and their capabilities. When we see failure as a tool for teaching competence, we are not recognizing that even very young children are already competent learners. They are curious and resourceful. They are already exploring, experimenting, learning, and they are ready to move on to something new. We also underestimate children’s capabilities to follow their interests, assess their capabilities, meet challenges, and ask for help when we make their world too narrow, safe, and predictable. Celebrating failure is, unfortunately, becoming an antidote to relentless perfectionism in the lives of too many children. 

I am puzzled about why we are so certain that how we, as adults, view failure would be the same as a child’s experience of failure. I suspect our adult lens on children’s experiences is clouding our perspective. We confidently assume that we know what’s going on for the child when they climb a tree and can’t get down, spill milk, forget to do their homework, or hurt a friend’s feelings. 

We might consider what the possibility of trying something risky, stretching to meet a challenge, learning something new, or accomplishing a hard task feels like to a child. Fascination with what might happen is powerful; a child wonders what will happen if they try this, then what will happen, and then what will happen next? When things didn’t go as we think they should, we assume failure. The child, however, finds new information, a better idea, something else to try, and moves on. Where we see failure, a child finds an opportunity to figure out how a lid snaps closed, how to slow down a bike, how to make-up with a friend, or build a sturdier fort. 

Before labelling something as a failure, we should consider what’s happening for the child. For instance, what does a child experience as a setback? And what does that mean to them? Especially for young children, an adult idea of success or failure is irrelevant. Children don’t know about failure until we teach them about it, often with sharp words, a look of disappointment, or a rush to fix everything. In play, children often incorporate setbacks into a play narrative, a new construction, or the rules of a game. When a child plays, tinkers, or putters, they don’t have a checklist or time frame as adults do in many areas of child development and education. “Shares with a friend.” CHECK. “Carries a bucket of sand without spilling.” CHECK. 

Championing failure implies that we view life as a test. For children, especially younger children, life is practice, not a constant, on-going set of tasks and tests. By celebrating failure, we are judging all the time, placing everyday happenings on a game field of win-lose, success-failure, right-wrong. Is it really helpful to label an effort a failure and add a dose of shame or embarrassment to how a child understands what happened? Lost a mitten? Dropped something down the drain; knocked over the glass vase, didn’t make the team? 

What else are we saying by celebrating failure? There's a message that we value failure over persistence or having new ideas. That adults’ naming failure takes precedence over children understanding and incorporating what they’ve learned, or finding new ways to solve their problems. Ironically, by calling out failure we might just be stigmatizing rather than celebrating it. 

True failure does exist and should not be trivialized. We don’t, however, need to celebrate failure in order to accept that life and learning are seamless ways of wondering, exploring, finding out, and growing. Richard Feynman, 1965 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics reminds us: 

    Being wrong is not a bad thing like they teach you in school. 

It is an opportunity to learn something. 

There are no mistakes, only lessons. 

Growth is a process of trial and error. 

We might fail less and celebrate accomplishments more if we were to create physical and social-emotional environments and experiences for children in museums, classrooms, playgrounds, backyards, and homes that: 

• Value persistence and having ideas 
• Highlight open-ended materials and activities 
• Encourage focus and absorption 
• Make room for children to choose and follow their choices 
• Manage expectations and patience 
• Invite conversation about ideas and what’s happening 
• Trust children to direct their play, exploration, and learning 
• Celebrate accomplishments, small and large 
• Let play happen; in play, outcomes are undefined, consequences are minimal 

Listening to How Children See their World

MUSEUM NOTES

Jeanne Vergeront

Vergeront Museum Planning

"We're camouflaged as a bench, Mom."

There’s a secret passageway from here to there. And I am the only one who knows about it. 6-year-old boy after crawling through a maze at Minnesota Children’s Museum (1991) 

I feel like a robot who never had a battery. 5-year-old-girl at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to her mother (12/2015) 

Barry, do you remember when our block used to be the whole world? 7-year-old Andy (1971) 

I collect children’s words and language. These are just 3 from the dozens of quotes that I have overheard as I have listened in on children’s conversations, questions, musings, and discoveries in museums, zoos, stores, airports, restaurants, and family gatherings. 

If we notice quotes and anecdotes like these at all, they might evoke a smile or chuckle. We might repeat them to someone else and for an instant, we might appreciate the fresh view of the world they offer. What these words really offer, however, doesn’t stop there. 

There are words behind words and meanings within meaning. When we observe children or hear their comments, we are enjoying privileged glimpses into how a child understands the world. This thinking out loud hints at what captures their attention; what is interesting and relevant to them; the promise they see in materials and objects; the capabilities they are proud of; and how they see themselves. Children’s words and language are a wide, open invitation for reflecting on their thinking and making sense of the world, sharing insights with others, and carrying forward new understandings and choices. 

When I reflect on children’s words and language, my mind moves over three questions. My 

Listening in on a conversation

intent in doing this is not to prove what I already think or to reinforce a particular theory. Rather, I hope to learn from children, to open new lines in my thinking, and consider fresh possibilities for engaging and supporting them. This approach can be helpful in learning from children’s words, as well as their drawings, play, movements, and constructions. 

What have I heard the child say? When possible, I write down what I overheard, in the child’s own words. I add relevant factors about the child including age, place, date, expressive qualities. These notes might include what else is happening: the child’s movements, others’ presence, interactions with objects or materials, and what preceded or followed this. 

What might be the deeper structure of these ideas? Starting with the basics of what I noticed about the child’s words, I consider: was it a question? a statement? What words did the child choose; which words stand out? how do they seem to relate to the context? What possible meanings might these words have for this child? What might this suggest about the child’s thinking, interests, self-management, or sense of agency? 

How might we return these ideas to children? As respectful stewards of children’s words and anecdotes, we must make good use of insights and possibilities on the child’s behalf. This means exploring new understandings of this particular child or for other children in a similar setting. We can bring new knowledge, explore a promising hunch, and try out some possible conditions to encourage more critical thinking; help the child move further into their encounter; or encourage new connections. And then, we watch, listen, reflect, and repeat. 

Don’t Step on the Green Dirt 

Several years ago, at a family gathering, 4-1/2-year-old Cyrus approached a group of aunts and uncles lounging about and informed us seriously, Don’t step on the green dirt. He paused and continued, Well, technically, it’s not green dirt. Cyrus had our attention. We agreed not to step on the green dirt. Uncle Andy and I commented to each other on the use of “technically” (pronounced tenknikly). Cyrus turned and sped back to the bushes where his cousins played. 

Since that day, this episode has flitted through my mind often and unbidden. If there was something special about green dirt, what was it? How did Cyrus understand the word technically? Was he inhabiting a moment of awareness about moving from inside the play frame—a material or non-material boundary that contains play episodes—to outside the play frame, from a place where green dirt is possible to where it doesn’t exist for others? 

When I revisit Cyrus’ conversation, I think of how the idea of a play frame might be relevant. How might we support play episodes that extend across days, weeks or months? How can we respect stepping through the play frame? This episode is striking in spotlighting how much play apparently takes place in the child’s mind, even though we so often think of play as hands on, physical, and social. Perhaps we should insist on blurring the domains in play. 

Moreover, we should recognize children as astute and constant observers. A familiar object that has been moved, novel surface materials, or graphic patterns intrigue children and demand investigation. The green dirt prompts thinking about other possible surface materials and finishes and how they may inspire play, exploration, and learning. Even a change in flooring or fluttering shadows launch fresh play scenarios. So, what unfamiliar materials and surfaces are fascinating? What unusual combinations of materials invite new story paths? How do they build children’s fluency with the material world? 

Real, Fake, and In Between 

Listening to Cyrus reminds me of several episodes of other children’s apparent interest in what is real, fake, or somewhere in between. At her 6th birthday party, Clara received a small potted flowering plant. After being told that it was a primrose, Clara carried the pot around to show each of her guests. In no uncertain terms, she directed each one’s attention to the plant, pointing emphatically to the primrose saying, This is a primrose. And it’s real. 

At the Mall of America LEGO Store, 7-year-old Ian had an important message for his sister about the brick constructions when he said, It looks like it’s fake, but it’s made of LEGO’s. This distinction continues to intrigue me. I wonder what quality was the obverse of fake for Ian. I also wonder how LEGOs fit into this distinction? Is it possible that Ian, and other children, entertain a third quality along with real and fake—our familiar adult dichotomy? Might real exist in more than one form for children? Might this third quality enrich children's state of play? 

"It looks like it's fake, but..."

This isn’t an idle exercise. Museums are settings where authenticity is often a goal; where real and fake are often intermixed; where many distinctions, imitation, pretense, genuine, etc. are applied to objects, artifacts, materials, environments. And children are aware of this. 

A real hollow log

At the dog park, I overheard a 6-year-old boy explain how to know if a hollow log is real. After crawling through a fallen, hollowed-out log he explained, If it’s too round, too shiny, and there’s no dirt, it’s not real. They can put moss on it, but it’s still not real. He contrasted this log with one he'd crawled through at a museum.

Based on this admittedly small sample of three children, all 6-7 years old, we can agree that children are concerned with, or interested in, what is real and what is fake. Even at a young age, they seem to be relatively astute connoisseurs of these important, but somewhat elusive, qualities. Real is a distinction that gives something additional value; at least Clara thinks so. The boy climbing through the log understands that things are not always as they seem to be. 

Clearly, this distinction is not a simple one and appears to be somewhat flexible with children seeming to occupy a world between real and pretend. Years ago, a 4-year-old boy was looking through binoculars from the mezzanine in Minnesota Children’s Museum’s Earth World gallery. When a boy standing nearby started to set off the thunder storm, the boy protested, You can’t make a thunderstorm! I am watching birds. 

Children are involved in making distinctions between real and fake and related qualities that we know too little about. It’s likely that making these distinctions varies among children of different ages and background experiences. We can imagine that these qualities are not firm in a child’s mind and are even changeable over a period of time. With only a handful of quotes, we may not be able to confidently answer larger questions about real and fake to guide us in shaping experiences for children. However, even this small sample tells us that these are important aspects of children’s worlds and how they engage with them— including their experiences at our museums. 

Children’s words and language tell us that they have thoughts and ideas about their world, on this and other topics. While there’s much we don’t know about children as thinkers, explorers, and doers, we can actively learn from them. By listening to them, reflecting on the deeper structure of their words and thoughts, and returning fresh insights to them as experiences, children can enjoy new possibilities and engage with a world rich in discovering. 

Museum Notes

• Listening to Children’s Thinking: https://museumnotes.blogspot.com/2011/09/listening-to-childrens-thinking.html 
• Observation: Seeing, Un-seeing, Re-seeing: https://museumnotes.blogspot.com/2017/10/observation-from-seeing-to-un-seeing-to.html

 

Making Sense – Two Ways

When you start planning a museum experience for children—an exhibit, environment, event, program or even a museum for children—how do you go about understanding the children you intend to serve?

While professionals and researchers across the museum field have various methods for learning about museum visitors, they are generally not used widely with children. Even when they are, they often have a narrow focus. This is somewhat understandable. Gathering input is time consuming and requires expertise to be helpful. Familiar methods are generally less suited to engaging children. Outside of behavioral observations, methods like focus groups, surveys, and interviews rely on skills children may not have developed fully. When we do consult children, the focus is often limited. We assess their understanding of a concept or a preference for one activity over another.

Wonder of Learning Exhibit: Reggio Children

And yet, we are undergoing a change in our conceptualization of children. Advances in
neuroscience and brain development and educational projects like the Reggio Emilia schools have expanded our view of children as capable social actors, thinkers, and doers, active agents in their play, learning, and development. This provides ample reason to go beyond occasional questions about a specific activity or a focus on a skill rather than on the child to more fully understand and engage them in museums. 

To be more than a good intention, however, we must create meaningful opportunities to actively involve children and learn with and from them. There is no lack of interesting and important questions to explore. In fact, the questions we might ask for planning museum experiences can also tell us something we didn't know about children's thinking, learning, and understanding which is critical to creating experiences with greater impact. These are questions as much about children as about museums; as much about what delights them as what they are learning; and as much about our broader understanding of children as testing a prototype.

Familiar Steps in an Open-ended, Iterative Process. We can explore these questions using familiar steps and methods in evaluation and research and draw on approaches like the pedagogical documentation used in the Reggio schools. This blend creates an open-ended, qualitative, descriptive, emergent, and exploratory approach which offers a broader, richer, more comprehensive view of children's engagement with their world while helping us glimpse what we couldn't otherwise see.

Reggio Children

Like a series of small studies unfolding over time, one study builds on another, fueled by new questions. We don't know just where such studies will lead. We do, however, know that this iterative process of framing questions and thinking and discovering together, will build our understanding of children and contribute to authentic experiences that engage their potential. 

Framing Questions, like developing research questions, brings focus to our interest in better understanding how children make sense of themselves and their world. Questions about children's interests and understanding need to be generous, not reduced to one activity or behavior while ignoring the richness of the context. A question about how children explore a natural setting, for example, can look at how they navigate undefined spaces, are curious about mud, and develop a connection to the natural world. We might even notice something germane to siting the museum building itself or an outdoor nature play area.

Designing for Engagement, like designing a study, considers a promising focus and how to investigate it: the children, their ages and groupings; the setting, the nature of the engagement, and appropriate methods. Here, engagement is understood as children's activity—behavior, movement, conversation—as well as their attention, interest, and its intensity. The study itself is an opportunity for children to interact with materials, the setting, other children, an artist, animals, and ideas in ways that maintain the complexity of the real world. This approach is necessarily open to the unexpected happening.

Watching and Listening, may appear to be less orderly than data collection typically does, but it is no less intentional. An approach that centers on children, their capabilities, agency, and potential follows their interest, attention, actions, questions, hunches, and conversations. Methods like video, photos, recording, drones, drawings, and mapping capture dialogue, movement, play, and transformations of space. Data collection literally follows them, bringing in multiple points of view and ways of capturing their encounters. A debrief immediately following gathers what has escaped the eye and ear to produce multiple snapshots and sequences of the children's explorations.

Reviewing and Reflection, much like analysis, is concerned with thinking about what we are

Photo credit: Vergeront

seeing in the information and impressions we have gathered. Multiple passes of videos, photos, recordings, or drawings by different people capture what we think might be happening. With careful consideration, we arrive at possible interpretations. We work to locate the meaning making in the child and then in ourselves. And we do it again. Why? Because in suspending our certainty about what we are noticing, what the child might be feeling, paying attention to, or doing, we are also learning about how we see. We are making sense in a way that is provisional both for the child and for us in understanding the child.

Relaunching, much like results, considers where exploration might lead. While a study might be a starting point for understanding a child's interests, questions, and ideas on a potential exhibit topic or activity, it should also help us make sense of how children work with others, set their own goals in play, or view their capabilities and accomplishments. The genesis of an exhibit can come from observing and listening to children rather than from exhibit planners, marketing, school curriculum, or funder interest. A Relaunch invites exploring alternative meanings, pursuing another line of inquiry, and shaping questions around a museum's long-term interest in children. 

Making Sense of Children Making Sense. The involved and evolving nature of a process concerned with making sense of children making sense of the world is challenging both in practice and in making the benefits concrete and concise. Brief descriptions and photos from 3 museum projects follow, each highlighting various aspects of this approach.

•    Planning for the recently opened Louisiana Children's Museum (LCM) in New Orleans involved groups of children and parents in a set of activities and conversations that informed the design direction, exhibit development, architectural design, and graphics. Development of LCM's 2011 museum strategic master plan began with a visitor panel of a dozen children, 5 - 10 years, their parents and caregivers that met 3 times. Sessions focused on what was fascinating to children in LCM's Julia Street exhibits, how parents and caregivers saw their child's thinking and learning, and what was important and interesting to the children about water in their everyday lives. Children's drawings, discussions, photographs, and words not only expressed their ideas and interests, but also inspired planning. 

Photo credit: © Gyroscope Inc.

One boy's drawing of his ideal exhibit showed a giant chessboard overlaid with a map of New
Orleans and sounds collected from across the city. Moving a chess piece would activate a city sound on that square. His drawing inspired the Jackson Square entry experience in the Make Your Mark gallery.

Recognizing how this first round of conversations and drawings brimmed with children's ideas and parent observations, dialogue sessions were held throughout the 8 years of planning. They were incorporated into camps, one-time sessions, and school projects. Sessions focused on topics about growing food, where ideas come from, water, animals and their habitats. Some focused on the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. The insights and interests that emerged from children and families inspired experiences (a crawfish boil), became gallery graphics, were incorporated into way-finding, and even appear in LCM's logo. Highlighting the role of children's contributions, use of a child's art work includes the child's name and age.

Photo Credit: Louisiana Children's
Museum

Through the team's observations and listening, members learned that these children have a sense of place, understand something about local food culture, and how water plays a role in moving food from New Orleans to the world. Relationships are important to them; they take care of things, help each other, and are careful observers. These observations and new questions are being folded into LCM's ongoing work.

•    Interest in exploring children's ideas about communities and the places that make up communities prompted a 2014 collaboration between Minnesota Children's Museum and the Reggio-inspired Network of Minnesota. As part of MCM's 2014-2017 expansion and renovation, Seeing Everyday Places was a project within a project within a project. MCM shared with educators and families in local early years programs the community settings the Our World gallery would include: a fire station, park, farmers' market, hardware store, post office, and food truck. 

Over several months, children visited one of the settings with their class, in small groups, or with their families. They met and talked with people at the hardware store; went behind the scenes at the bank; and visited the fire station. New lines of inquiry emerged: curiosity about types of mailboxes and each child's family mailbox, and how more money is made. 

Fire Station Kitchen
Courtesy Minnesota Children's Museum

Documentation panels from each of the groups highlighted connections children found between everyday places in their neighborhoods and communities. "A Story of Materials and Money" captured a family's trips to the hardware store. That parent noted that, over the course of the family's exploring hardware stores, her 4-year old's building constructions changed from spaceships and fantasy vehicles to gas stations and neighborhood scenes. Children who explored parks created Nature Park Blue Prints for the Our World park. Four-year old Oliver's blue print specified the number (6), size (s, m, l), and type (deciduous and evergreen) or trees; a button for making rain sounds; a fountain and a bench; and magnifying glasses. Responding to children's curiosity about firefighters living at the 

Fire station living
Photo credit: Vergeront

station when they work, MCM devoted more space and activities to a fire station kitchen where children could explore firefighters' daily routines through dramatic play.

 •    Planning currently underway for Region 5 Children's  Museum (R5CM) in north central Minnesota is conducting a set of small studies and community engagement based in the Museum's strategic master plan. Referred to as encounters, they are intended to engage children, families, and communities around understanding more about how children find their place in the world. They are also part of early exhibit development. The first of several encounters for small groups of children 2 - 10 years is underway in a park that is likely to be the home of the Museum.

Photo credit: R5CM

With an interest in understanding more about how children engage in open-ended exploration and child-directed play in an outdoor setting, the Museum's team set up 2 conditions, a park playground area and a natural area, both with loose parts the children could carry, build with, pretend with, and investigate. In one session, an extended play experience laster nearly 25 minutes. Captured on video, a group of children ages 5 - 9 from a summer day camp program worked collaboratively at the climb-on play equipment. Using 50-feet of rope and moving back-and-forth between two structures tying the rope between them, from 3 - 6 children worked to make a zip line. 

They tied knots and tested their strength. When knots loosened and the rope—and the child—dropped, they tied new knots. They lowered the height of the rope at one end and raised the other end by shimmying up poles and boosting each other up to reach higher bars. Working with an apparent hunch about reducing friction on the zip line, they found a length of PVC pipe and slid it over the rope. Like good problem solvers, they tested, revised, rethought aspects of the problem, and improved their design.

From review and discussion of this and other videos, photos, and notes, the team has been thinking about what the children are doing and what their engagement might mean to them. The team noticed the children's extensive and innovative investigation of materials; how they were collaborative and managed their interactions; had hunches and persisted in exploring them; and that they socialized easily. The child-directed curriculum of everyday STEM the children developed was rich.

The first set of encounters has laid a groundwork for the next which will focus on the natural phenomena at the park the children notice and how they use their senses and imaginations to explore and represent them. The team has yet to see where that will lead.

More Like a Milkweed Pod Than a Pocketful of Rye. Where we place our attention is where we begin to see what is happening. When we follow compelling questions and when we wonder, think, and discover together, we deepen our understanding of the thinkers, doers, and learners in our museums including ourselves. We push on safe ideas, shift perspectives, fold new insights into everyday choices, and create new touchstones within a group working together. Each person takes something of that shared understanding into a new setting, fresh possibilities, and a new set of questions.

My thanks to Lani Shapiro, Tom Bedard, Cheryl Kessler, Mary Weiland, Jim Roe, Peter Olson, Maeryta Medrano, and Julia Bland

Related Museum Notes

• Observation: Seeing, Un-seeing, Re-seeing:

• Listening to Children's Thinking:

 

   

Children in Museums

First published in February 2014, this post looks into the growing presence of children across museums of all types and begins a series that explores their presence in museums from a variety of perspectives.  

There are children’s museums and then there are museums children visit with parents, grandparents, and school groups. From a museum perspective–children’s museums on the one hand and traditional museums children visit on the other–having children as visitors can have quite different meaning. For children, however, the experience between one type of museum and another might be less than museum people generally assume.  

Memories of Museums from Childhood
Before there were children’s museums in most cities, children went to museums, liked museums, and remembered them. In my experience, they still do; and there are good reasons for it. 

The Wood Gatherer

My friend Mary grew up in Milwaukee and remembers vividly going to the Milwaukee Art Museum with her friends Jimmy and Linda, on their own, without adults. Frequently, even weekly in the summer, they would walk down Astor Street and cross Juneau Park and get into the Art Museum for free. They would always visit their favorite paintings. Mary’s was The Wood Gatherer by Jules Bastien LePage. Then they’d each get an ice cream sandwich at the canteen for 10 cents. Fifty years later, Mary was at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and came face-to-face with her favorite painting, on loan from the Milwaukee Art Museum. It stopped her in her tracks, brought back a flood of childhood and neighborhood memories, and made her trip. 

Sweden’s Nobel prize-winning poet Tomas Tranströmer, writes in Memories Look at Me, A Memoir about going to museums as a child in Stockholm. He starts off, “As a child, I was attracted to museums. First the Natural History Museum. What a building! Gigantic, Babylonian, inexhaustible.” (Translated from Swedish by Robin Fulton) Tranströmer was first taken to the museum when he was about 5 years old. At the entrance were 2 elephant skeletons, “…guardians of the gateway to the miraculous.” Inspired by what he saw, Tranströmer visited every second Sunday, started his own collections, and one day, met a professor, “…one of the guardian angels who appeared now and then in my childhood and touched me with its wings.”

While children visit children’s museums now, they also visit “big museums.” I was at a café in St Paul last year and overheard a mother and her 3 boys ranging from 3-8 years talking about going to the museum. Since we were several blocks from Minnesota Children’s Museum, I asked if they were headed there. The middle child said they were going to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to see the Terracotta Warriors. His brother added with emphasis that it was their third visit. A friend says his sister takes her 4 grand children to the local art museum. Each of the children has a favorite painting and insists on visiting it on every visit. Ranging from 5-10 years, they have lively discussions about the merits of their paintings.

In late 2013, 12- year old Jake caught the attention of many museum professionals as he posted, “21 ways how I would create an amazing museum” on his blog, Jake’s Bones. His list about making museums awesome for everyone, especially for children, not only demonstrates extensive museum going, but also reveals an engaged and incisive observer and thinker about the museum experience. His astute, visitor-centered ideas take children, their interests, and capabilities seriously with recommendations such as, “Don’t hide the experts,” “Link exhibits to things in the real world,” and  “Have information for all levels of knowledge.”

Recently I watched as 2 sisters and their parents explore the extensive Degas collection at the Norton Simon Museum  in Pasadena. Moving through several galleries, the girls took

In second position before Degas

turns, pausing at every painting or statue. Each one spent time looking the dancer and then carefully assumed the same ballet pose as her sister and parents looked on. The girls moved to the next painting. 

These are only my examples and no doubt many others could add theirs. Some may stand out as exceptions; clearly a 12-year old blogger with a book contract is unusual. Even as a small sample, however, they show children as enthusiastic museum goers, engaged with art, collections, and people in museums. Their visits are sources of durable experiences with life-long significance. This challenges several notions about children in museums: museums can’t reach children; children aren’t ready for “real” museums until they are older; and children only like some museums–natural history and not art.

Children Ready for Museums
Children are constantly making connections between what they see and hear and the experiences they have accumulated in even the first few years of life. Evidence of children’s interest in museums and varied expressions of their interest is apparent in the examples above. In museums children interact with people; they ask information-seeking questions about novel objects and their functions; they borrow language from others; they make meaning they carry forward to new experiences. With rich environments, great volumes of space, interesting finishes and surfaces, and real objects at actual size (very big, very small and in between), museums invite children to notice, explore, ask questions, think, and follow their interests.

Museums are simply great places for children to learn how to learn and enjoy learning. Programs, anecdotes, and studies illustrate how children–from babies to school-aged children, in museums of every type–are open to and benefit from museum experiences.

Young children’s capacity to enjoy and learn from museums is foundational for the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center (SEEC). For 24 years, SEEC has offered museum-based learning in an early childhood program for children 2 months to 6 years at three sites in Washington, DC. While it draws on The Smithsonian’s extensive collections, SEEC’s object-based approach also builds on children’s curiosity, eagerness to make connections, and willingness to go beyond what they see. Children explore objects and exhibits in art, history, and science museums. They interact with curators, scientists, artists, and cultural historians, along with museum educators to learn about the world, get ideas, and build a positive perspective of museums.

Museum fellow, Susan Erdman, writes about taking her toddler to museums now.  She recognizes the value of her son seeing real things and making meaningful connections between objects–vehicles and animals–that he has seen in books and sees at the museum or zoo. Size, color, sound, and smells contribute information and deepen his understanding about what he’s noticing, what’s going on, how things work, and what people are talking about. She knows his brain is already absorbing concepts and museums help build those concepts. The Toledo Museum of Art offers docent-lead monthly baby tours. Based on research by Dr. Kathy Danko-McGee, the Museum’s director of education, the tours for 2-to-18 month-olds focus on interesting shapes, lines and colors. Caregivers are encouraged to name and describe different characteristics in a work of art supporting connections about shape, colors, symbols, and language.

Large objects, with strong, accessible, contextual links

In one of the few studies to look at children in museums, Piscitelli and Anderson explored children’s perspectives and past experiences of museums. The study of 77 children 4-6 years old in Brisbane (AU) indicates that children have extensive experience and positive perspectives about museum settings they visited. They regard museums as places full of exciting opportunities to learn and get new ideas. Exhibits with large objects and strong, accessible, contextual links to previous experiences and knowledge stand out in children’s recollections. Their visual recall and verbal descriptions of exhibits and architectural features are remarkably accurate. 

Children bring to museums a disposition to notice, get ideas, and make connections between what they see and hear and their experiences and interests.

Museums Ready for Children
While children seem ready for museums, museums–other than children’s museums–do not necessarily seem to be ready for children. It’s not that art, history, natural history, or science museums don’t admit children. Many, if not most, do­­. Rather, many museums don’t really value children as children and museum goers. Consequently, they aren’t prepared to serve them in ways they serve adults, experts, tourists, etc.

A typical explanation for a museum deciding to serve children relates to audience development: reach more young families and grow membership. Confusing a museum's need to grow with what an audience group needs is unfortunate. Serving children means serving them well: valuing them, recognizing the significance of early experiences, and welcoming young children as additions to public spaces. Rather than adding an admission category and hosting toddler Tuesdays, a museum must be prepared to welcome children and delight them.

MOHAI (Seattle)

Museums intending to serve children well have staff interested in and prepared to interact with and engage children. From security, to guest services, to educators, developers and designers, and housekeepers, staff should be as pleased to see children, as children are to see them. Serving children well means granting them the greatest reasonable access to galleries, rooms, and exhibits while considering the needs of the objects and building, something that can require creative thinking. One historic house on a very large property didn’t allow children under 10, until it recognized that the gardens and out buildings were great places for children to explore.

Museums committed to serving children well adopt a set of practices suited to children in every museum, regardless of type: multi-sensory, hands-on learning strategies; facilitated and mediated experiences; and child-centered environments. (In fact, the UK has a manifesto for kid-friendly museums.) Supporting these practices is a child-centered pedagogy that recognizes children as competent and full of potential, as active agents in their own learning.

While museum professionals and researchers may be convinced that young children's benefit from visiting museums include learning, they actually know very little about these experiences and museums’ impact on children and their learning. Mary Ellen Munley’s 2012 literature review of research conducted in museum settings focusing on young children’s learning concludes that this research is lacking. Prepared for the Smithsonian Institution’s Early Learning Collaborative Network and SEEC, Munley’s review notes that museums do provide distinct and positive environments to foster young children’s learning; and young children are interested in artifacts and exhibitions in traditional museums where they learn disciplinary-specific information (history or biology) before being exposed to those disciplines in school settings.

Ezra and friends at the Berkeley Art Museum

For museums interested in serving children well, the limited research on children in museums, and children’s learning in museums in particular, is challenging. It is not, however, surprising. The increase in serving children in programs and initiatives in traditional museums, also highlighted in Munley’s review, is relatively recent. Equally significant, however, is how young children’s learning is viewed. Children’s learning often looks different from older children’s and adults’ learning and may miss being studied. 

Children as receptive viewers of contemporary art may not look like adults being viewers of contemporary art. Children intrigued by dinosaurs may role-play in front of the Triceratops while adults are unlikely to do so. Ideas for stories, investigating, or building come from what children see in a painting, a sculpture, a diorama, skeleton, or people in the museum. As long as learning is viewed as content, concepts, and data calibrated to the school curriculum, what children actually are learning in museums will be overlooked. In Stay Behind the Yellow Line in Curator (56/4), Clarkin-Phillips, Carr, Thomas, Waitai, and Lowe describe a study of 3 and 4-year olds’ constructing knowledge about being a museum visitor and exhibitor. The children’s activities demonstrated their ability to develop an appreciation of art and an understanding of the purposes of museums and art galleries.

Children–Knowing–Museums–Knowing–Children
There are children’s museums and then there are traditional museums that children visit . A good number of museums are somewhere in between. These are museums with a family learning focus, museums that understand that a mission of supporting life-long learning begins with babies, and museums that more-or-less ignore the distinction completely. In this group might be the:

• Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (Amherst, MA)

• City Museum (St. Louis)

• American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore)

• Exploratorium (San Francisco)

Increasingly more museums of all types welcome children to their galleries, exhibits, programs, and events. We know, or at least believe and hope to show, that a full range of museum experiences for children are valuable: children visit museums in their communities and as they travel; they actively pursue interests; they become museum goers and engage in learning at every stage of life. Museums make children want to explore and to learn. Hopefully children are making museums want to learn about them as well.