The tourists have returned to Washington. They talk too loudly on the metro; they stand on the wrong side of the escalators; they insist that the Capitol building is the White House.
And for some of us they are our life blood.
They fill in our surveys and answer our questions; they explain why they came; and what they hope to experience. They make up a majority of our annual audiences but are a special audience all their own.
So I say welcome back. Enjoy your stay.
Please forgive us for rejoicing at season’s end.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Please do not ask me to be in your shoes.
I read Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland as part of a senior-year anthropology class. To start a discussion of the book my professor asked, “What would you have done in this situation? What would you have done if you were a Polish villager ordered to massacre your neighbors?"
In asking the question do we search for some type of truth in people? There must be a reason ordinary people became murderers -- social pressure, the universal need to protect one’s own life and family first. Something, anything. And if we can empathize - if we can put ourselves in their place -- then do we not learn something about ourselves in the process?
But what if faced with a situation in which putting oneself in the other's shoes is an impossibility. I remember the taste of bile when I considered the absurdity of the question. “I cannot in any way answer this question." I began to say."I am Jewish. I would never, ever, EVER have been on the other side of that gun. Nothing in my 22 years of life has told me anything but that absolute fact.”
In an effort to make history relevant we ask visitors to “put yourself in the shoes of....” The best interpretations allow us to consider what we would do in a specific situation by giving us a set of context in which to consider our decision. But what if all of the context in the world does not change some absolute truths? In demanding that a person empathize are we actually marginalizing their own truths?
In asking the question do we search for some type of truth in people? There must be a reason ordinary people became murderers -- social pressure, the universal need to protect one’s own life and family first. Something, anything. And if we can empathize - if we can put ourselves in their place -- then do we not learn something about ourselves in the process?
But what if faced with a situation in which putting oneself in the other's shoes is an impossibility. I remember the taste of bile when I considered the absurdity of the question. “I cannot in any way answer this question." I began to say."I am Jewish. I would never, ever, EVER have been on the other side of that gun. Nothing in my 22 years of life has told me anything but that absolute fact.”
In an effort to make history relevant we ask visitors to “put yourself in the shoes of....” The best interpretations allow us to consider what we would do in a specific situation by giving us a set of context in which to consider our decision. But what if all of the context in the world does not change some absolute truths? In demanding that a person empathize are we actually marginalizing their own truths?
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Pew Millenial Study -- They are not Generation X
The Pew Research Center recently made public their study on Millennials. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1501/millennials-new-survey-generational-personality-upbeat-open-new-ideas-technology-bound (scroll to end of web page for link to entire report).
I have only had a chance to read the executive summary. Reading those pages, however, reminded me that the generation that grew up with computers, internet, cell phones, social media, etc are now in their 20s. The first plugged in generation is now in the job market, forming families, bringing their own children to museums, looking for ways to remain connected in a post-college community or forming connections in a new community. And that the children now coming to museums are actually the second "plugged in" generation. The expectations and needs of these visitors, and how these visitors value museums, has been addressed by museum colleagues for years -- notably (to me) Nancy Proctor at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Victoria Portway at the National Air and Space Museum, Kate Haley Goldman at the Institute for Learning Innovation, and Nina Simon of the blog (and articles, lectures, etc) Museum 2.0. These colleagues have been at the forefront of understanding technologically based social engagement in/including museums. I am grateful to be able to linger on the edge of their discussions and experiments.
For more information about the Report, the following is from the Report Introduction:
"This report represents the Pew Research Center’s most ambitious examination to date of America's newest generation, the Millennials, many of whom have now crossed into adulthood. We began looking at this age group in 2006 in a comprehensive survey we conducted in association with the PBS documentary series, “Generation Next.” Our new report greatly expands on that seminal work. In the pages that follow we set out to compare the values, attitudes and behaviors of Millennials with those of today’s older adults. And to the extent that we can, we also compare them with older adults back when they were the age that Millennials are now."
I have only had a chance to read the executive summary. Reading those pages, however, reminded me that the generation that grew up with computers, internet, cell phones, social media, etc are now in their 20s. The first plugged in generation is now in the job market, forming families, bringing their own children to museums, looking for ways to remain connected in a post-college community or forming connections in a new community. And that the children now coming to museums are actually the second "plugged in" generation. The expectations and needs of these visitors, and how these visitors value museums, has been addressed by museum colleagues for years -- notably (to me) Nancy Proctor at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Victoria Portway at the National Air and Space Museum, Kate Haley Goldman at the Institute for Learning Innovation, and Nina Simon of the blog (and articles, lectures, etc) Museum 2.0. These colleagues have been at the forefront of understanding technologically based social engagement in/including museums. I am grateful to be able to linger on the edge of their discussions and experiments.
For more information about the Report, the following is from the Report Introduction:
"This report represents the Pew Research Center’s most ambitious examination to date of America's newest generation, the Millennials, many of whom have now crossed into adulthood. We began looking at this age group in 2006 in a comprehensive survey we conducted in association with the PBS documentary series, “Generation Next.” Our new report greatly expands on that seminal work. In the pages that follow we set out to compare the values, attitudes and behaviors of Millennials with those of today’s older adults. And to the extent that we can, we also compare them with older adults back when they were the age that Millennials are now."
Monday, March 1, 2010
John Brown was obviously a maniac...or a martyr...or a counter-terrorist.
Ordinary people doing ordinary things; ordinary people doing extraordinary things; extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. All in the same time and place.
Was this an intentional theme of the interpretive tour at Harper's Ferry this past Saturday? Not sure. With-in this structure, however, there was room for context to tell a story of the mid-nineteenth century town of Harper's Ferry in which John Brown, the person and the idea, acting in ways that are both mystifying and understandable, steps in. This structure permitted space to include the socioeconomic workings of the town, the sheer confusion of the raid, the hanging of John Brown, and the the myriad of interpretations placed on Harper's Ferry since. And it allowed for the interpretation to be open ended - was John Brown right, wrong, neither, both? What about the actions of the whites? The free-blacks? The enslaved? History is an argument, a discussion. The interpretation at Harper’s Ferry reminded me how tantalizing those arguments can be.
Last Note: Special thanks to David Larsen, Training Manager for Interpretation & Education at Harper's Ferry National Park for the Saturday tour. I may not have talked, but I was completely engaged.
Was this an intentional theme of the interpretive tour at Harper's Ferry this past Saturday? Not sure. With-in this structure, however, there was room for context to tell a story of the mid-nineteenth century town of Harper's Ferry in which John Brown, the person and the idea, acting in ways that are both mystifying and understandable, steps in. This structure permitted space to include the socioeconomic workings of the town, the sheer confusion of the raid, the hanging of John Brown, and the the myriad of interpretations placed on Harper's Ferry since. And it allowed for the interpretation to be open ended - was John Brown right, wrong, neither, both? What about the actions of the whites? The free-blacks? The enslaved? History is an argument, a discussion. The interpretation at Harper’s Ferry reminded me how tantalizing those arguments can be.
Last Note: Special thanks to David Larsen, Training Manager for Interpretation & Education at Harper's Ferry National Park for the Saturday tour. I may not have talked, but I was completely engaged.
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