July 10 - July 14, 2017
Altos de Chavón School of Design, Altos de Chavón, La Romama, Dominican Republic
Summer school heats up with five intensive one week classes from July 10 - July 14, 2017. "Introduction to Museum Studies," taught by Katherine Jones, Director of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Harvard Extension School, marked the first collaboration between Jones and Arlene Alvarez, Director of the Altos de Chavón Regional Archeological Museum on the grounds here.
Here we go...Monday, 9 AM in a classroom in the student village.
Jones distilled aspects of her extensive experience including collections manager, media specialist, board member, museum registrar and administrator into one week!
A week of classes began Monday, July 10, 2017...the next four days were filled with focused engagement, sharing of information and two field trips. Jones introduced concepts detailed in The American Alliance of Museums and The International Council of Museums.
The range of museums in the American Alliance of Museums covers every type of museum in which participants are affiliated, helps develop standards, best practices and shares ethical, aesthetic, scientific and technological knowledge. The International Council of Museums covers subjects from ethics to a handbook of museum standards and terminology.
Participants asked questions about how to maintain databases, collect data about their visitors, involve visitors interactively, compose mission statements and reassess them over time, how to preserve dolls, dresses or similar items in the humid Caribbean climate, increase the diversity of their audiences, license items they sell in their gift shops, how to loan objects to another museum. even how to make plans to prepare for hurricanes and contingency plans if they strike.
Director of the Regional Archeological Museum at Altos de Chavón, Arlene Alvarez, explains the museum's effective methods of engaging students with materials from the museum's collection. With a combination of design and intuition, their methods mirror subjects Jones had earlier explained about Howard Gardner's work about multiple intelligences and George Hein's ideas about making meaning about what visitors see by starting with their own experiences. Powerful stuff!
Museum teacher Lenin Paulino explains the museum's two educational outreach programs, in-house and traveling programs. For visits to the museum, public school teachers and students are given materials to prepare their students. The materials provide scaffolding so students can better absorb what they are about to experience. Alvarez and Paulino take traveling exhibits, called "Museum in a Box" to schools in rural areas and send ahead the same kind of previews.
Visual learning and thinking strategies are an essential part of their approach. "What do you see?" "What do you think this is for? "Have you ever seen anything like it?" These are the kinds of questions they ask as they pull out items in boxes during their traveling museum classes. The questions do not require prior knowledge, perfect for kids in rural areas. There are no wrong answers, they can respond based on their own knowledge.
Jones reviewed the theories of Howard Gardner and George Hein during the week. The museum outreach programs are knee deep in practices described by these authorities. George Hein has said that the viewer plus the museum equals a new experience, what you see, what you feel, leads to a deeper understanding. Based on their approach, Paulino and Alvarez are on that wave length.
The major goal of the program is to give children a sense of pride and ownership of their culture. One good example: Students are shown a mortar and pestle - "There's one in our kitchen!" they say. Then they will learn how their forbears made them, learned to use them, how old they are, and that they've been part of their culture for eons. Arlene Alvarez says the treasures in our past help us know ourselves better and this is a prime example.
Different colored boxes represent different topics. One box, used in both museum visits and visits to schools, contains a map of migration to the Caribbean. Questions in each box are open to interpretation. Children speculate, talk about sea travel, learn how different cultures have arrived and thrived (or not) in the Dominican Republic.
Alvarez and Paulino say that this kind of teaching is different from public schools where students may be able to read but have no tools to interpret critically - compare, contrast, and synthesize. Paulino says that he does two or three concepts at a time so as not to overwhelm students with information.
As the lessons conclude, Paulino and Alvarez divide the students into teams to present what they have learned. Everyone on the team participates, every kid has a role. Students may role play, use puppets, artwork, dance, sing, and read. They own the show. Jean Piaget, George Hein, John Dewey, and Howard Gardner are somewhere in the wings applauding.
One of the program's weaknesses is that the school teachers often do not follow up and reinforce what has been learned. (In truth, this can happen in American schools as well.)
Arlene Alvarez says that colleges and universities preparing teachers are now incorporating Gardner’s concepts about multiple intelligences in their curriculum so the new teachers will use the concepts as they begin their careers. We're talking about using "best practices," leading edge stuff. Alvarez and Paulino should make a video of how they teach these traveling classes and make them required viewing in teacher education school.
One day was dedicated to learning about exhibition design from the ground up.
Santo Domingo architect Alex Martinez Suarez, former student of Katherine Jones, is currently in charge of redesigning and reconstructing of the Museo Fernando Peña DeFilló, a museum he constructed several years ago in Santo Domingo. He cites the importance of constructing additions that respect the original architecture and design. He had the tiles in the original museum reproduced to match the floors of the museum's new rooms he is designing.
Showing how he arranges artwork and manages flow through the museum is one key to keeping giving visitors a positive experience. The slides gives participants a chance to ask questions about their own floor plans and ask questions about managing flow and arranging artifacts and art in their own museums.
Martinez translates for two participants. Alvarez translates for Jones when necessary.
Alvarez does not distribute mountains of materials. Participants need to take notes, ask questions, relate their own experiences to what is being taught.
Everyone's paying attention.
Participants ask questions, gather information.
Guest lecturer Luisa Peña, Director of the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance in Santo Domingo. The museum, opened in 2011, is "An unflinching manifestation of the darkest corners of national memory, the Memorial Museum of Dominican Resistance honors the men and women who fought the dictatorial regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo and continued to push for change during the chaotic years of political transition under Trujillo’s successor Joaquin Balaguer."
Between 1930 and 1961, the Dominican Republic was under the ruthless thumb of Rafael Trujillo. The country today bears no resemblance to the barbarity that snuffed out the lives of more than 50,000 Dominicans during his reign of terror.
Classes moved to the library on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday afternoon...here comes the final project assignment cooked up by Jones and Alvarez: Present a concept for a museum using everything the class had learned about all aspects of a museum from the programmatic side and the operations side. Alvarez divided the group the classic "count off by twos" method. The "uno" programmatic (creative) team had to determine the theme and coordinate with the "dos" Operations team to formulate a vision… and present it at the end of the last day of class Friday...tomorrow!
The two teams came up with a brilliant choice...
Museo de la Gastronomía Dominicana!
Their museum concept showed a deep command of what they had absorbed all week...
and they had a ton of fun presenting what their two teams worked on all night...
followed by graduation, complete with certificates of participation.
Altos de Chavón School of Design: Creative Summer Thunder, Part 1
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
WE NEED TO DO THIS AGAIN!!! Gracias Paul!!
Posted by: Alex Martínez Suárez | August 15, 2017 at 04:36 PM