Imperial War Museum chief warns: ‘tide of children with worksheets spoiling visits’
Museums are being swamped by a “tide of children with worksheets” spoiling trips for other visitors, the Head of the Imperial War Museum has warned.
Most centres are full and struggling to solve problems caused by the growing numbers of school field trips, which is affecting other “non-school visitors”, Diane Lees said.
In a private address to the Museums Association, the organisation’s first female director general called for a “revolution” that ensured cultural centres survive the economic downturn.
Mrs Lees, a member of the Women Leaders in Museums Network, complained she did not want to “expand classrooms in museums” because they were already at capacity from the “tide of children with worksheets”.
One solution, she said, was for teachers to be instead given course modules about history so students could learn about historic world events in the classroom.
Despite £1.3bn in funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, many museums were “unsustainable” and “ill-equipped to cope” with an economic downturn and had failed to learn lessons from the last recession, she added.
Admitting her ideas would be “destructive”, she defended the address, titled “Out of the Ashes … Post Recession Museums”, which she insisted provided “real food for thought”.
“Given that most museums are already reporting that they are at capacity for schools and are finding it difficult to balance the experience of non-school visitors against a tide of children with worksheets, we have a problem,” said the former director of the Victoria and Albert’s Museum of Childhood.
“This is perhaps where the first of our revolutions needs to happen. I don’t believe the solution is to expand classrooms in museums. I think the answer is to teach teachers and to provide course modules into teacher training.
“These would be more cost effective than school trips and enhance consistently in the curriculum.”
School history campaigners called her speech, later posted on the museum’s intranet and obtained by The Daily Telegraph, as “mean spirited” and “short-sighted”.
Without new ideas, such as hiring more volunteers and developing digital ideas, she said some museums would likely close, collections rationalised or lost and many historic buildings becoming empty.
The South London museum, conceived in 1917, is considered by many to be one of the country’s most important centres.
It provides “the history of modern war and people’s experience of war and wartime in Britain and the Commonwealth”.
It is behind the award-winning Holocaust Exhibition; the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, the Horrible Histories: Terrible Trenches exhibition and the air museums in Duxford, Cambridge.
Mrs Lees, the first female head, replaced former director general Sir Robert Crawford in September 2008, who retired after 13 years in the role.
Sean Laing, a fellow of the Historical Association, expressed surprise at the “short sighted and “mean-spirited” comments.
“It is very unusual for a museum to say this, they normally want more and more school parties to visit,” said the senior history lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.
Mrs Lees defended the speech, given late last year, saying it was deliberately designed to be provocative and “shake up people’s thinking”.
She denied she was “mean spirited”.
“The problem is a lot of organisations are at capacity and it also affects our other users which we have to try and educate as well. It is a question of balance,” she said.
“It is not about being mean-spirited. It is about giving students a better educational experience and not delivering repetition from the classroom environment.
“I really do believe in children’s education, but what I don’t believe in is individuals filling in worksheets in museums that replace or replicate teaching in the classroom.”
“Mrs Lees defended the speech, given late last year, saying it was deliberately designed to be provocative and “shake up people’s thinking”.”
She would say that – sounds like typical politician-style back peddling to try and excuse what is a ridiculous point of view.
Without encouraging an interest in history in children we we will just have a generation of stupid adults who really might think Hitler was a football team manager…
By: groundhugger - 10th April 2010 at 19:34
Try a visit to ‘Eden Camp’ in the summer school holidays , coachloads and coachloads of kids ‘learnin stuff’ moaning that there arn’t any ‘Germans POW’s’ here and you can’t play on the Tanks !
By: ZRX61 - 6th April 2010 at 23:16
we will just have a generation of stupid adults who really might think Hitler was a football team manager…
We’re already there….
By: Comet - 2nd April 2010 at 17:51
I get sick of having trips to museums ruined by groups of badly behaved, ill mannered brats. Many museums I have been to have been infested with screaming, out of control kids, and now with many seemingly being aimed more and more at the little brats, the problem will only get worse.
Not everyone who visits a museum wants to be caught up among screaming kids.
Not everyone likes kids.
I work in a museum and I know just how bad those parties of brats can be. I am thinking of suggesting adults only days at our museum to cater for those who do not like their leisure time to be spent in the company of riotous hordes.
By: mike currill - 30th March 2010 at 23:05
Nope I think she’d still mess that up.
By: ThreeSpool - 30th March 2010 at 19:38
To be honest, with an attitude like that I cannot think of any job she could safely be trusted with.
Immigration?
By: mike currill - 30th March 2010 at 19:35
In this age of couldn’t care less parents and kids I feel that discouraging kids who are actually trying to learn is a bad thing in general and a disaster for museums. I agree with all the comments made on here as I think we are pretty much unanimous that the esteemed Mrs Lees is definitely in the wrong job. To be honest, with an attitude like that I cannot think of any job she could safely be trusted with.
By: Bob - 30th March 2010 at 00:08
Class Visit = People through the door = good!
Not if Mrs Lees has her way…
By: Lindy's Lad - 29th March 2010 at 23:42
Here’s something which could be applied to our museums –
Alnwick Gardens have an annual Teacher’s Day, which equates to free entry for teaching staff and their families. The rationale being that if the teachers have a good free day out, they are more likely to go to the (huge) trouble of organising a class visit.
Class Visit = People through the door = good!
By: critter592 - 27th March 2010 at 02:31
Have I missed something here?
As G.A. said, you couldn’t make it up…:rolleyes:
But then there are some museums who will not allow worksheets or any form of writing materials at all…! :diablo:
Now, now! :dev2:
By: TwinOtter23 - 26th March 2010 at 23:25
Having briefly met her a couple of times when she was involved in setting up the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham (a very child friendly venue) and through AIMs (Association of Independent Museums); I would venture to suggest that her words were carefully considered and had a specific point to make!
Children must be encouraged to use museums, but in the right way!
Perhaps the sign-off on J Boyle’s posts covers it well – “There are two sides to every story. The truth is usually somewhere between the two”.
By: J Boyle - 26th March 2010 at 23:11
But her presentation of her points fail in that she damaged IWM’s reputation. It is now seen as family unfriendly. :rolleyes:
Agreed. She has a fairly vaild point, the trouble is in the way she expressed it ..,.and the PR aftermath.
About JoeyR’s point about parents bashing the buttons.
On my latest trip to Duxford, I was accompanied by the retired MD of a well-known UK firm.
He played with all the buttons and had a great time. 😀
Clearly the AirSpace designers got it right.
By: Pondskater - 26th March 2010 at 22:16
Clearly both sides have a point.
But her presentation of her points fail in that she damaged IWM’s reputation. It is now seen as family unfriendly. :rolleyes:
On your later points, I worked in a small museum which did much of what you suggest. Teachers resources were sent out in advance (although not on the web because we were small and couldn’t afford to) pupils were allowed to handle objects in the education room, video conferencing was used (indeed pioneered) when somebody bought the equipment for the museum and the time in the museum was but a small part of the whole. But unless you get to see behind the scenes, you wouldn’t know that, you’d only see the kids on their half hour worksheet treasure hunt. The museum regularly won the Sandford Award, recognising their quality and excellence for education work. Apart from HMS Belfast, I couldn’t find Imperial War Museum on the list of award holders.
She was wrong. OK it was a private speech but they always leak when controversial. They should have planned publicity to celebrate good education work and encourage the things you talk about.
By: Creaking Door - 26th March 2010 at 22:16
How many museums have a special “educators” site with resources for the teachers (who probably don’t know the subject) as well as a place for the students to explore?
‘Airspace’ at Duxford; the enlargement of the original hanger (except the ‘restoration’ extension) seems to be mainly to do with adding large classrooms for educational purposes.
By: Pondskater - 26th March 2010 at 21:42
Bit ironic that Mrs Lees is a Trustee of “Kids In Museums”……..
Now that you couldn’t make up 😮
By: Bob - 26th March 2010 at 20:54
Bit ironic that Mrs Lees is a Trustee of “Kids In Museums”……..
http://www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk/about/trustees/
“Kids in Museums is a classic story of good emerging out of bad. Founded in 2003 under the auspices of the Guardian when writer Dea Birkett’s young son was thrown out of the Royal Academy for being too noisy, Kids in Museums now leads in promoting family-friendly policies and attitudes throughout Britain.”
By: J Boyle - 26th March 2010 at 20:37
Clearly both sides have a point.
I’d think that a good teacher, in concert with the museum, could prepare students for the actual visit to the musuem by clever use of on-line resources.
That way, the children might get something more from their vist than running around with a worksheet like some sort of academic treasure hunt.
Preplanning and lessons might make the student’s vist less intrusive to other visitors or even eliminate the need for an actual field trip . It would also be a resource for other, and distant students (and less carbon footprint and all that).
In other words, make the Museum a fun place and use the in-person viewing of artifacts and exhibits as an enhancement to earlier lessons.
How many museums have a special “educators” site with resources for the teachers (who probably don’t know the subject) as well as a place for the students to explore?
It’s the 21st Century, we need to think outside the box and maximize the resources and technology at our disposal.
By: Bob - 26th March 2010 at 20:32
This is aimed squarely at “school trips” and not the uncontrolled offspring of “non-school visitors” that you obviously encountered.
If the likes of Macdonalds or KFC took childrens meals off their menus they’d soon be bombarded with protests or boycotts – if the museum world is struggling in the current climate they shouldn’t be isolating the very people they will rely on in the future.
Todays worksheet clutching pupil is tomorrows parent…..
By: Red Hunter - 26th March 2010 at 20:04
The downside is on those days, as I experienced on a recent visit to Duxford, when children with little real interest in the exhibits, other than that they could wind handles, turn screws, hit buttons and generally abuse the working exhibits in Space, designed to instil knowledge about how things work. The parents/minders were either disinterested or bashed the buttons harder than the children.
So a difference here between organised school parties of children, which are to be commended and random, uncontrolled children and adults who seem to derive little of any benefit from their visit.
By: Bob - 26th March 2010 at 19:33
Revolutionary idea coming up – why not allocate one day as a “schools day” then the grumpy old gits (of which, it is said, I am one) can avoid that museum on that day like the plague.
To bitch about museums being over run by school trips when those same kids could well entice their parents to take them back again on a family trip is myopic in the extreme.
School trips plant a seed which may just mean that they get an increase in visitor numbers.
Or have I missed something?
Did she not say that what was needed was “a “revolution” that ensured cultural centres survive the economic downturn.”
From what I have read above it appears that she is heading the IWM in the opposite direction…
By: Pondskater - 26th March 2010 at 19:19
Is she related to Chox?
I sit here, jaw dropped, shaking my head wondering if her PR team knew what she was about to do to the museum’s fine image.
Yes, she has some ideas, teach teachers is a good one, but her appraoch is destructive – as she admits :confused:
I know a museum which has quietly been doing great work with a video link to classrooms so the museum’s staff can teach children in their own classrooms. Why not celebrate successes instead of the negative whining.
IWM won’t win the Child Friendly Museum prize this year: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/kidsinmuseumscampaign
AllanK
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March 26, 2010 at 5:27 pm