Education and interpretation: Supply and Demand

Education activity in action

Museums, historic sites, parks, and other interpretive locations are concerned primarily with education. They are essentially in the education business. These places of learning are at-will leisure places where people go to learn of their own free will, and learn from placards, exhibits, audio tours, or an interpretive guide for pleasure or entertainment.

One of the many demographics that visit these places are students on field trips. This increasingly rare event is becoming rarer still with shrinking education funds for transportation, liability issues, and safety concerns. From a school administrator point of view, a field trip needs to be worthwhile and requires a result, some sort of educational payoff. How can at-will places of learning continue to supply great interpretive and education opportunities to meet the dwindling demand of visiting school groups and perhaps stimulate more demand?

For all that is stacked against the school field trip, it still cannot be beat for creating an impact on a student. One of the common comments heard at the information desk or kiosk from adults are, "I came here as a kid" or "I came here on a field trip."  Power of Place has tremendous impact on people, especially with students. Interpreters and guides should spend some time explaining, highlighting, and reminding their student visitors of the importance of the place they visit. It goes back to the concept of asking, "So what?" Answering this question directly or indirectly as part of the programming allows the Power of Place to work in the students, giving some understanding why they are there.

Working with children requires a different approach. Don't
"dumb it down", make it right for them!

A combination of education and interpretation needs to be the core of the program, be it an activity, tour, or special event. The Interpretive Equation and a bunch of creativity are necessary to create an impacting school program. However the interpretive site chooses to go about its school programming, it should be directly engaging to the student. Attention spans are at an all time low with handheld digital technology, streaming on-demand videos, and the like creating a culture of people who want stimulation. In some cases, the traditional tour-and-talk school program may not be acceptable anymore and a more engaging program should be considered. The Knowledge of Audience is essential to crafting an captivating program!

Creativity is also going to be essential because the culture of students is changing and more classic modes of education do not have the same impact as they did a generation ago. The school program must be interactive and relational. The challenge is the pre-planing, technological savvy, and of course the funds to make it happen. A further challenge is that the sorts of people who can do this are in short supply in the interpretive field and have to learn these skills in order to reach students.

Grabbing the attention of students is an art
worth pursuing

Even if an interpretive site has a set program, it should always be evaluated. "We have always done it this way" is an unacceptable answer. True, there may be some best practices at work in the program, but updating or tweaking the less essential parts can support the parts that already work well. Sometime a program must be reinvented from the ground up and here are a couple suggestions on how to do that. Sometimes utilizing a different technique can really change how a program operates and makes it better. Review the Interpretive Toolbox for ideas on how to be more engaging to students and teachers.The supply needs to create the demand and sites need to let the educators know what is being done at the interpretive site by advertising and getting the word out as well!

The point of all this is to satisfy the students, teachers, and administrators' desires for a great trip. A poor program comes under review and the school will perhaps stop coming. Having a great, vibrant, impacting school program not only keeps the school coming, but can bring other schools as well. Each spring and fall should be busy with school buses arriving and departing. Furthermore, each teacher should be impressed with what the interpretive site offers students and teachers as an assortment of educational opportunities. Lastly, each student should be excited to visit from what they have heard from other students. It takes effort, and often a collaborative effort of staff and teachers, to craft something unique and impacting so that these sites do not fall by the wayside and fade from importance.