United Kingdom

Aison Heath

66 THE TOWER OF LONDON. A suit of chain mail repays close study as part of a lesson in medieval warfare.

Plhe increasing urbanization of OUT society is causing a fundamental change in the educational needs of young people which should be reflected in a development of the role of museums.

ritish education system was first created children had plenty 06 first-hand experience of life: the family was a closely h i t mit, covering the whole age range. Every aspect of work and relaxation was apparent within the local community. On the other hand it was d8ficult for young people to find out about the world outside their own immediate neighbourhood. Their education was, therefore, based on secondary sources, books? drawings, photographs, etc. Now, television and radio have reinforced the printed word to make this ' other World' more easily accessible, if still at second hmd. It is direct personal experience that is now more likely to be missing: families are fragmented and places of work are often outside the inamediate locality. Hence, the child sees and understands far less of the activity of the commuraity.

It is for this reason that OUT teaching is increasingly based upon direct personal experience for the child outside the classroom walls. This means that museums, sites and houses have come to play an important part. It is the kn"diate redity of the objects and the buildings that is the crucial key. The museum, site or histo- ric house is a very special extension of the classroom, and provides a learning situation that is difficult, if not impossible, to re-create within the school. Museums no longer see their role in the simple terms of collecting and preserving. It will not suffice to put an object in a glass case with a label, or erect a railing around a building and carefully tend the grass.

The essential wonder and intrinsic interest of object 01 place are only part of the story. The museum, site or historic house is becoming part of a web of learn- ing for the child, reinforcing and developing his knowledge and experience.

All our senses are involved in the learning process. Although nearly three-quar- ters of all our learning is visual, we should not ignore the potential of touch, taste and smell. TQ handle a Roman pot, a suit of chain mail (Fig. 64, or the

housewife a hundred years ago, will greatly enhance the learn- t how much richer will that experience be, s, as part of the

study, we can see the kind of room in which the Q Y T I ~ pot or the thimble might have been used, try on the suit of chain mail, taste the meal the medieval knight might have eaten before he rode into battle (Fig. 672, visit the castle in which he lived or the battlefield on which he night have fought?

Museums in the United Kingdom have been experimenting in this way for a number of years. At the Geffrye Museum we ran the @bitrllfields Project. The

museum itself is a series of period room displays illustrating English interiors from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Near by is the Spitalfield district of Lon- don where, in the late seventeenth century, many thousands of Huguenot silk- weavers from France settled. Because the silks they wove were finer than any- thing previously available, silk became very fashionable and the weavers pros- pered. They built themselves fine houses and a magnificent church (Fig. 6-9).

The conservation issue became obvious in a short walk round the streets of once beautiful, but now all too often derelict, eighteenth-century buildings. How best to make children aware of this fascinating heritage and so help to protect it? The first step, with the help of the Greater London Council Historic Build- ings Department, was to prepare a 'history trail' which included a written guide for adults accompanying children, and activity sheets for the children to use to note their observations and make sketches as they went around. The interiors of the houses were studied by comparing them with the eighteenth-century dis- plays in the museum, and by visiting Uppark House in Sussex, a fine eighteenth- century house with its original decoration and furnishings.

What about the silk? We borrowed silkworms and the children became fasci- nated by the progression from egg to adult moth and by the cocoons that pro- vided the raw silk. A visit to the Science Museum explained the weaving tech- niques used by the Huguenots, and the Victoria and Albert and Bethnal Green Museums taught us about the fabrics and the fashionable clothing made from it. In the meantime, the museum workshops were a hive of activity where children drew, painted, printed and experimented with their own weaving, cooked eight- eenth-century recipes, became involved in role play and wrote their own play which was filmed for showing on London Schools Television. The conservation issues were also discussed avidly and solutions for the problems proposed. Local

67 THE TOWER OF LONDON. A medieval feast.

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68 Group of students measuring the great ditch of the Roman fort at Rutupiae (KPichborough).

conservation societies gradually became involved, and with the help of locd people a beginning was made to the rehabilitation of the budslings.

This is just one example of the kind of p r o g a m e that can be d e ~ e l o p e ~ by a m u s e u mning outside its own w d s and making me of the sk;Us and how-

le w i t h the community. TNhen once one begins to realize the poten- II integrated study it becomes obvious &at ~ O S L my object or site be smdied in tais way. The smffed owl in the museum case needs died for its skeleton, in the $00 and in its natural habitat, for one

to be able to gain anything like a complete uderstanding. as a coin can be used to tea& $.iistoffy, art, politia, ge ~ Q ~ ~ u I I - I ~ , etc. It may lead US to a study of the bdding where it was found and the people who used it. The pos~ibdities are endess.

stions I have made in this article are not the pres officers, who are so few in number in t i s CO

they could never hope to meet demands upon their time, but are the kind of a p e - riense that can be a part of any integrated study within the sclta001. For this reason the pre-sewice and in-service esahin of teachers is an essentid element of OUT

work. In conjunction with local education authorities and the Department 08 Education and Science, we organize seminars and short courses to encourage the d e v e l o p " of the educational use of the rich resources our heritage offers. trainhg teachers h this work we can hope to multiply the benefits of skill and

the historic district of SpitaUields. conserving our heritage much easier.