James Kendra, who has been teaching social studies at Kenowa Hills Middle School for the past nineteen years, explains his approach of a “content-free social studies classroom.” In this 12:35 video from TEDx Muskegon, he explains that social studies is the most important class students take in school but not when the emphasis is on facts and dates. “Students want to know why these events are happening,” Kendra says. “Historical events (if they were truly significant) would connect to events of today. We shouldn’t be telling students which events were important, but them discovering how past and present connect.” How would your tours or exhibits change if they were based on current events and then looked to the past for explanations and understanding?
Category Archives: Historical interpretation
Program in New England Studies Offering Diversity Scholarships
Program in New England Studies at Hamilton House, 2013.
Historic New England presents its Program in New England Studies, an intensive week-long exploration of New England from Monday, June 16 to Saturday, June 21, 2014. Now entering its second decade, the Program in New England Studies features lectures by noted curators and architectural historians, workshops, behind-the-scenes tours, and special access to historic house museums and collections. Last year I had a chance to talk with some of the participants and they said they were attracted by the chance to see the houses and collections, but found that they really loved the expert lectures.
This year, Historic New England launches a diversity scholarship to support a mid-career museum professional or graduate student. Applicants must represent a racial or ethnic minority group in the U.S. The scholarship covers the full registration fee of Continue reading
Video: Tom Explores Los Angeles
Tom Carroll explores “places that might change people’s perceptions of Los Angeles” in a series of thirteen short hip videos and demonstrate what is possible to create with just a handful of people. Carroll studied art at Occidental College and led tours at the Los Angeles State Historic Park and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In creating these videos, he uses, “a lot of what I learned as a tour guide, speaking loudly and slowly, knowing when you are losing your audience.” Could you create a short video exploring an historic place in your community?
Recap of Historic House Museum Symposium at Gunston Hall
On Saturday, the Historic House Museum Consortium of Washington DC hosted an all-day symposium on “how are historic house museums adapting to the future?” at Gunston Hall in Virginia. The sold-out symposium featured three speakers, a tour of Gunston Hall, and lots of time to chat with colleagues during breaks and over lunch. The cost? A mere $15, truly a bargain. The symposium not only attracted professionals from Virginia, Maryland, and DC, but as far away as Connecticut!
I opened the symposium by discussing Michael Porter’s “Five Forces” as a way of identifying opportunities and threats to help historic sites prepare and adapt. If you’re not familiar with the Five Forces, it’s a framework for identifying those issues that have the biggest impact on your operations. This is a much more useful alternative to SWOT, which may be a good outline for summarizing an analysis, but it’s not a helpful way to analyze a situation. If you’d like to get an introduction to the Five Forces and how it applies to historic sites, take look at my presentation (warning: it’s an 18 Mb pdf). Even better was the discussion that followed, which explored a wide range of ideas from the growing role of photography to changing demographics to the interpretation of African American history.
Jana Shafogoj at Morven Park discussed how the current emphasis on STEM has allowed their site to Continue reading
Video: Luminous Hall
The Centenary of the University of Western Australia was celebrated with “Luminous Hall” on February 8, 2013, a 20-minute performance created by Illuminart. Luminous Hall is a “narrative architectural projection” on the exterior of the historic Winthrop Hall that combines mapped projection with music, stories, and drama interpreting the history of the university and local community. Moving beyond son et lumier, the form engages the viewer in history in an extraordinary way. Other examples using Norwood Town Hall and a Night Mural Picnic are available.
Video: Mark Twain House and Museum
Chowder Inc. recently produced this 4:45 video promoting the Mark Twin House and Museum in Connecticut. It’s a gentle tour of the house interspersed with comments by “visitors” wearing Twain’s signature mustache.
Video: Review of “12 Years a Slave”
Azie Dungey, star and producer of “Ask a Slave,” and actress Amani Starnes, creator of “United Colors of Amani,” reflect on “12 Years a Slave,” the award-winning movie directed by Steve McQueen.
Video: Ask a Slave, Episode 1
In honor of Black History Month, we’re sharing Ask a Slave, a series of short interviews with Lizzie Mae, “personal housemaid to President and Lady Washington.” It’s based on the experiences of Azie Dungey, who was an interpreter at George Washington’s Mt. Vernon. She wrote, produced, and created these videos as a way to, “present all of the most interesting, and somewhat infuriating encounters that I had, the feelings that they brought up, and the questions that they left unanswered. I do not think that Ask A Slave is a perfect way to do so, but I think that it is a fun, and a hopefully somewhat enriching start.” Although Dungey portrays an enslaved African servant, many of her experiences are shared by others who interpret historic sites, no matter the period or topic. For those of us working at historic sites, they’re incredibly funny but they also reveal some of the challenges we have interpreting other times and places. You’ll want to look at some the comments on YouTube to get the full national scope, plus take a look at the number of views to get a sense of the impact.
Dungey is currently working in Los Angeles on another series, although focused on the 19th century. Can’t wait to see what she produces.
Interpreting African American History at Your Site or Museum?
Every day Drayton Hall offers “Connections,” a 45-minute program that traces the story of Africans from Africa to the new world and into the 20th century.
If you’ve been involved with the planning, development, presentation, or evaluation of an outstanding exhibit, program, or project interpretation of African American history and culture at a museum or historic site in the last five years, consider sharing it as a case study for a book I’m editing for Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. This book will be part of a series on the interpretation of various topics published by the American Association for State and Local History that are slated for release later this year. The first part of the book will be a wide-ranging anthology of articles written by experts and scholars from a variety of perspectives, including Bernard Powers, Matthew Pinsker, Kristin Gallas, James DeWolf Perry, George McDaniel, Amanda Seymour, Donna Graves, Julia Rose, and Lila Teresa Church with a foreword written by Lonnie Bunch. If you know any of these people, you know it’ll be an interesting and thought-provoking book.
I need help with the second half of the book: a set of 12-16 case studies of exemplary programs that can be adapted by others. Are you aware of any Continue reading
Video: Passing
An excerpt from “Passing,” a one-woman play written and directed by Dara Harper and performed by Holly Smokovitz from February 1-16, 2014 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Engaging Places 