The first University of the Third Age in Poland was established in 1975, and from that date the concept has been developing dynamically. The Senate of the Republic of Po-land announced 2012 to be the Year of Universities of the Third Age, confirming the prominent significance of these institutions. University of the Third Age students are particularly interested in offers suggested by museums. At present, 155 museums provide programs addressed to this group of recipients. This number should be even larger, and the offer - more diversified. Apart from lectures and tours there also exists the need for undertakings demanding even more involvement and making use of the methods and ideas employed by museum education. There are great chances for cooperation between museums and the University of the Third Age. The benefits of this collaboration could prove conducive for the students - potential members of the museum public.
W Polsce pierwszy uniwersytet trzeciego wieku powstał w 1975 r. i od tego czasu jest to bardzo dynamicznie rozwijająca się idea. Rok 2012 został ogłoszony Rokiem Uniwersytetów Trzeciego Wieku przez Senat RP, co świadczy o dużym znaczeniu tego typu instytucji. Słuchacze uniwersytetów trzeciego wieku są grupą szczególnie zainteresowaną oferta przygotowaną przez muzea. Obecnie 155 muzeów posiada program skierowany do tej grupy odbiorców. Liczba ta powinna być wyższa, a sama oferta bardziej różnorodna. Poza wykładami i zwiedzaniem istnieje duża potrzeba bardziej angażujących zajęć, które mogą wykorzystywać metody i pomysły stosowane przez edukację muzealną. Istnieją duże możliwości współpracy pomiędzy muzeum i uniwersytetem trzeciego wieku. Korzyści z takiego współdziałania mogą być obustronne dla dobra słuchaczy uniwersytetów będących też potencjalną publicznością muzealną
This text will discuss the activities of the National Museum of Agriculture and Food Industry in Szreniawa (abbreviated to the Museum in Szreniawa) in the field of research, documentation of intangible cultural heritage and the dissemination of knowledge about it. This is only a presentation of findings which in the future may become the basis for deeper analysis or broader synthesis. The research mainly focused on the role the facilities play or are to play in the museum. Today, it is important to classify and present various undertakings of this institution.
One of the main functions of the museum is the educational function that can be implemented in different ways. Many museums in Poland have in its offer museum lessons for pupils from primary, middle and secondary schools. For schools, the most attractive are the classes implementing the core curriculum. The aim of the article is to analyze the presence and content of the museum lessons in museum education in museums in Poland. For the purposes of article selected museums in Poland were for the presence offer lessons museum and the compatibility of these lessons of core curriculum. There was examined also whether the museum lessons are conducted with the use of new technologies, including e-learning.
Linguistic theory which Mieke Bal presented in her text The Talking Museum, reproduced in the book Double Exposures: The Subject of Cultural Analysis, is one of the clearest signs of the New Museology. This self- critical field indicates changes in museum studies at the end of the twentieth century.
PL
Artykuł stanowi refleksję na temat współczesnego muzeum. Ukazuje przestrzeń wystawienniczą, z jednej strony jako przestrzeń narracji – miejsce dialogu obiektów, kuratorów i widzów, z drugiej jako narrację przestrzeni – legitymizującą dzieła i formującą ich przekaz. Najistotniejszy kontekst stanowią badania sytuujące się w obszarze nowej muzeologii, wskazujące na możliwość wprowadzenia do języka muzeum elementów interdyscyplinarnych, również z zakresu literaturoznawstwa.
The article presents the main goals and assumptions involving the initiative to create a course of museum studies at the University of Rzeszów and its curriculum has been also briefly described. It was pointed out that museum studies with a specialization focused on museum education and obtaining a master’s degree in this field are, so far, the only ones in Poland. Moreover, the most important scientific, organizational and didactic achievements have been described, as well as the possibilities for further development of this field of study.
The article discusses the complexity of identity, the interdependence of social and cultural identity, and their relationship with museum education. The Author emphasizes that an individual’s identity is shaped both by their membership in a social group and the internalization of its cultural values. With respect to museums, institutional employment contributes to identity formation, while cultural identity stems from museum narratives. The Author analyzes individual identity as a manifestation of cognitive conservatism influenced by neurophysiological mechanisms. The Author argues that museum education can play a significant role in transforming individual identity, especially by exposing individuals to diverse perspectives and values. The research indicating the potential for lasting changes in preferences as a result of educational activities is cited. The Author highlights the importance of social bonds formed within the museum, and suggests expanding the perspective of relational art to include the experiences of museum education. Furthermore, it is also emphasized that museum education initiatives should not be viewed as tools for analyzing the museum institution but as opportunities for participants to express themselves and build connections with one another.
Intensywny rozwój muzeów narracyjnych, jaki ma miejsce w ostatnich dekadach, stworzył nowe perspektywy dla szkolnej edukacji historycznej. Nowoczesne, multimedialne wystawy historyczne dają szerokie możliwości zbudowania atrakcyjnej oferty edukacyjnej adresowanej do uczniów wszystkich typów szkół. Obecnie jednak potencjał edukacyjny muzeów nie jest w pełni wykorzystywany. Jedną z przyczyn jest zbyt słabe powiązanie treści edukacji szkolnej i muzealnej. Ponownego zdefiniowania wymagają relacje między nauczycielami a edukatorami muzealnymi. Z punktu widzenia efektywności procesu dydaktycznego konieczna jest bardziej aktywna postawa nauczycieli, którzy powinni nie tylko uczestniczyć w prowadzeniu zajęć edukacyjnych realizowanych w przestrzeni muzealnej, ale również samodzielnie je organizować przy wsparciu pracowników muzeum. Postulowana zmiana wymaga również od muzealników zmiany podejścia do nauczycieli odwiedzających muzea ze swoimi uczniami.
EN
The intensive development of narrative museums over recent decades has resulted in new perspectives for school historical education. Modern and multimedia historical exhibitions provide broad opportunities for preparing an educational offer aimed at all students. However, the educational potential of museums is not currently being fully taken advantage of. One reason is that the education content of schools is not linked closely enough with its museum counterpart. Relationships between teachers and museum educators need to be redefined. From the perspective of the effectiveness of the educational process, it is essential for teachers to be more active, not to limit themselves to participation in providing educational classes within a museum’s premises, but also to organise them together with the museum staff. This postulated change also requires museum professionals to change their attitude towards teachers visiting museums with their students.
Contemporarily more and more recognition for complementing and broadening school education is awarded to museum education which offers various educational experiences. For optimal connection of museum education with school teaching the collaboration of both institutions is necessary. Process of cooperation between museum and school is conditioned by the development of personal relationship between a teacher and a museum educator. Research results of western pedagogues show that educational dialogue between a teacher and a museum educator is possible. However, stereotypes present in mutual judgment make it difficult to conduct.
PL
Współcześnie coraz większe uznanie w dopełnianiu i poszerzaniu edukacji szkolnej zyskuje edukacja muzealna oferująca różnego rodzaju doświadczenia edukacyjne. W celu optymalnego połączenia edukacji muzealnej z nauką szkolną konieczne wydaje się być wspólne działanie obu instytucji. Proces współpracy muzeum i szkoły uwarunkowany jest przebiegiem relacji osobowych między nauczycielem a edukatorem. Jak wskazują wyniki badań zachodnich pedagogów dialog edukacyjny pomiędzy nauczycielem a edukatorem muzealnym jest możliwy. Jednak stereotypy istniejące we wzajemnej ocenie utrudniają jego prowadzenie.
Students of applied linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, and students of the Faculty of School Education at the Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany, in cooperation with the Warsaw Rising Museum, took part in the German-Polish project-based seminar “The Warsaw Uprising – in search of traces 70 years later” in Warsaw, Poland. The end product of their cooperation was a set of topic-related teaching materials designed for secondary or tertiary education learners in Poland and Germany. The paper discusses selected learning potentials of this cross-cultural encounter on the basis of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the students’ questionnaires and learning diaries.
The diverse and egalitarian nature of Estonian education has been attributed to the relatively high degree of teachers’ autonomy. Among other things, teachers are free to decide how and where to teach, and it is very common to teach in out-of-school settings such as museums, science centres, etc. The network of different learning sites that schools use has not been thoroughly described in previous literature and is thus somewhat hidden and vulnerable to rapid societal changes. Thus, this article aims to describe the practice and perceived role in formal education of on-site educators from museums, environmental centres, and other similar institutions of science and culture. Seven semi-structured focus-group interviews were carried out with 27 educators. This purposeful sample was compiled with the help of experts in the field. The limitation of this sample was that it brought together representatives of outstanding providers of curriculum-related learning activities, and so it describes the practice of excellent rather than novice or un-motivated educators. On the other hand, such a sample gives us a deeper understanding of the best practices and possibilities of the field. We found that similarly to previous results, the core practice of on-site educators involves creating, developing, and carrying out learning activities, and general organisational work. Based on the interviews, the practice of on-site educators can be described as flexible, spontaneous, collaborative, seasonal, place- and theme-specific, and project-based. Their practice is also diverse in terms of tasks both on daily/yearly basis and throughout their careers, thus illustrated by low routine and high creativity. The background of on-site educators is diverse and there are no standard career or education paths, but they can be described as strongly oriented towards constant self-development and learning, although the majority of interviewees had obtained both theoretical and pedagogical training from university and had also worked as teachers at some point in their careers. They enjoy their work and feel that it is important to connect students with nature, culture, art, or whatever their field is, to enrich their lives, support their studies, and build a better society. Thus, they often explain the value of their work through the lens of life-long learning of their students. We conclude that out-of-classroom education in the form of field trips to museums and other similar institutions is deeply connected with curriculum and helps to achieve sustainable development goals. However, as the funding for field trips has steadily increased in the past years and there are more and more schoolteachers who have no professional pedagogical training, an increasing number of schoolteachers seem to be unprepared to support students in out-of-school learning environments. We describe and expand on good practices to support schoolteachers in out-of-school learning activities and in collaboration of museum on-site educators and schoolteachers; for example, joint training programmes for in-service schoolteachers and on-site educators (especially for supporting students with special needs and content- and language-integrated learning in the context of Russian speaking students), and career changes between schools and museums (on-site educators becoming teachers and vice versa). We documented some clever funding schemes that act as boundary objects and enhance collaboration between schoolteachers and on-site educators, but we also suggest avoiding pressuring the content of learning activities through funding, as this could hinder teacher autonomy and lead to unnecessary standardisation. We suggest creating coherence between different ministries who govern schools, museums and providers of environmental learning activities, and involving on-site educators more in wider educational discussions. Education is much more than schools, and on-site educators should be considered as equals to schoolteachers when it comes to funding and decision-making about education.
The main goal of the museum is to ensure the possibility of human development and its rooting in the world, building a sense of local and individual identity, and above all, creating a sense of community. The regional, ethnographic museum studies, archives and shows the entirety of human culture, his worldview, material products, beliefs, and finally his surroundings. The museum message is a source of knowledge, understanding of the processes of the contemporary world through the prism of the heritage of past generations. Museums are places where viewers gain new competences. The museum’s message reflects the human experience contained in the artifacts of the past. Through the created narrative, it influences the recipient – it causes development in the cognitive sphere in the field of memory, critical and abstract thinking, and creative focusing of involuntary and free attention. Finally, the museum has a social and environmental impact. The requirement of lifelong education is inscribed in the contemporary mission of museums, which today become places where entire families spend their time. This visible trend makes it possible to develop educational activities that could be attractive to such a group of recipients (family workshops) so that both adults and children can find content that is right for them at the same time.
PL
Głównym celem działania muzeum jest zapewnienie możliwości rozwoju człowieka i jego zakorzenienia w świecie, budowanie poczucia tożsamości lokalnej i indywidualnej, a nade wszystko kreowanie poczucia wspólnoty. Muzeum regionalne, etnograficzne bada, archiwizuje i ukazuje całokształt kultury człowieka, jego światopogląd, wytwory materialne, wierzenia, wreszcie jego otoczenie. Muzealny przekaz jest źródłem poznania, rozumienia procesów, współczesnego świata, poprzez pryzmat dziedzictwa przeszłych pokoleń. Muzea są miejscami gdzie widz zdobywa nowe kompetencje. Przekaz muzealny odzwierciedla doświadczenie człowieka zawarte w artefaktach przeszłości. Poprzez tworzoną narrację wpływa na odbiorcę – powoduje rozwój w sferze poznawczej w zakresie pamięci, myślenia krytycznego, abstrakcyjnego, twórczego skupiania uwagi mimowolnej i dowolnej. Wreszcie muzeum oddziaływuje społecznie i środowiskowo. Wymóg realizacji edukacji całożyciowej jest wpisany we współczesną misję muzeów, które obecnie stają się miejscem spędzania czasu całych rodzin. Ten widoczny trend daje możliwość rozwoju działań edukacyjnych, które mogłyby być atrakcyjne dla takiej grupy odbiorców (rodzinne warsztaty) tak aby zarówno dorośli jak i dzieci w jednym czasie znaleźli odpowiednie dla siebie treści.
The spacious parking lots are filled with buses full of young people heading on field trips every day during the school year. School trips to the sites of former concentration camps are also common in the whole Europe, and school children are one of the important target groups of these institutions. What do pupils gain from a visit to such sites? What do they notice and how to find it out? What makes field trips more effective? This paper aims to present partial answers to these questions, using the example of a field trip to the Dachau Memorial with a group of Czech pupils. The study focuses on the pupils’ perception of the Memorial and compares the results with data generated by visitors on tourism platforms. The results show the close connections between history education on the sites of memory with contemporary memory ecology and provide a pedagogical reflection of the field trip from the perspective of history education.
In this article I discuss both the recent threats as well as opportunities posed by social media to the activities of museums, taking into account social media’s importance as an evolving space of both social outreach and social activism. Recalling the controversies around the U.S. and UK museums’ social media responses to George Floyd’s death, I argue that museums run the risk of politicization and entanglement in controversial issues which are not necessarily linked to their profile and mission. I analyse museums’ social media guidelines, good practices, and mission statements, and posit that they play a fundamental role in integrating the new realm of the Web 2.0 into traditional museum activities. My main case study and example of good practice is the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. It has constantly embedded general ethical and educational principles and guidelines of Holocaust commemoration and education into its more than 60-years’ experience in dealing with and taming political and cultural controversies surrounding this memory site of universal importance, and this embeddedness lies at the core of its social media activity. Defined as an “online community of remembrance”, it consists of well-thought-out initiatives which aim at informing the public about the everyday history of the camp, involving itself in the current commemorations and anniversaries, and rectifying simplifications and misinformation about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. I also analyse the fundamental role played by the official social media profiles in managing the crisis which arose at the beginning of 2018 with the amendment of the socalled “Holocaust Law” in Poland.
The term ‘social responsibility of museums’ implies various associations, most frequently referring to the sphere of management and the activities of commercial entities in accordance with the ISO 26000 standard. In this article, we report on some of the tasks performed in connection with a project based on a sociological perspective and addressing the social responsibility of public cultural institutions such as museums. As this concept is relatively new, we decided to check how it is understood in the social world of Polish museum professionals. The research was therefore carried out using elements of the grounded theory methodology, i.e., the concepts (categories) were not defined at the outset, but defined and characterised in the course of the research according to the understanding of the respondents. Using a triangulation of methods, an analysis of found data, individual interviews in Polish museums (IDI) and focus group interviews (FGI) in Polish and international groups were conducted. A particularly interesting strand of the Project was museum education and its growing importance. This article focuses on the conducted focus group interviews (FGI). A specific commentary on the findings is provided by the reflections given during a guest lecture by Dr Bernadette Lynch organised as part of the Project.
Adrian Baraniecki (1827–1891), a doctor, a social activist by profession; a museum professional by passion. During the January Uprising of 1863, he was a major figure in the patriotic movement in the Podolia Governorate. Threatened with arrest, he moved to Paris, and in 1864 reached England. Probably as a result of his fascination with industrial culture, Baraniecki began working on a concept of an industrial museum on Polish soil. This idea was closely linked with the Positivist programme of „organic work” and „grassroots work”. He concluded that the only way to rebuild society after the failure of the Uprising was to develop its manufacturing capacity (craft and industry) and education. In 1868 he came to Cracow and brought his assembled collection with him. The Technical and Industrial Museum in Cracow he set up was the first in Poland. It was established by a resolution of the City Council on 4 June 1868 under which the city received the collections he had offered. According to the museum’s name, its main statutory target was to develop industry with particular attention to technical and artistic crafts, i.e. reviving the craft and industrial circles in Cracow, and in a broader perspective within Galicia. Thanks to his numerous private contacts and the way he organised the acquisition of gifts from the society, the collection of the museum was soon enlarged. The museum consisted of two departments, industrial and ethnographic; it also had a workshop of plaster casts. Moreover, it organised many exhibitions and prepared many publications. Based on the collections he amassed, Braniecki initiated a broad and varied range of educational activities at his own cost. According to his concept, exhibiting was to be one among many means of achieving the goal he had set, namely the scientific, economic and artistic strengthening of the Polish nation. Braniecki’s establishment was not only a museum but also a school, a professional training centre, and a place for shaping and exchanging ideas. Baraniecki was a precursor of educating women at the higher level in Poland. He initiated Higher Courses for Women at the Technical and Industrial Museum, one of the most important cultural institutions in Cracow at the turn of the 20th century, which was very modern and useful for the public. The memory of his distinguished social activism remained in the awareness of Cracow’s inhabitants as long as the institution he had established operated. In 1950 the museum was nationalised and liquidated, and his collections were dispersed.
In the paper the results of research titled Cultural Institutions during COVID-19. Museum Strategies for Reaching the Public are presented. It was conducted by the Forum of Museum Educators as commissioned by the National Institute for Museums and Public Collections (NIMOZ). The main purpose was to show the impact of the pandemic on the operations of museums after 12 March 2020 when the decision was made in Poland to close the culture sector to the public; the aim was also to diagnose and analyse problems that the pandemic caused, and to point to the directions of impact on cultural institutions possible in the future, namely after restoring ‘normality’. The perspective adopted in the research, i.e., institutional and individual one, enables a multifaceted analysis of the processes initiated by museums in response to unclear and often complicated mechanisms of the new pandemic reality, which still today, some dozen months since its outbreak, continues for museums the source of challenges as far as logistics and financing issues are concerned.
W artykule poruszone zostały zagadnienia związane z tworzeniem misji muzeów przedstawiających dziedzictwo ziemiaństwa polskiego. W okresie powojennym wartości ziemiańskie były traktowane jako wrogie systemowi politycznemu, a ziemianie byli przedstawiani jako wrogowie ludu. Z kolei po 1989 roku nastąpił proces mitologizowania tradycji szlacheckich i ziemiańskich i przywracanie pozytywnego wizerunku. Podjęta została tu próba zakreślenia modelowych ram dla stworzenia misji muzeów, których rola w przekazywaniu wiedzy i emocji dotyczących tego fragmentu historii Polski jest nie do przecenienia. Omawiając ramy tworzenia kolekcji muzealnych w omawianym zakresie, zwrócono również uwagę na konieczność uwzględniania możliwie szerokiego kontekstu, partycypacji społecznej oraz edukacji i obszarów, których powinna ona dotyczyć.
EN
The article concerns the issues related to the creation of the missions of museums which exhibit the legacy of Polish gentry. In the post-war period gentry values were regarded as hostile to the political system, and landowners were portrayed as enemies of a people. In contrast, after 1989, the process of mythologizing gentry traditions was started and a positive image was restored. In the article I try to delineate the model framework for the creation of the museum mission whose role to inform about the knowledge and emotions concerning this fragment of Polish history is of paramount importance. The discussion of the framework for creating museum collections in this field has also highlighted the need to take into account the broadest possible context, social participation and education.
The article combines the issues of intercultural education with the one presented in museum. The author focuses on the question of creating the positive attitude towards the Other. The first part of the text contains the theoretical basics of intercultural education and museum education. It is explained who is the Other and how should the museum lesson look like. The main part of the article presents the proposals of works of art that can be used during classes. Selected works present issues such as disability, disease, religious and cultural diversity. The autohor organizes the artworks not only between the category of otherness, but also in a kind of museum in which they are presented. Summarizing, the text discusses requirements for teachers who would like to prerepare a museum lesson with the aim of creating the positive attitude towards the Other. [Au-tor tłumaczenia: Michał Pruszyński]
Głównym celem artykułu jest prezentacja wybranych metod edukacyjnych stosowanych przez Dział Edukacji Muzeum Górnośląskiego w Bytomiu jako przykładu dobrych praktyk, które można wykorzystać w innych placówkach w ramach benchmarkingu. Przedstawiona analiza dąży do wykazania możliwości wykorzystania działań edukacyjnych w muzeach w celu zmiany ich modelu na bardziej partycypacyjny poprzez wychowywanie nowych odbiorców muzealnych. Tekst prezentuje cele i metody edukacji muzealnej w oparciu o opisy konkretnych lekcji muzealnych przeprowadzanych w przestrzeni stałej wystawy etnograficznej Muzeum Górnośląskiego w Bytomiu. Zaprezentowane lekcje są przykładami edukacji regionalnej skutecznie przeprowadzanej za pomocą gier i zabaw oraz z wykorzystaniem metody Marii Montessori.
EN
The main aim of this article is to present selected educational methods used by the Department of Education of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom as an example of good practice that can be used in other centers within the framework of benchmarking. The presented analysis seeks to demonstrate the possibilities of using educational activities in museums to give their model a more participatory character by educating new visitors. The text presents the goals and methods of museum education based on descriptions of specific museum lessons carried out within the permanent ethnographic exhibition of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom. Presented lessons are examples of regional education effectively carried out through games and activities and with the use of the methods of Maria Montessori.
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