What I have Learned from the Museum Internship

The richness of events that Sid Richardson Museum (SRM) has helps any intern or visitor gain knowledge. They’re occasional, so I had to wait to attend as many as I could and write about the content and benefits they provided.

Docents

The main insight that I have gotten from my experience at SRM is about docents and guards. What I have learned changed my mind about them. I have been in many different museums in Dallas/Fort Worth district as a student and a visitor, and I have also visited museums on tours, all of which helped me get a sense of the docents’ role. From that, I created my own perceptions of them.

Before working with docents, I thought they were just museum guides without important knowledge. They would just choose the art they most liked or know its historical background and share their ideas and opinions. However, after observing docents of the SRM during ‘Docent Monday Sessions’ learning and discussing their collection and other subjects that were important to the museum culture, I realized how important their role is in helping visitors have a valuable experience. Although most of them are volunteers and retirement age, they are eager to learn and know the best way to approach their visitors, including blind and low-vision visitors. Therefore, with pleasure, I will teach and share my knowledge with the docents at SRM On May 13th, drawing from my thesis, my readings, and my experiences working with blind and low-vision participants.

The guards at SRM

By visiting different museums in the past, I have gained personal experience with guards. The guards in some museums would sternly ask their visitors to stop taking pictures of the work of art. Guards in some museums would not even smile at you when you look at them. Their attitudes and how they dress make them look unfriendly.

This is not the situation at the SRM.  Guards at the SRM are very friendly. They guide the visitors if asked. They open a discussion about the work of art and share their perceptions or what they have heard the educational guides explain on past occasions. It seems that the guards have had some training on how to approach visitors and have some knowledge to answer questions because SRM has two small galleries, and the guards are able to stand listening to the docents’ explanations to their tour groups.  

Docents Training Sessions

Docents of the SRM gather every first Monday of the month, and they have an agenda for that day. My supervisor is one of the educators at the SRM, and she considers what the docents ask to learn about and sets up the subject on the calendar to find someone to discuss it with them. This reminds me of the freedom that Freire asked to be offered to learners. Engaging the learners in the education system is one of the principles that I see during these training sessions. Sometimes we have a guest coming to these sessions to teach the docents (us) about a topic that has been requested.

 

For one session, the guest was Judge David Jackson Break, who has gun collection. Some of it was inherited from his great grandfather and the rest of it was his own collection. The session title was “Firearms of the West” I learned about all the old types of guns you can see in the SRM works of art. I enjoyed learning about the differences in size, weight, use, and way of creating the gun.

Another session that I attended was “Frontiers, Wilderness and Crisis of American Identity: Contextualizing Remington’s East” presented by Dr. Todd Kerstetter. This training session was a lecture-style class, and it was very informative. Docents were saddened or shocked about what they heard, including me even though I am familiar with social justice topics since I used it in my thesis as one of the main sources.

  

Groups tours (First Grade, Third Grade, Fifth Grade, TCU, High-school, High-school French students)

By observing SRM docents on tours, I learned how to put theory into a practice with what I learned in one of the Museum Seminar courses with Dr. Evans. I remember learning about different types of visitors, such as the elderly, children, visitors with dementia, special needs, teens, etc. I remember that, as a class, we would visit the museum and hear from the educators about the programs for each group. However, being so close to the experience and learning from practice, as well as the difficulty that docents face, made a big difference and shows me how I would approach a group from a practical rather than theoretical viewpoint.

During a third grade tour, I got great insight. The docent gave an introduction to the child visitors, and it was so respectful. Instead of giving them ‘Dos and Don’ts’ as the rules that they needed to follow, he asked them what they should and shouldn’t do and the kids had the chance to share what they knew. He sang for them while they walked to the gallery.

 He asked them to create a story about a work of art and every child shared his/her part. During the story that the kids were telling, the docents were practicing concepts like ‘point of view concept,’ critical thinking strategy,’ ‘how to tell a story,’ and ‘the scene of the art.’ At the end, the kids had the chance to create their own bandana and type their symbols on it.

 One example of a difficult situation that I observed was during the visit of a French high school group, who spoke no English. The docent did not know how to approach them. She tried the VTS and asked some questions. She also tried to tell story about the work of art. However, they were not responding. Finally, she decided to talk about the history of the art to make things go on.  She tried several strategies and did not get frustrated or panic but remained welcoming.

Wild West Wits Event

This event is for the public. It is a Trivia program that the SRM offers multiple times throughout the year. The rules of the game are: 5 rounds, 10 questions for each round, each question lasts 10 seconds before the next question is asked, each round is inspired by one of the works of art that’s in the SRM galleries. The group’s winner receives painting posters from the collection of the Sid. The groups take this seriously and really enjoy their time.

 

In that event, I learned about American history and culture that I had surprisingly not learned at any (ELC) English language center. During Wild West Wits Event I had the chance to know about the Great Lakes. I learned names of indigenous tribes. I thought there was only one but there were 5,270 tribes in the U.S. Each has its own culture.  I think this event is amazing for Americans and non-English speakers due to the fact that it is really informative!

Tea and talk event

Tea and talk is one of the events at SRM. They have this event the first Wednesday of the month. Visitors gather around assigned works of art to talk about it and hear its history. Each Tea and Talk has a different assigned work of art. After finishing the discussion about the work of art, everyone goes to the classroom to have some tea, snacks and to mingle, which gives them a chance to enjoy their time with new people.

 

During the Tea and Talk event some visitors came late and missed some of our discussion, and because of my experience and my idea of feedback loop application, I asked my supervisor to offer the visitors some cards and asked them to write down their opinions/perceptions about the work of art so that people who miss the discussion will be able to read these perceptions on the cards and never miss a valuable discussion. Visitors can add a little comment or be descriptive. They also can write a question. After that my supervisor would collect the cards and we would review them together.

My past (first) experience during Tea and Talk event was not positive if you remember my previous post.  However, my supervisor and I decided to try again. This time everyone gave their cards back, but some of the comments were too short, one word. The other ones were feelings shared about the work of art. The main difficulty about this experience was reading the visitors’ handwriting.

 

Since it worked, I asked my supervisor to offer a stand that has cards and pencils with a sign that says, ‘the museums is conducting research for visitors with low-vision. How would you describe this painting to someone who cannot see it?

Grab a card below to read other visitors’ lists of words describing Frederic Remington’s Boathouse at Ingleneuk. Share your description on a notecard.’  This is a separate program that starts April 15th until May13th. We are doing this on only one work of art to start. I can’t wait to see how people interact with this new experience.  Further, to keep the visitors’ perceptions saved, I suggested my supervisor also write it in the new SRM booklet.

Observing visitors at the Sid  

I noticed while I was working on the Brown Gallery that one group (Father, a son, and a daughter) were discussing only the frames of the works of art, which caused me wonder.  They were very excited discussing the kind of wood used to build the frames and the people who would create such a work and guessing the date/time it was created. That reminds me of what Falk and Dierking in their book the museum experience revisited, (2013) said, ‘people would have different goals when visiting the museum.” I would add, discussing frames of the work of art can be one more goal for some visitors.

SRM booklet

Observing the museum visitors, I noticed that they first read the labels and then read the SRM booklet. Even if they came as a group, they would not talk to each other; instead they would read that booklet, which made me curious to read the booklet and see what it had. The booklet guide has a map, Fredric and Russel historical information, then the works of art with their history.

Because of my experience working with blind/low-vision people and also trying to apply what I have done for my thesis, I suggested to my supervisor that I create a booklet that includes tips for observations (VTS), neutral visual description for a blind/low-vision visitors, thoughts of some of the SRM visitors, and discussion questions. I chose five works of art of Russel and Remington. I re-organized the works of art based on themes; ‘Cold’ from the collection by Fredric, and ‘Predicaments’ from the collection by Russel. I am going to ask the docents during my class on May 13^th to discuss it and give their opinions about it. Because of their experience and their knowledge, they should be able to give good suggestions on how to improve it. They will also benefit from practicing how to offer blind/low-vision visitors neutral visual descriptions. In sum, being at Sid Richardson Museum has enriched my experiences and helped me put my theory into practice.