I do a lot of traveling, both for business and pleasure. Wherever I go, museums and similar institutions are always on my list of “must visit” places. Consequently, I am frequently a “walk-in” visitor. I’ve enjoyed docent-led tours, demonstrations and mini-programs on specific aspects of a museum’s collection, and individual …
One method that I’ve found to help me “lead by discovery” in the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY, is an exercise that I call “What If?” The students are given some basic information at the beginning of the tour to acquaint them with the history of glassmaking and …
Once-a-week walk-in tours at the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kansas, have evolved into weekly Sunday Gallery Talks attracting visitors with specific interests, as well as the general public. Originally, the subject of these focus tours was whatever the decent “on duty” wanted to speak about on any given day. …
“Look at the size of that group out there!” exclaims one docent-in-training As the class studies inside the lecture hall, they can see through the large glass windows that eighty people have just walked in on a Saturday morning to take the Historic Skyscrapers tour at 10:00 a.m. The class, …
An Important Lesson The October 6, 2000, edition of The Wall Street Journal chronicles how a museum, with all the resources any institution might wish for, has steadily lost its audience. “How the Getty Lost Its Buzz” describes the J. Paul Getty Art Museum as “scholarly and removed” and as …
Though Sister Eileen Rice passed away several years ago, her words and advice are as prescient as ever. We repeat this article because we feel it is useful, germaine to this issue’s theme, and essential information for all who provide public tours. As it is well known, the root meaning …
1 Assess the group through casual conversation prior to touring. Get a sense of what they hope to see and why they are taking your tour. 2 Don’t memorize a talk. Know the subject matter and speak about it. 3 Allow your own personality to show. It will make you …
Effective teaching is a challenge regardless of the circumstances. Working with walk-in visitors, however, may be among the more formidable of educational responsibilities. While certain assumptions can be made about a fourth grade class coming to your institution in conjunction with its social studies curriculum, such presumptions cannot be applied …