Letters
Museums need families if they want to change lives
While the Museums Association report Museums Change Lives is a thorough and informative report, I wonder why there is no mention of family in it – the basic social unit of our society and one of the most important type of audiences and visitors to museums.
The report speaks of people, communities, individuals, schoolchildren, young people, and building partnerships with many groups in society — so does the Museums Association not recognise visiting families as a valued audience? Family visitors are an essential audience for museums. Many adults who love museums will have visited their first museum as a child with their family.
If museums are places that foster questioning, debate and critical thinking that leads to active learning, the report encourages museums to support this relationship between staff and visitors.
Families learn together and the discussions that take place during a family visit help to build a relationship with the museum as well as reinforcing family relationships beyond the museum. The museum experience may be a starting point for further exploration and learning within the family.
As a volunteer with Kids in Museums, an organisation that encourages museums to become more family-friendly, we see the family as a unique and very special visitor group, made up of two or often more generations, who are active participants with whatever a museum has to offer.
Their feedback and comments can generate ideas for change in museums and improve the visitor offer. Families can be a museum’s greatest advocates; as a social group they are a fundamental and essential part of their local communities.
I am very disappointed that they appear not to be valued in such an influential report as Museums Change Lives.
Jane Allnutt, Kids in Museums volunteer and freelance heritage educator
The report speaks of people, communities, individuals, schoolchildren, young people, and building partnerships with many groups in society — so does the Museums Association not recognise visiting families as a valued audience? Family visitors are an essential audience for museums. Many adults who love museums will have visited their first museum as a child with their family.
If museums are places that foster questioning, debate and critical thinking that leads to active learning, the report encourages museums to support this relationship between staff and visitors.
Families learn together and the discussions that take place during a family visit help to build a relationship with the museum as well as reinforcing family relationships beyond the museum. The museum experience may be a starting point for further exploration and learning within the family.
As a volunteer with Kids in Museums, an organisation that encourages museums to become more family-friendly, we see the family as a unique and very special visitor group, made up of two or often more generations, who are active participants with whatever a museum has to offer.
Their feedback and comments can generate ideas for change in museums and improve the visitor offer. Families can be a museum’s greatest advocates; as a social group they are a fundamental and essential part of their local communities.
I am very disappointed that they appear not to be valued in such an influential report as Museums Change Lives.
Jane Allnutt, Kids in Museums volunteer and freelance heritage educator