July 24, 2008
On Family Reading
In Fiddler On The Roof, Tevye extolls the importance of "Tradition!" He speaks of religious and cultural tradition, something that encloses groups of people in a system of "how things are done." Have you ever considered how "culture" is passed down within a family? Have you considered how you can change culture? We see it all the time. People change their diet, they quit smoking, they train themselves to good habits. Julie Douglas writes this month about shaping the kind of culture you want for your family.
Museum Conference, Independence, October 3-4
Our lead museum consultant, Alisha Cole, has spent the past few weeks planning a two-day conference for Missouri museum people. This will be the first of what I hope will be annual or semi-annual conferences to help people learn how to make their museums more interesting to visitors, fast! We're sponsoring the conference in partnership with the Museum Educators' Roundtable in Kansas City.
Conference venues include The National Frontier Trails Museum, the Bingham-Waggoner Estate, and the Chicago-Alton Depot. There will be a registration fee for non-MER members to cover the cost of dinner Friday evening at the Bingham-Waggoner Estate. A lot of motel choices are available nearby, and we're hoping to arrange some extended opportunities for people who want to stay over Saturday night and tour some sites on Sunday. MHC will handle conference registration, etc. There's a limit of 75 participants. We'll have details on our web site.
The working title is "Techniques of Attracting Repeat Visits by Adults, Families, and Schools." Alisha has recruited outstanding talent for this workshop, and I'm hopeful that we'll draw people from local and county museums and historic houses from all over Missouri and Kansas. The program will be built around what we consider the "gold standard" of visitor-centered and school-centered thinking in the museum field. People from the Conner Prairie Living History Museum and the Virginia Association of Museums will be joined by curriculum specialists from Missouri and Kansas.
Relief for Flood-Damaged Institutions
We have emergency relief funds for humanities organizations and institutions devastated by the recent flooding in the Midwest. The funding comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities and will be made available through us in grants of up to $5,000 for recovery costs or $2,500 for consultant costs to develop larger proposals for relief.
A letter explaining how the funds will be used, signed by an authorizing official, will suffice for application. No cash or in-kind match is necessary for these awards, though full reporting and documentation of expenditures will be required. Deadline for application is September 30, 2008.
Please share this information with anyone you know who might be interested. Contact MHC Associate Director Patricia Zahn at patricia@mohumanities.org for more information or to submit a request or call 1.800.357.0909.
Literature & Medicine Program Expansion
We are very pleased to announce the expansion of a program titled, Literature & Medicine: Humanities at the Heart of Health Care®. A pilot series in Kansas City was an overwhelming success, so we are inviting inquiries for a reiteration of the program at community hospitals. A report on the pilot project is on the Lit & Medicine page.
Literature & Medicine is “an innovative, award-winning program for health care professionals that helps them increase their job satisfaction, cultural awareness, communication skills, empathy and inter-personal skills—all through the reading and discussion of literature with colleagues. Participation is open to everyone who works in the hospital settion. This is not just for technical staff or the doctors. The program originated at the Maine Humanities Council. Contact MHC Associate Director Patricia Zahn for more information at patrica@mohumanities.org or by calling 1.800.357.0909.
Influences of Mark Twain Teacher's Workshop
Last week I received a thoughtful e-mail from Traci Mosby, a teacher at Highland Elementary School in Ewing, Missouri. It illustrates perfectly the long-term, extended side-effects produced by a workshop organized by the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal. They realized that their visitorship depends on a national population who love the stories of Mark Twain. Using Twain in a classroom poses some challenges for contemporary teachers, though, so the museum organized some week-long workshops to help teachers develop confidence in using the material. When our board saw the grant application for this summer's workshops, they saluted the excellence of the programming.
Traci gave me permission to reprint her note here:
"I wanted to take a minute to thank the Missouri Humanities Council for the grant that helped fund the Mark Twain Teachers Workshop. As an educator, this is one of the best workshops that I have ever attended. Being able to walk in Twain's footsteps and listen to experts is an amazing way to learn about one of Missouri's own. This was my second year taking this workshop, and I have continued to expand my knowledge and excitement. After last year's course, my co-workers and I implemented an afterschool club, Twain's Travelers, for third and fourth graders in our school. Through this club, we were able to teach great reading, writing skills, geography, research skills, art, and technology. The Mark Twain Museum played a great part in our club, providing resources, programs, visits, and "extras" when we needed it. Without this workshop, I would not have had the knowledge, confidence, or resources to teach Twain to my young students. We will be continuing our afterschool Twain club this year, with many students rejoining for the second year. The knowledge and excitement for learning is a result of my participation in this workshop. Thank you for help making this possible."
On Teaching
This issue marks my return from a short bereavement leave. A month ago the friends, students, and colleagues of my wife, Sandra, deluged her with calls and messages about what she had meant to them. In what she realized was the last week of her life, she allowed a colleague at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville to divulge the seriousness of her condition, and word spread around the world with the speed of e-mail. I received those messages and read them to her.
San was too busy doing her work to spend any time wondering what effect she had on people. She knew she was effective, she knew her students loved her, and I think she knew that by going to work on their behalf, despite the visible loss of energy and weight, she would send a message about what it means to be a steward of people.
I took her sacrifice for granted and threw my energy behind her desire to live every minute as the teacher and mentor she had always been, until she ran out of life. Since her condition was incurable, there was no point in saving her energy for later. There wouldn't be a "later" for her. There was, and is, only a "now."
The humanities fields are cultivated by teachers and mentors who share that same sense of mission San did. They are called to be stewards of people. In my blog of July 18 I gathered up excerpts from a few of the messages to her so that you could see her as they did, and mourn the loss of her with me.
My Stint as a Tour Guide
I visited my lifelong friends, David and Sue Watkins, in Ithaca, New York over the weekend that included a big garden tour at their place on July 12. David trained as a graphic designer and gravitated to photography as his two-dimensional outlet, and to gardening for 3-D fun. The topography of their property is daunting. Much longer than wide, and with rocky hillsides too steep to mow, it has posed a challenge of epic scale.
This is the view of their back yard and deck on the morning of the tour.
I decided to try the "visitor-centered thinking" I've extolled to museum people, and if you want to find out how I did, or if you just want to see another picture, follow the link to my "garden-as-museum" piece.
