12 Improving the Getty’s Educational Impact
Gracey INvestigates: how can The Getty be better?
what are the educational aims of The Getty?
Many of the harms caused by museums, especially their often illegal and immoral means of obtaining objects to display, are held in tension with their supposed educational benefit: providing a different type of learning experience for learners of all ages to connect with a given subject. Specifically, people often claim that a museum like the Getty is a great place for children to learn and create memorable experiences connected with historical and cultural information that can stay with them and possibly inspire a new interest. However, although this is a stated goal of the Getty, I have made it my mission to investigate this claim a little further. Is the current Getty Villa actually cultivating an environment that is engaging and educational to children? Are there ways that it could be better to actually achieve this goal? And, if there are ways it could be improved, what is holding them back from executing those improvements?
One bit of inspiration for this investigation is the comparison between the two visits I have made to the Getty Villa, in middle school and then again in this class. During my second visit it really struck me how little I was able to digest and engage with the material on my first visit. Even as a middle schooler, which seems like it should be an easier age for the educational aims of the museum to be effective, I still was generally unable to really get much of an educational experience out of my visit.
Me at the Getty (visit #1)
Learning Strategies
In order to investigate how museums could approach the goal of creating an effective educational environment, it is important to understand children’s developing brains and how they best relate to and understand new information. In Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom, Joe Tranquilo writes that “as the brain matures, facts are abstracted and related to other concepts. Although the ability to abstract a concept and make complex connections between concepts are considered to be signatures of a mature mind, humans learn best by doing something concrete first, and then abstracting to more general concepts” [1]. Given this, it is important for museums to incorporate kinesthetic learning into any exhibits, if they wish to actually achieve their stated educational goals.
Additionally, not only would incorporating kinesthetic learning strategies in museums help children learn and absorb concepts better, it would also help people of all ages. In Ditching the Desks: Kinesthetic Learning in College Classrooms, Kayce Mobley & Sarah Fisher state that “as college instructors, [their] classrooms have benefited from incorporating kinesthetic learning activities generally reserved for secondary education settings” [2]. So incorporating more engaging exhibits that allow visitors to engage and physically interact should be prioritized as it would improve the