Someone has probably already observed this, but public schools are black
holes into which any given quantity of written material will disappear
without a trace. The "gatekeeper" varies from school to school, but
often it is a clerical employee (the principal's secretary, perhaps),
who is--either formally or informally--charged with regulating the flow
of stuff that goes into mailboxes. The alternative approach that works,
in my experience, is to establish a personal network of individuals in
each school who know what you are doing, like what you are doing, and
want to continue doing it with you. Those individuals, and only those,
are the ones on the mailing list who get materials, and, more important,
get some form of personal contact (at least a phone call if not a visit)
to reinforce the connection, keep them updated on what we are doing. An
important first step is to do a lot of telephoning, talking with as many
teachers as you can. Start with anyone you know in the schools--a friend
or neighbor, your kid's teacher, a teacher who has already brought a
group to your museum--and work outward from that.
Another thing is to research what teachers want. Sometimes the answer
isn't what you think it's going to be. We sort of knew that they all
wanted to come here (to our Native American museum) in the fall, because
everyone "does Indians" before Thanksgiving. It took a few years at
first to figure out that we needed to follow the 30/60 rule: there are
about 30 kids in a class, and a school bus holds 60. Our facility is
small, but we worked out how to take 60 at a time (since the school has
to pay extra to get the bus and wants to fill it), and move two groups
of 30 around each other in the galleries. Otherwise, it wasn't going to
work. I suspect that, for every combination of museum and school, there
are similar matters of "fit" to discover.
It also pays to do background research on who and what is hounding
teachers at the moment. In our case, it was a matter of figuring out
which "state standards" our displays and programs addressed, then making
a point of this to the teachers. In this connection, we also provide a
lot of other types of materials that teachers desparately want: stuff
they can borrow from us to take to their classrooms, whole lessons,
whole weeks already laid out for them--this is a lower-risk proposition
for them than taking half a day and much of their field trip budget to
haul a couple of classes to see us in situ. The classroom materials are
packaged as "discovery boxes," with lesson plans, background reading,
handout masters, reproduction artifacts, juvenile books, videos,
overheads transparencies, CDs; and we maintain a video lending library
on our topics. In every case where we can do so, we include a copy of
the state standards and provide a gloss to show how this material helps
meet them, and what sort of lesson plans and methodology might connect
the material and standards in this case. A succession of curators with
K-12 background have put a lot of effort into this, to good effect.
A final big connection we have made is one that is not available to
everyone, and that is that our university has a large teacher education
program. We work through the faculty to get them to use our museum as
part of their methods courses (we're a natural for social studies and
have worked out some more obtuse arrangements in other fields). Once the
students become teachers in the schools, they remember us. If there is a
college or university in your area, the teacher education faculty may be
open to establishing these kinds of relationships that have future
payoff for you, as well as for the teachers. Each year we hold an open
house for local K-12 teachers (promise door prizes in the form of
materials for their classrooms, and they will show up), and also invite
our undergraduates who are just starting their student teaching.
Just a few thoughts on the subject--there is no easy road to this, and
much of it does require personal contact, in addition to good materials
and persistent outreach.
--
Michael R. Sawdey, Ph.D
University Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
Executive Director, The Schingoethe Center
Aurora University
347 S. Gladstone Avenue
Aurora, Illinois 60506-4892
630-844-5656 FAX: 630-844-8884
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