[Sorry for cross-posting]

Hello all,

I'm going to find a job in a museum. I'm intersted in museum education.
I state my view and want to hear from you about education in a museum.

A museum may be an educational institution. The education is for a child,
 a boy/girl,
an adult, an elder peolpe.
1) What is education?
2) What is the purpose of education?
3) And what is the purpose/roll of museum education?
I know these questions are difficult. Education is not adding knowledge,
but the original meaning itself, "pull and stretch one's talent". This
is based on
trust toward people who are educated. So, the relation between a person
who educates
and a person who is educated, is equal. It is called "horizontal
relation".
I've not lived in abroad, only in Japan. So I know only the situation
about Japanese
education. At least in Japan, the "horizontal relation" is not achieved
in a school
education system. Now the relation is a kind of "vertical relation".
That is, teachers
are superior and students are inferior. In such a situation, education
is mainly a
transmission of knowledge. I know knowledge is needed. But there is not
the balance between
knowledge and experience.
4) Who or what retrieve the blance?
It may be one of rolls of a museum. I've visited Fort Worth Museum of
Science and History in
29th Nov.,1995. When I watched and played in the museum, I feel visitors
adapt themselves to
the museum and its exhibits. I feel "the museum is be with visitors",
not"visitors are
with the museum" It may be a key to retrieve the balance.
My "the museum is be with visitors" feeling may be equal to  the "
horizontal relation" in
the museum. This museum-school cooporation may be the theme in Japanese
school education system.
Based on the situation of "the museum is be with visitors", a museum
presents oppotunities
of having experience to visitors. What a museum can do is basically
giving chances and
opportunities of education and learning. To take chances and
oppotunities or not to take is
choice of visitors. Not only in Japan but also in foreign countries, an
ability of self-learning
becomes important nowadays. So, a museum can do stimulate visitors'
curiosity and awaken them
to an ability of self-learning. In a museum, this stimulation is done by
objects and artifacts,
not books or transmission of knowledge.
The above things may be near the answer for 2) and 3).

I'm still thinking about education in a museum.

Any suggestion, opinion, objection, support and criticism will be
helpful for me.
Please send e-mail to this discussion list or directy to me.
Thank you in advance for your help.

Yasuo Tsuruha

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NIPPONDENSO co.,ltd.
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