Perhaps you could explain that museums don’t exist in an ethical vacuum – that they have an ethical commitment to the honest representation of their subject matter.  She seems to be a woman of some ethical conviction herself, so this should strike a chord with her.

At the same time (or, if absolutely necessary, instead [but surely it won’t come to that]), you could explain that the tour is not a tour of an exhibit but of a subject, and that the elements of exhibits are integrated.  Supposing that your exhibit includes a section on human influences on the Chesapeake’s biological health, I imagine that agricultural pollution would be an important element – and can you really discuss agriculture and its consequences around the Chesapeake without discussing tobacco?  Museums make an investment in developing exhibits and training tour-givers, and people often don’t realize that it’s no simple matter just to excise part of an integrated whole. 

For what it’s worth, I asked my father, who’s a Protestant clergyman, what he thought of this situation.  His response was that the “Christian school” rationale is a smokescreen of questionable ethicality for an unprofessional request. 

This made me realize that, in essence, the teacher is asking for the museum to engage in voluntary situational censorship.  Perhaps some learnin’ is better than none.  But as a teacher myself, I can tell you that there’s not much point in presenting material if students don’t respect the medium and the teacher.  A half-truth is also a half-lie, and kids aren’t born stupid – there’s a reason they learn to hate history and to find museums boring.

 

R. Johnson

 

-----Original Message-----

I have a question to ask of the group - I'm interested to hear what others think.  I had a teacher come in and inquire about tours of our exhibit for her second graders at a Christian school.  Our exhibit examines man's relationship with the Chesapeake Bay over time and how that relationship as impacted on the cultural and environmental heritage of the Bay.  As I showed the teacher through the exhibit, we came to our section on the tobacco economy, which of course had a huge impact on life on the Eastern Shore.  The teacher indicated that she would prefer to not have that section be part of the tour, because they are a Christian school.  I'm just interested to know if others have ever faced this type of request, and what their thoughts are on the notion of skipping over parts of history to suit the visitor, specifically in a docent-lend tour situation.