Utilize Museum as Learning Resources

Utilize Museum as Learning Resources

Iwan Hermawan, S.Pd., M.Pd

“If a nation is a family that lives in their traditional house, then a museum could be considered as a family album. In that album all of the family members’ photographs are well kept and organized from each period of time and each generation. The photographs could be viewed and not only visited the past, since time is not only parted as the past dimension, but also part of today and tomorrow morning. A photograph is a time to look intently and taking the time to know the story of each photograph, not only by occasions but also the meaning behind of those occasions. The significations of the whole identities, in and outside of the cities. The photographs at the end of the days are not only considered as objects anymore” (HU Pikiran Rakyat, 22 February 2001)
This description shows that museum does not only function as an institution that collects and exhibits objects which are related to historical development of human life and their environment, but also an institution that has a duty to train and to develop nation’s cultural value that is useful to strengthen a nation’s personality and identity, reinforce faith and obedience towards God, and increase self respect and nationality pride.
In fact, nowadays many people in society, including education society, only sees museum functions as a place to keep and maintain historical objects and monument to decorate cities. Consequently, many people are not so enthusiastic to spend time to go to museum because they think museums are conventional and not prestigious, nonetheless if all level of societies take the time to enjoy and to try to understand the meaning behind each objects displayed in museum, there will be a transformation of the historical value from previous generation to the existing generation.
In education field, museum could not be separated from its existence, since it could answer many questions that rise from the learning experience particularly in human, cultural, and environment historical development.
Museum as learning resources
As an institution that keeps, maintains and displays many everlasting pieces of works, and human’s production, museum is learning resources for education society, through out the artifacts that are exhibited, the visitors are able to learn so many things that are relevant to values, concerns, and humanities.
Observation activity by students in museums is stepping-stones to come up with some thought and new ideas, due to this activity student are triggered to use all of their abilities with optimal critical thinking. Students critical thinking according to Takai and Connor (1998) includes: a. Comparing and Contrasting (ability to recognize similarity and differences of any observed objects)b. Identifying and Classifying (ability to identify and to classify objects from identified groups)c. Describing (ability to give description of observed objects written and orally) d. Predicting (ability to predict the next cycle of an observed object)e. Summarizing (ability to summarize information from the museum briefly and accurately).
Critical thinking ability could not just appear by itself without any sufficient amount of guidance and supervisions from teachers. Some efforts could be done by teachers in growing the ability to think critically through visiting museum activities, such as:a. During the learning activities in class for a certain material, teachers could invite, assign, and advice students to visit museum to find the facts from the explanation in the textbooks and their evidences which are found in museum. This activity ideally should involve students, not in a big numbers, to make it easier for the teachers and museum guides to guide students observing museum collections.
b. Giving introductions in advanced to students before the visit to the museum, especially with material, which would be observed. This occasion should be done in order to enable students to increase their interest of knowing and proofing what has been informed by the teacher or museum guides.
c. Providing supporting tools for students learning experience in a format of LKS (student’s workbooks), which their material structured as brief and resourceful as possible to increase students’ critical thinking on the observed objects.
d. During the visit, the teacher and the museum guides should be within students’ reach in order to give guidance and giving a brief discussion with students regarding to the observed objects.
e. After the visits, students are assigned to give reports on conclusion from any material that is informed through out the visits, and the results must be discussed in the class.
f. At the end of the activity, the teacher should evaluate the visit as a parameter of its accomplishment.
Other efforts that could be performed by the teachers during the museum visits, the museum developer (curator) also need to do various efforts with the intention that those visitors, especially the education society, should get maximal results in their museum visit activities. Some efforts that could be done by the museum developer in order to utilize museum as a learning resources, are:
a. Providing a brief information panel on room separation and segregation of the collections that are exhibited in front of the museum entrance, therefore, visitors could gain the whole concept of museum exhibits as they enter the museum entrance door, as a result even if the visitor just enter one of the rooms, he/she would not loose “the story” of the exhibitions.
b. Providing informational panels presented completely and attractively as the enhancement for the exhibition collections and their dioramas.
c. Providing various supporting facilities for educational activities, such as leaflet, brochure, guidance books, film, micro film, slide and students’ workbook (LKS), therefore, visitors could learn the exhibits easily.
d. In relevance to LKS (students’ workbook) in particular, it is necessary to design various museum LKS that fit students needs based on students’ ages and they have to be able to increase students’ critical thinking according to their own level.
e. Museum needs to organize several interesting games that are able to increase students’ understandings of objects that are exhibited.
The importance of cooperation between School and Museum Developer
As it was mentioned above that optimal museum utilization could be reached if the introductions from the material or the objects exhibited are given before visiting the museum Throughout the pre-visit exploration activity, it is expected that student are able to grasp various relevant information from objects exhibited according to what has been expected. Moreover, the teachers could give guidance during the visit; they need to cooperate with the curators in order to get complete information on museum and its exhibited collections.
On the other hand, curators could design various educational programs in the museum and its supporting facilities, it is important to cooperate with education society thus the educational program and its supporting, such as, LKS, could fit the requirement of school curriculum. Other than that, between one museum to another which are still located at the same city it is also important to coordinate a team work to produce museum guides books jointly which will be distributed to education society, especially schools, hence when students are going to visit museums, it will be easier for teachers to select which museum will be visited in accordance to curriculum prerequisite at the time.
At last, utilizing museum as learning resources is expected to increase our education quality and its museum existence and not only a decoration or city monument, hopefully…
I, Iwan Hermawan, S.Pd., M.Pd agrees if this resources sent and listed and used in the Educational Homepage Network, and I guarantee this manuscript is my own work and under my own authorization (no copyright)