The Glenbow Museum School and the Gerund-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named

In their chapter, "Engaging Young Minds and Spirits: The Glenbow Museum School," Michèle Gallant and Gillian Kydd describe their work with field trip groups in the Glenbow Museum's ChevronTexaco Open Minds School Program. In short, teachers submit proposals for long-term student projects, and those that are accepted are then given special access to the museum's material and human resources. Gallant and Kydd identify ownership and time as the two qualities that make their program distinctive; they argue that it is crucial to allow teachers to design their own programs and to allow students the chance to see museums as something other than novelty. According to program evaluation, this program teaches students to think more critically and provides a space for educators to test and develop new approaches to teaching.

For this chapter, my first two questions from my last post (To what extent does the author identify a specific catalyst for a museums' move toward increased social responsibility? What challenges does the author identify in trying to implement "socially relevant missions"?) are mainly related to issues of challenging the status quo. While Gallant and Kydd do not clearly name what prompted the foundation of their program, they strongly imply that its philosophical roots--not just the financial backing for it--are fundamentally important to their sponsors. In terms of implementation, it seems that the Open Minds Program is only limited by the imaginations of their applicants. On both counts, participants in all aspects of the program are simply expected to try something new.

My last question, as before, is which strategies in this case study would translate best to other museum contexts. While Gallant and Kydd point out (see p. 83) that over seventeen other sites have already begun using this model, they do not describe which elements of the program (if not all of them) have been maintained in other contexts. While funding opportunities, school curricula, and museum collections will inevitably vary, it seems that the key ingredients must always be collaboration with community partners and the freedom to teach what "should be part of public education" (p. 82). In Gallant and Kydd's model, these ingredients are what allow students to move beyond their roles as objects-for-engaging into new and exciting opportunities to engage with ideas for themselves.