“I am haunted by you” flowers and impossible cream cakes.

I had an unexpected escape from the day job today – and I used it to push off from the screen and drift into the ordinary.  I used it to bump up against the stuff that had not been digitised – to see, hear, smell, touch and taste in a way not mediated through a screen - to nudge up against the real.

Escape is best shared.  I persuaded another to cut loose from what life expected of her for the day and we explored the local as if we were seeing it for the first time.

Along the way we visited the dementia centre, delivering impossible cream cakes and an exuberance of flowers; flowers whose colours cried out “I am haunted by you”.  We hugged and squeezed each of the dementia centre staff who had helped grandpa; those who reassured him when he puzzled over the fact that when he drank juice the horizon moved, and juice escaped out the side of his mouth and rolled down over his chin ... and those who flirted with him when he fancied sex on the glacier .... and then we moved on.

At the Onehunga Mall we called into a local cafe.  We laughed so much at our grandpa memories that when we drank coffee the horizon moved for us – and the coffee ran out the side of our mouths and rolled down our chins. 

Deferring to Kingswellian “We are capitalism made flesh” thinking  –All that “every moment of waking and sleeping life is shot through with commitment to the goods and services of the global economy..” we took our caffeinated and sticky surfaces to those emporiums of feckless consumerism – the many $2.00 Shops of Onehunga. 

Here we spent up large (but small) on enough froth, sparkle, glitter and glue to transform fifty self effacing wooden pegs into “off their faces” narcissistic transgendered celebrities.  We drifted into carpet overrun warehouses, admired taxidermy wild boar heads and 3m polystyrene Doric columns in second hand shops, bought charcoal sticks and rolled canvas at an art emporium and got lost upstairs in the New Zealand section of the “Hard to Find but Worth the Effort”  bookshop.  

How would you measure the meaning of a day like this? 

In Chapter 5 of Museums in a Troubled World – Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse,  Jane cites the thinking of Douglas Worts in measuring the meaning of museums. 

Refer: Worts, D.  “Measuring Museum Meaning: A Critical Assessment Framework.” Journal of Museum Education, 31 2006, 41 - 48 

You will not be surprised if I admit that this captured my interest - given that any folksonomy of Artichoke would reveal that I am just a little obsessed with measuring “school meaning”. 

Wort’s CAF framework has three lenses – the individual, the community and the museum. 

The "community lens" focuses on the creation of public benefit, and requires that museum staff ask themselves how well their program(s) will do things like: 

Address vital and relevant needs/issues within the community.

Engage a diverse public.

Act as a catalyst for action.

Stimulate intergenerational interactions.

Link existing community groups to one another.

Initiate or enhance long term collaborative relationships.

Create partnerships that empower community groups.

Result in products/processes that have tangible impacts in the community.  

Jane notes on p 124 that – “this approach is a radical contrast to the typical Museum programme lens, which consists of questions such as “How much will it cost?”, “How many people will attend?”; “Will there be a catalogue?” and “Will there be shop merchandise?” 

I cannot help but think that these community lens questions might work well with school. 

Many of our schools seem obsessed with measurement questions such as “How much will it cost?”, “How many students will achieve [insert sought after qualification]?”; “Will there be media league tables?” and “What is our point of marketable difference?” questions. 

The alternative - measuring schools through a community lens -  Chris Bigum's 2004 “knowledge building through identifying local and community needs” - might give purpose to both our museums and our schools. 

After all, how many of the professional learning conversations held, and learning experiences planned in our schools, are measured against how well they ...  

Address vital and relevant needs/issues within the community.

Engage a diverse public.

Act as a catalyst for action.

Stimulate intergenerational interactions.

Link existing community groups to one another.

Initiate or enhance long term collaborative relationships.

Create partnerships that empower community groups.

Result in products/processes that have tangible impacts in the community.

Comments

[roseg]

or governments - imagine if governments operated on this basis - oh wait - aren't they supposed to?

i miss grandpa anecdotes. thanks for telling one i hadn't heard before.

roseg

[Jeremy]

I like that lens. It comes at a time when we're thinking about themes and goals for our family's learning -- thanks for the shift in perspective.

[Artichoke]

I love it when you suddenly reappear Rose -

And you are right to button the governmental implications of these questions - it makes me think how reckless our fantasies might be if we could imagine governments and politicians using these as measures of their success -

And thanks for missing the Grandpa anecdotes -

I was enjoying reading The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow this week when I was startled to find myself remembering an unusual statistical conversation that unfolded in the dementia center when Grandpa asked "What do you think my chances are of a normal process of the bowels?" So yes I miss them too

[minh]

Here's a place but can tick most of that list http://qldstories.slq.qld.gov.au/. Not a museum but a State Library so similar community nexus. The digital storytelling section is run by a marvelous young man - Gavin Bannerman - who offered astonishing levels of cooperation when I approached him about a joint venture with the refugee support group I was working with. Do check it out.

:)
minh
[wavze to Rose]

[Artichoke]

minh - those Queensland stories are easily measurable on Wort's CAF framework - they are raw and unpolished and real - thanks for the link - and why am I unsurprised that you might know Rose well enough to wave?

[Artichoke]

I need to thank you Jeremy for widening the perspective available to Wort's CAF framework - You have pushed it out to families and Stephen suggested using it to measure blogs - I have envoyed both suggestions - they deepen my initial imaginings

[flowers Philippines]

Such a great post you have here.I totally agree with this "Create partnerships that empower community groups".

-Ava

[Artichoke]

Thanks Ava,
You have identified what is key in all of this - to "Create partnerships that empower community groups" is part of what it is to be human - the problems arise when we quibble over what constitutes "partnership", when we critique the ethics of "empowerment" and when we challenge the criteria for membership in "community group"
Arti

P.S I am somewhat taken by your identifier - "flowers Philippines" - it distracts me from partnerships and community groups and sends me to sites that tell me things like this

• The Philippines is the 23rd most plant species rich country in the world and the 7th in the Asian Region.
  
• There are about 8,000 species of flowering plants in the Philippines One out of eight of these is an orchid and nine out of ten species of these can be found in our country.
  
• The Philippines ranks 2nd among the 10 botanical hotspot areas in the tropics. Hotspots are areas with high species endemism and are experiencing rapid rates of habitat modification or loss.

[mesa doctor]

Such a good team building for the both of you.