ARTICLE WRITTEN BY:

BRENDA M. TROFANENKOACADIA UNIVERSITY

IN THE ACADEMIC JOURNAL:

THEORY AND RESEARCH IN SOCIAL EDUCATION

SPRING, 2010, VOL. 38, NUMBER 2, PP. 270- 288.

“The Educational Promise of Historical Museum

Exhibits”

Creating A Historical Narrative Activity

While listening to this song , your job as a museum curator is to:

1. Classify/group the objects you were given.

2. Order the objects to tell a brief narrative from Canadian history.

3. Create a label for the display. 4. Photograph it.5. Select one person to share the narrative

with the class.

Introduction

“Public history museums play a critical role in validating a nation’s history.

The museum’s institutional strategies of object display are used to define a

particular representation of past events…often without critical

reflection on their broader educational impact. ”

Object based epistemology

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, scope, and limitations of knowledge. It deals with analyzing the nature of knowledge and

how it relates to such notions as truth, belief and justification.

In the context of this article - it is concerned with the production of knowledge.

Museum elements:Museum elements:

Physical exhibition space

ObjectsText panelsFirst person

narrativesShort historical

vignettes

“Traditional exhibition

standards turn the displayed objects into something

else [a narrative] – that which we call

history”.

Elements of a Museum Display

Trofanenko asserts:

1. “We need to know how to judge what is being presented as historical.”

2. “We need to engage in historical inquiry to understand the past on display.”

Potential questions to ask students:

What is the story being told?

Why might they tell this story – at this time?

Describe the story from one display in your with one words.

Who is telling the story?

How are these objects “out of context”?

Are there alternative interpretations to this story?

What or who do you believe may be missing in the display?

Will the story change if we do not read the tags or we grouped the items differently?

How would it change?

James Luna: Artifact Piece, 1985 -1987.

“I had long looked at

representation of our peoples in museums and

they all dwelled in the past. They were one—sided. We were simply objects among bones, bones

among objects, and then signed and sealed with a date.” James

Luna

If you are interested in seeing the NMAH exhibit on-line:

www.americanhistory.si.edu/Militaryhistory/

Summary

&

Peer

Evaluations