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Report ASEMUS education and outreach programs project Exchange between ACM, Asian Civilisations Museum, in Singapore and MFEA, the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, in Stockholm Sweden 2006-2007.

1. INTRODUCTION Andrew Glassop, Manager, Education services at ACM, visited the MFEA in Stockholm for two weeks in October 2006. Elisabet Hedstrand, Museum educator at MFEA, visited ACM in Singapore for two weeks in January 2007. The exchange was part of the ASEMUS Educationoutreach and public programmes project. The exchange has resulted in been a better understanding of the differences and similarities in education and outreach programmes between an Asian museum in Asia, and an Asian museum in Europe. The aim of the project was to jointly evaluate different methods and discuss how they can be improved. Museum education and outreach programs are carried out in very different ways in the two museums. The role of museum education differs at the two museums. When you look at our mission statements you can see that the focus at ACM is to educate the visitors on how to appreciate Asian culture, while the aim at MFEA is to encourage the visitor to discuss Asian culture. The mission statement at ACM: To explore and present the cultures and civilisations of Asia, so as to promote awareness and appreciation of the ancestral cultures of Singaporeans and their links to Southeast Asia and the world. The Mission statement at MFEA: The museum will be a changeable scene for the cultures and traditions of Asia now and in the future. A forum for experience and insight where you can meet, investigate and debate Asia in the world. Our two museums also differ in size. ACM has a staff of around 60 people and attracts 450,000 visitors every year. The MFEA on the other hand, has a staff of 30 and attracts

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about 140 000 visitors yearly. When it comes to resources in terms of staff and funding the two museums have considerable differences. The department of education and programs at ACM has a staff of 8 (of which three are dedicated to school education) and has adequate funding for their activities. The MFEA has a staff of about 1,5 and has to cover most of the expenses with the income received from visiting schools and groups. All the facts listed above give the Museum educators very different conditions in which to work under in terms of both quality and quantity.

2. MUSEUM EDUCATION School Programmes at the ACM The ACM attracts approximately 25 – 30,000 students to the galleries each year. The visits can take a number of different forms. Volunteer guided tours The most common way for school to use the museum is with a guided tour, almost exclusively conducted by volunteer guides, or docents. These docents are all members of the Friends of the Museum (FOMs) and undergoing a fairly intensive training programme of nine months to become guides. They train primarily to guide the general public, but a small portion of their training is dedicated to dealing with school students. Once trained, they are expected to maintain a regular level of activity for the next 12 months. Additionally, many docents are ‘expats’ whose spouses are working in Singapore, giving them the free time to dedicate to the docent programme. This has two main effects for the local student; firstly, that their principal point of contact for their ‘ancestral culture’ is a person who, most probably, is not from that culture, and; secondly, the principal training of the docent is as an information provider, not as an educational facilitator. This is not to dismiss or question the docents in any way. They provide a most valuable service to the museum, and have been great supporters of the museum for many years. Indeed, the continuing popularity of the guided tour shows the dedication and quality they bring to the task. However, it does have an effect on the type of experience that each student has – it tends to be as an ‘information getter’ rather than an ‘information explorer’ or ‘personal response gatherer’. For this reason the ACM is consciously trying to encourage more schools to consider other museum experiences, which are outlined below. The success of this push will rely on the qualities of the programmes we develop, and our ability to convince the teachers of Singapore that they have educational merit, and are not more onerous to plan or run.

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Worksheets & lesson plans The worksheet and lesson plans of the ACM are a major point of the museum’s new educational directions. Lessons are provided by the museum (available online at the ACM website) for a variety of subjects and levels. For each new exhibition a new set of lesson plans are produced, and a focused mainly on Primary (7-12) and Secondary (1316) year old students.. The lesson plans have these general features: Pre-visit activity: A weakness in the Singapore school system is that few students receive adequate, if any, preparation for the visit. Thus, the students arrive with little knowledge of what the purpose of the visit is. By providing simple in-classroom activities for teachers to conduct, the ACM hopes that there will be greater focus, and hence greater motivation, by students when the visit the actual galleries. Visit worksheet / activities: The ACM provides a worksheet for the student to use during the gallery visit. The worksheets are usually designed not to force students to extract certain facts from the object or caption (eg. What is the country of origin? What is its age?) but as a template or guideline to help them record their own observations and responses. These worksheets also serve as a resource for the last part of the lesson plan, the post visit activity. Though it may be a generalization, Singapore teachers are more insistent on worksheets than those in Sweden. Post visit activity: An activity where the students use the information they have collected to produce another piece of work (eg an artwork based on an artefact, a tourist souvenir based on an artefact). This allows the students to make something of value from their visit, and, allows the teacher to use the work as a piece to be marked for assessment. Tertiary In the past two years, the ACM has made significant improvements and advancements in the use of the museum by tertiary groups. Tertiary groups here refer to those in Junior College (17-19 – a pre-university course), Polytechnics (17-20 – more business or work skills based) and universities. Numbers have increased from 600 to 5000, and the range of schools coming has also increased. This has been due mainly to dedicating one staff member to work exclusively with this group. This staff member is then able to deal very directly with the teacher involved, and plan or customize a learning experience to fit that teacher’s needs. Often, the staff member will then facilitate the student’s visit. The teacher will often then facilitate the next visit themselves, freeing the staff member to

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approach new schools. This provides a valuable, personalised experience for the student and teacher, and the ACM believes the benefit derived is greater than a simple tour or worksheet. However, given the sheer numbers of other Primary and Secondary students, this approach is not feasible for them. Student guiding, internships and work experience Perhaps the most meaningful museum experience available to students is to take work at the museum as a student guide, as a work experience student (for Secondary student) or as an intern (for tertiary students). Each programme involves a high level of commitment from the student but also gives the opportunity for the student to really engage themselves with the museum’s collection. It also allows for the student to contribute to the museum, and establishes a relationship that often extends well beyond the initial term of the programme. Guides are trained for both the permanent collection (to guide the public) or for the special exhibitions (to guide fellow school mates). Each course involves a training programme of several days, and students are given some freedom in determining what artefacts they tour. Work experience and interns often help in the running of programmes, or the planning and development of outreach materials. As such, they are given a fair amount of autonomy and ownership over the project, though always with help and guidance from ACM education staff.

Teacher training/retreats The ACM conducts several teacher training workshops per year. These originally were little more than familiarization tours but have developed now into more targeted sessions, where the focus is to equip teachers to use the museum in very concrete ways and encourage a more creative approach to using heritage and culture in the classroom. School projects Schools in Singapore exist in an increasingly competitive environment, where the challenge to attract good students grows similarly competitive. One way to attract students is to develop the school as a ‘niche’ school that excels in a certain field. One such niche is in the field of the humanities. Thus, ACM is increasingly working with schools on long term projects (lasting several months) that involve a large number of students, usually in the order of 300 to 400. Projects already completed or underway are: art exhibitions using the museum as a ‘muse’, using the museum as a model to set up their own museum, and the museum as a centre for creative writing. Naturally, these projects involve the ‘whole student’ and the

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students gain immensely from the students gain immensely from the experience, both in terms of knowledge gained and new skills learnt. School programs at MFEA The regular activity at the MFEA is the educational program run by the Museum educator. The school programs are all designed for specific target groups that vary from preschool (4-6 years old) to upper secondary school (16-19 years old). The school programs consist of a thematic tour of the galleries followed by a workshop in our studio on the same theme. The school programs are learner centred with focus on dialogue, personal reflection, investigation and interpretation. The starting point is always the pupils’ prior knowledge and we invite them to an open dialogue where they can make the knowledge their own. In the studio we support the creativity of the children and encourage them to express themselves through the creative arts. We want to engage the pupils’ and give them the possibility to experience the museum with all senses. Teacher guidance at MFEA Another regular activity is the teacher training. The teacher training days are thematic in character and consist of collaborations with different museums and organizations. This spring we will arrange a teacher training day where we compare prehistoric times in east and west. Further education for teachers is planned for this autumn on Buddhism, its history, art and practice in the contemporary world. Our plan is to produce lesson plans and worksheets on the web as a complement to the school programs and teacher training. We have free entrance for schools and some teachers choose to visit the museum and guide their classes on their own. Evaluation & development at MFEA The MFEA works in close collaboration with the schools. We always try to reach the teacher over the phone to discuss their visit in advance. We also work with Teacher evenings where the museum invites teachers to visit the new exhibitions at the start of each semester. Another important link to the schools is the evaluations that take place on a regular basis. The evaluations focus both on quantity and quality. Beside statistics, we also work with focus groups each semester, where we invite teachers to discuss and evaluate the quality of our school activities.

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We also work with evaluation sheets for both teachers and pupils and thus develop our school programs in close relationship to our target groups. Each semester we document the educational activities to ensure continuous development. Another important part is networking and collaborations with experts, colleagues at other museums and universities. Long term partnerships, projects and collaborations provide an exchange of knowledge which gives us an opportunity for further education. In Sweden the Museum educators have both national and local networks. Comparison of Museum education The regular activities for schools differ substantially between the two museums. While ACM focus on lesson plans and worksheets on the web the MFEA focus on the educator led school programs. However, schools in both Sweden and Singapore prefer to book a guided tour/school program. As a result, most schools in Singapore book the volunteer guides at the museum. It also became clear that the two museums have different approaches to development and evaluation. The ACM focus primarily on quantity with certain target numbers connected to each activity. At the MFEA the qualities of the educational activities are considered as important as quantity, even though the latter is easier to measure. We discussed and evaluated the different methods of learning used at our museums. Education at ACM focus on fact while learning at MFEA focuses more on personal reflection and interpretation. However, the educators at ACM aim at producing lesson plans and worksheets more centred on experience and personal reflection. But it is not easy. The two learning styles reflect the formal educational system in the two countries. Teachers in Singapore want the children to learn certain facts and above all expect an outcome from the museum visit which is measurable. In Sweden, on the contrary, children at school are taught to be critical and individual thinkers. The ACM has made several steps to try to provide a more reflective museum visit, and now offer museum educator led workshops at all levels. Often, these use ‘play to learn’ as the basis, allowing the student a greater degree of freedom to express themselves. The more direct Swedish approach may not be appropriate yet with the majority of local Singapore students, those this too is quickly changing as the education system evolves. 3. PROGRAMS Children’s Zones at ACM The ACM has four ExporAsian Zones. Built with funds provided by JPMorgan, these zones deal with some of the themes or ideas raised in the permanent collection. There is one ExplorAsian Zone each for China, Southeast Asia, West Asia and South Asia, reflecting the general layout of the ACM. Each zone has several interactive activities and have been designed to get the child of 6 12 to fully engage themselves with the exhibits. Additionally, each interactive requires a

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minimum of reading so that children of different abilities can extract the maximum benefit from the experience. In addition to this, each special exhibition also has a dedicated corner for children. This is often separate from the exhibition itself, but is on occasion part of the exhibition gallery. Activity booklets for children at ACM Each special exhibition also comes with an activity book for children (usually 6- 10 years old). These will typically include treasure hunts, artefact reinterpretation through drawing or sketching, and a cut out and make activity. These are very popular with families, and are also used by Primary schools on organized visits. Interestingly, the activity books for the permanent collection (one for each region) have not been updated recently and have fallen out of use. Plans to redevelop them are dependent on finding sufficient funds to develop a full new set that covers the entire museum. Other public programmes at the ACM The ACM runs a fairly comprehensive set of programmes for public education. These are detailed in brief below. ScreenShots A series of integrated films, documentaries and lectures that deal with issues of importance to Singapore and Asia. These run every quarter. Talking Points A lecture series that covers a wide range of topics. Approximately 20 lectures are held per year. Adults Only Programmes designed to appeal to young working adults who may not be regular museum goers. Can include talks, films demonstrations, workshops etc. These usually come with refreshments and are held monthly on Friday nights. Family Fun Sundays Family based activities that provide an opportunity for families to interact in an entertaining and educational environment. Held monthly on Sundays. Open Houses These are held to celebrate important cultural days in Singapore, such as Hari Raya, Deepavalli and Chinese New Year. They generally involve simple children’s craft activities and family trails in the museum.

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Festivals Festivals are held twice a year, one for a special exhibition and another focused more on the permanent collection. These are 2-day weekend events that have multiple activities, tours, food vendors, demonstrations, films and performances. Learning in the exhibitions at MFEA At the MFEA we work with informal learning as a complement to the school activities. In our exhibition China before China the children activities are integrated into the exhibition. Parents and children can experience the exhibition together with parallel information. China before China is interactive and both adults and children are encouraged to take an active part in the displays. We also provide a treasure hunt through our different galleries which children can do together with their parents. Open studio & festivals at MFEA We work with a program called “Open studio” which runs 6 Sundays a year and on school holidays. The target groups are children and young people and we give them the opportunity to try different Asian arts and techniques in our studio for free. We also arrange a number of major events each year such as our Asian festival and the Chinese new-year. On these events we collaborate with different Asian groups and societies represented in Sweden. Comparison of programs Learning in the exhibits is carried out in different ways at our two museums. ACM has particular Children zones while MFEA has the children activities integrated into the exhibitions. The children zones at ACM are very popular! The children can play as much as they want without disturbing the others. But the children miss out on the original objects. At MFEA’s China before China exhibit, children can experience the original objects parallel with the interactive displays. On the other hand, MFEA has received critique for “dumbing down” the adult visitors. Interestingly, adults can often be found spending some time in the ACM children’s corners as they provide, in some ways, different sets of information, or allow them to use different learning abilities (kinetic etc) to gain information.

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Both museums arrange festivals and different programs such as lectures, seminars and activity days for families. These are carried out in pretty much the same way, even though ACM’s events are on a larger scale.

4. OUTREACH PROGRAMS Public outreach at the ACM It should be noted here that ‘outreach’ in the Singapore context has a very specific meaning. It refers to activities done outside the museum building that are designed to both educate the public and encourage the public to visit the museum at a later date. To this extant, they fulfill both an educational and marketing need. The main outreach conducted by the ACM are a series of traveling exhibitions held at the various libraries around Singapore. These are connected to the special exhibitions, and take the themes or issues of the exhibition and reinterpret them into a modern Singapore context. For example, for PowerDressing, an exhibition on robes and silk from Imperial China, the traveling exhibition was PowerDressing Up!, which looked at symbolic dressing in modern Singapore. These exhibitions are run for approximately six months each year, and attract visitorship of 300,000 people. They form an important part of the ACM mission and are a valuable tool in spreading recognition of the ACM. Festivals, workshops and traveling exhibitions with the MFEA At MFEA we define outreach programs in a different way. When we talk about outreach activities we refer to the activities we engage in outside the museum building. The overall goal for these activities is to reach new audiences. For example, we attend two festivals held in the town park each year: The Cherry blossom day and Stockholm culture festival. At those occasions we arrange different activities on Asian themes for families. Another part of our outreach programs are workshops held during school holidays at libraries outside Stockholm city. These libraries provide an important arena for the museum to reach out to children and young people who live in immigrant communities outside the city centre. Stockholm is a quite segregated city in terms of both socioeconomic features and ethnicity. We also arrange a number of traveling exhibitions each year. The MFEA is a national museum which means that we have a responsibility to make our activities available throughout the country. We meet this national demand by producing traveling exhibitions that are shown at different galleries in Sweden. Comparison of Outreach programs The major point of comparison is that the outreach conducted by the ACM is static, in that they are exhibitions. Outreach by the MFEA tends to be more personal, where

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museum staff are actively engaged with the visitors. Broadly put, the ACM outreach mimics an independent museum visit, whereas the MFEA mimics an educational workshop in the museum. Obviously, the main reason for this is the emphasis on numbers in the Singapore context. Given the current target, of 300,000 visitors, it is not feasible to run workshop style outreach programmes. 5. LEARNING ABOUT ASIAN CULTURES IN ASIA AND SWEDEN Learning about Asian cultures in Singapore Learning about Asian cultures in Singapore is one fraught with opportunities, difficulties, and contradictions. As has been stated, many students already have a quite good knowledge of some of the objects on display. They may use similar objects in their own worship, or have relatives who do. This gives the students a chance to ‘show-off’ their knowledge to their friends, or, on occasion, give a very personal insight into the artefact’s importance and use. Additionally, students from a particular cultural background often have a great interest in the gallery that showcases that culture. On the other hand, as has already been stated, some students are unwilling to enter or engage with a gallery that showcases a culture other than their own. This can be because they fear learning ‘wrong’ or ‘taboo’ information. This situation is especially prevalent with Christian students. Another reason is that students see the other cultures as very separate from them, as being completely disconnected. This mirrors somewhat Singapore society, where Chinese Singaporeans read the Chinese language papers, Malay Singaporeans watch Bahasa language TV, and Indian Singaporeans listen to Tamil and Hindi music – they rarely mix their culture with another’s. When Singaporeans of different backgrounds meet and interact, they do so in English, a ‘neutral’ language in some respects. The contradiction is that Singapore students can seem lethargic or apathetic about other cultures, as being very inner focused. But this is not true, Singapore students are intensely interested in many cultures, such as Egyptian, Roman, Central American, Japanese, Korean etc. The disconnect only happens, when it happens at all, with the three dominant cultures in Singapore. In regard to teachers, they are very textbook reliant, and if the topic or theme is not covered in the museum then it is seen as not relevant to the students. The ACM tries to overcome this by stressing the skills component of a museum visit, and how the museum can be a great place for a wide range of thinking or learning skills to be taught or expanded upon. Learning about Asian cultures in Sweden

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The school classes that come to the museum to see our collections are either just curious about Asian culture or visit us in connection with a school project. Depending on whether they begin or end their project with a visit at our museum their prior knowledge can vary quite a lot. For that reason we try to plan the visit together with the teacher in advance. We have few immigrants with Asian background in Sweden so it is quite rare that we have school children on a visit with a close relationship to the Asian cultures. We are working hard to attract schools to visit the museum. Teachers follow the curriculum quite closely and have a limited budget for museum visits. Asia and Asian cultures is normally not on the agenda. If they study history, a visit to our Historical museum is considered more relevant. Our sister museum, the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, is in a totally different position since all schools study our classical heritage and a visit to them is highly relevant. Hence, we are continuously evaluating our range of school programs so that they are considered as relevant as possible for schools to book. We have noticed that school programs about Chinese or Japanese culture with a geographical framework are quite rarely booked. Our challenge is to develop school programs on interesting themes that can be connected to the curriculum. This is not easy! One way to attract schools is to offer school programs on Asian religions. All schools study the religions of the world at one point. The most popular school programs for the moment is: Indian gods, To seek answers, Chinese writing, Dragons in myth and tale (for the youngest) and Buddha, the enlightened! Learning about Asian cultures in Singapore and Sweden To begin with, the Singaporean schools find it most relevant to visit ACM. The teachers really want to educate their children in the Culture and history of their region. There is even a subject in the curriculum called National Education. So in comparison, MFEA has a totally different starting point! There is a substantial difference in learning at the two museums depending on the pupils’ prior knowledge about the topic on display. This is especially seen in the learning process when religious objects are involved. The Singaporean pupils have a close relationship to the objects on display and the Swedish pupils have none. In general you can say that most Swedish pupils are curious and open minded about the topics on display. (However, the teenagers are sometimes just blank.) The purpose of the methods used is to engage the pupils in the topic and find ways for them to relate to the objects on display. The prior knowledge is in general quite low. In Singapore on the contrary, the children in general have a high level of understanding and already find the objects on display meaningful. This can lead to interesting encounters where the facilitator can encourage, for example, a Muslim student to lead part of the tour of the Islamic galleries. But on the other hand children can be reluctant to visit galleries about a religion they don’t believe in. This is true even of students studying sociology at university level.

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It should be noted that in Singapore, the museum visit is often not part of the formal school curriculum; rather it is an ‘extra’. The result is that many teachers do not prepare their students for the visit, and the students have little focus or motivation. In Sweden, teachers usually take more time to prepare the students for their visit, leading to more motivated pupils. 6. Education policy One goal with this exchange is to reach an Educational Policy, based on the activities taking place during the exchange. When Andrew was in Sweden we had one first meeting to discuss what an Education policy at MFEA should contain and who should be involved in the process. We exchanged ideas and good examples from other museums. As a result we started a project group and put up a timetable at MFEA. This plan was put aside however, when the management of the National Museums of World Culture decided that the four museums in the organisation should do a development work together. At the moment I don’t know exact what the outcome of this work will be. But at the end of the year we will have a result that we can share with our Singaporean colleagues. The ACM plans to formulate an educational policy, and sees this policy as an important part of defining the overall aims and direction of the education unit. However, at moment, these plans are in their infancy but are slated to be completed by the end of the financial year 08.

7. OUTCOME To begin with the whole experience of the exchange was very exciting and interesting. We both learned a lot from each other and our colleagues. We both shared the experience of our exchange with as many colleagues as possible both within and outside our own museums. We both arranged study visits to colleagues at other museums and held one seminar each with participants from different museums during our respective stay. Elisabet also held a workshop on reflective learning for Andrew’s department. For more details look at our enclosed programs. The exchange of knowledge, experience of methods, learning in museums and outreach programs is invaluable. We have had very rewarding discussions through out this exchange and we will keep in contact in the future continuing this exchange of good ideas and experiences. Tangible outcome for Andrew and ACM The ACM has already put in train several aspects of Swedish museum education. The main is a greater use of workshops across a range of school levels. While workshops were being conducted for the tertiary sector, they were not being done for other levels. We have now developed a number of workshops suitable for Secondary schools, many using games as their core component. In March of 2007, we were able to get almost 2000 students to take part in programmes other than guided tours, and the feedback was very

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positive. However, these were provided for free, so getting the schools to pay for the workshops, which will have to be done, will be another barrier that we must overcome. We have also increased the amount of reflective learning that all our workshops use, and the response has been fantastic. Students really appreciated the chance to do something different and the learning and interaction was very enthusiastic. Our challenge now is to find a way to replicate this experience but for many thousands of more students. Another positive and tangible outcome from the trip was to see the amount of cooperation there was between the various museums under the NMWC. Though the three main museums in Singapore are within easy walking distance of each other, the museum educators rarely, if ever, met to learn from and share with each other. Armed with this new enthusiasm, ACM organized an initial meeting between the three main museum’s educational teams. This was held when Elisabet was in Singapore, and was a very enjoyable and meaningful exchange. These will be held a couple of times year in a very informal and collegiate fashion. Tangible outcome for Elisabet and the MFEA One tangible outcome for MFEA was my experience of ACM’s handling collection. ACM’s handling collection is huge and very well documented in a database and used in many different ways. I already had loose plans of starting a handling collection at MFEA and this exchange gave me a good starting point. One of the educators at ACM, Karen Chin, helped me to buy a handling collection on Chinese Buddhism. Karen, a Buddhist with Chinese background, was an excellent consultant. As a result we know have a Buddhist handling collection at MFEA and have founded our own handling collection with ACM as a model. Another good experience was to see the way that ACM worked with worksheets & lesson plans on the web. We have just started to produce school materials for the web and this exchange gave me some good examples to study. ACM has a substantial amount of materials on the web for both teachers and students to use. My plan is to develop this part of the Museum education at MFEA. The goal is to produce both guidance for teachers and worksheets for pupils in connection to our permanent exhibitions. Finally I must emphasize the importance of having the opportunity to study Asian culture in Asia - in its natural context. To be able to get an inside perspective on Asian culture has been invaluable for me. Thanks to this exchange I have been able to study and experience Chinese Buddhism, Daoism and Hinduism in its natural context. My temple visits under guidance of experts were fantastic. These experiences have added a new dimension to my museum tours on Buddhism and Hinduism at MFEA. Reflection on time frame Two weeks is a very short time. For that reason, the exchange was given the character of a study visit. There wasn’t time enough for the visiting educator to carry out any projects of their own during these two weeks. Instead we joined each others tours and projects as a spectator or as a co-worker. For example Andrew presented some sculptures during my

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school programs at MFEA and I joined in to comment on the students work during one of Karen Chin’s Customized Modules for Polytechnic students. It would have been very interesting to carry out a workshop for Singaporean pupils using the “Swedish model”. Using methods where dialogue and personal reflection is encouraged. This however, was impossible with the limited time frame. Instead Elisabet organized a workshop for the staff at Andrew’s department. But she wished there had been more time for her to do a follow up, where the educators at ACM could have joined her to study how she worked in a workshop with their Singaporean pupils. Andrew had the same feelings. However, the chance for the exchange to take place at all was very welcome, and there have already been very beneficial outcomes from the exchange.

Appendix 1. Andrew’s Program and report at MFEA 2. Elisabet’s Program at ACM 2. Example of worksheets & lesson plans from ACM 3. Example of educational programs from MFEA

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