Bridge to Black Hole: Transacting Theory for Museum Education David Ebitz Pennsylvania State Univers

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Bridge to Black Hole Transacting Theory for
Museum EducationDavid EbitzPennsylvania State
Universitydme12_at_psu.edu
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What is a theory?
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• What is a theory?
• In general, theory provides an integrating
  structure that serves to make a coherent portrait
  from a series of observations, directs attention
  to what is central in these observations, and
  highlights questions and issues worthy of further
  exploration

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• What is a theory? Some selected positions
• Positivist scientific theory explains the
  operation of certain phenomena in the natural
  world and survives experimental testing--not
  relevant to human actions
• Constructivist theory presumes knowledge is
  relative, constructed by social
  processes--considers context and motives
• E.g., Kuhns paradigms, Goodmans worldmaking,
  Lyotards language games
• My reality is not your reality.
• Critical theory connects constructivist theory to
  an ethical foundation, evaluating lawlike
  regularities though a reflection on their
  legitimacy
• Grounded theory begins with the situation and
  practice as they emerge in order to understand
  what is happening and how the participants manage
  their roles

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• What is a theory? Going further afield
• Model provides a theoretical construct or
  abstract representation to explain how things are
  or how they work in order to provide a structure
  for thinking and discussion
• Metaphor, an as if juxtaposition that resonates,
  provides insight and a framework for thinking
• E.g., museum as temple, marketplace
• Ideology is a comprehensive vision, a way of
  looking at things that may be based in common
  sense or embody the ideas proposed by a dominant
  class in society in order to make their interests
  appear to be the interests of all
• E.g., the object-centered museum or
  visitor-centered museum?

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What makes a theory good?
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• A theory for museum education is good if it
• Corresponds or fits well with experience and
  practice
• Identifies the participants
• Characterizes the process
• Situates the process in a space and time
• Is coherent
• Is internally organized and consistent
• Is clear and compelling
• Simple, elegant, and we can figure it out
• Is adequate
• Explains enough to do the work we want to do with
  it
• Is fruitful
• Informs practice, encourages reflection, focuses
  attention, and indicates new directions
• Is ethical
• Enables personally and socially responsible
  decisions

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)

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What questions do we ask about an object?
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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)

DBAE means that students study visual works of
art from the following four discipline
perspectives Production - creating or
performing History - encountering the
historical and cultural background of works
of art Aesthetics - discovering the nature
and philosophy of the arts Criticism -
making informed judgments about the arts
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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)

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What is your learning style?
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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)

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• Stage I
• Accountive viewers are storytellers. Using their
  senses, memories, and personal associations, they
  make concrete observations about a work of art
  that are woven into a narrative. Emotions color
  viewers comments, as they seem to enter the work
  of art and become part of its unfolding narrative.

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• Stage II
• Constructive viewers set about building a
  framework for looking at works of art, using the
  most logical and accessible tools their own
  perceptions, their knowledge of the natural
  world, and the values of their social, moral and
  conventional world. Their sense of what is
  realistic is the standard often applied to
  determine value.

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• Stage III
• Classifying viewers adopt the analytical and
  critical stance of the art historian. They want
  to identify the work as to place, school, style,
  time and provenance. They decode the work using
  their library of facts and figures which they are
  ready and eager to expand. This viewer believes
  that properly categorized, the work of arts
  meaning and message can be explained and
  rationalized.

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• Stage IV
• Interpretive viewers seek a personal encounter
  with a work of art. Exploring the work, letting
  its meaning slowly unfold, they appreciate
  subtleties of line and shape and color. Now
  critical skills are put in the service of
  feelings and intuitions as these viewers let
  underlying meanings of the workwhat it
  symbolizesemerge. Each new encounter with a work
  of art presents a chance for new comparisons,
  insights, and experiences.

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• Stage V
• Re-creative viewers, having a long history of
  viewing and reflecting about works of art, now
  "willingly suspend disbelief." A familiar
  painting is like an old friend who is known
  intimately, yet full of surprise, deserving
  attention on a daily level but also existing on
  an elevated plane. As in all important
  friendships, time is a key ingredient, allowing
  Stage V viewers to know the ecology of a workits
  time, its history, its questions, its travels,
  its intricacies. Drawing on their own history
  with one work in particular, and with viewing in
  general, these viewers combine personal
  contemplation with views that broadly encompass
  universal concerns.

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)
• Post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)
• Post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill)
• Constructivist theory of learning (Hein)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)
• Post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill)
• Constructivist theory of learning (Hein)
• Contextual model of learning (Falk Dierking)

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Theories of the past 20 years in museum
education

• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)
• Post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill)
• Constructivist theory of learning (Hein)
• Contextual model of learning (Falk Dierking)
• Visual culture theory

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What is visual culture? Or to focus on the
personal construction of meaningWhat does
visual culture mean to you?
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• What is visual culture?
• It is an open concept--interdisciplinary,
  holistic, contingent, cross-cultural, and
  playful--and the focus of other studies
• Includes images mediated in new mass media and
  popular culture
• May include both material culture and the fine
  arts
• Visuality, materiality and body knowledge replace
  textuality as means to experience and understand

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• What is visual culture?
• Influences meaning making in a postmodern context
• Replaces the canon/master narrative and its
  methods of study with a process of personal and
  social inquiry/story telling/performance
  incorporating visual materials and meanings from
  the life we live
• Provides a context to discuss personal and social
  identity, gender, sexuality, class,
  exceptionality, religion, politics, language,
  ethnicity, and race
• Implies a pedagogical/educational practice as
  well as a new content to be taught

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What can visual culture do for art museum
educators?
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• Why is visual culture important to the theory and
  practice of art museum education?
• It is the emerging focus of theory and practice
  in art education, art history and related
  disciplines
• It is already part of the practice of art museum
  educators
• It can an empower visitors to construct their own
  meaning
• It can empower art museum educators within their
  museums and in their communities

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• Why is visual culture important to the theory and
  practice of art museum education?
• Visual culture has already entered art museums

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Objects of visual culture have had a place in the
  development of art museums

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Objects of visual culture are incorporated into
  gallery installations

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Objects of visual culture are incorporated into
  exhibitions

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Objects of visual culture are appropriated and
  recontextualized in
• exhibitions

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• Visual culture and art
• museums
• Objects of visual culture are appropriated and
• recontextualized in
• exhibitions

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Objects/images of fine art of the past and of
  other cultures are appropriated/juxtaposed/
  recontextualized/layered in/hybridized in
  contemporary art

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Art museums can be replaced by virtual museums

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Art museums can be replaced by virtual museums

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• Visual culture and art museums
• Art museums can be replaced by virtual
• museums

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• Art museum educators can
• Empower visitors to construct meaning in the
  museum based on their own experiences with visual
  culture
• Broaden our own skills in seeing and
  understanding what an object means in the
  changing contexts of the museum and the community
• Facilitate discussion of visual culture among
  museum staff
• Model ways in which an understanding of visual
  culture can guide interpretation, exhibitions and
  installations

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• Art museum educators can
• Participate in the larger discussion of visual
  culture by art historians, art educators and
  others
• Broaden discussion of visual culture from
  visuality, contemporary art and popular culture
  to consider visual culture of other times and
  places
• Collaborate across disciplines/subject areas with
  educators in other museums, schools and
  universities
• Advocate the significance of visual culture
  within the community as part of a broader
  understanding of public participation in the arts

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Bridge to Black Hole Transacting Theory for
Museum Education
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• Transacting theory draws metaphors, analogies and
  ideas from
• a/r/tography continguity, living inquiry,
  metaphor and metonymy, openings,
  reverberations--not to inform, but to open up to
  conversations and relationships
• Merleau-Pontys non-dualistic integration of
  subject perceiving/object perceived and mind/body
  into embodied experience and embodied
  consciousness
• Heisenbergs uncertainty principle the
  impossibility of the simultaneous measurement of
  the position and the momentum of a subatomic
  particle in quantum mechanics--thus we can speak
  only imperfectly of probabilities
• Experience

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To recapitulate
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• Theory centered on the object
• Object-based learning (Schlereth and others)
• Theory centered on the disciplines
• Discipline Based Art Education (Getty)
• Theory centered on learning and the psychology of
  the individual
• Museum literacy (Stapp and others)
• Learning styles (Kolb)
• Theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner)
• Flow and aesthetic experience (Csikszentmihalyi)
• Visual Thinking Strategies (Housen Yenawine)
• Theory centered on meaning making by the
  individual and society in context
• Museum and community (Karp and others)
• Museum as communication (Hooper-Greenhill and
  others)
• Museum as ritual (Duncan)
• Museum as meaning making (Silverman)
• Museum as narrative (Roberts)
• Museum as performative site (Garoian)
• Post-museum (Hooper-Greenhill)
• Constructivist theory of learning (Hein)

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• We have
• Theory centered on the object
• Theory centered on the disciplines
• Theory centered on psychology of the individual
• Theory centered on meaning making by the
  individual and society in context

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• To simplify, these theories center on the
  following positions
• Object
• Disciplines
• Individual
• Society
• Context
• Meaning making

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• What relations can we construct from these
  positions?
• Object
• Disciplines
• Individual
• Society
• Context
• Meaning making

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• We can arbitrarily characterize these relations
  as dualities or oppositions (opposed positions),
  including
• Individual/Society
• Individual/Context
• Individual/Disciplines
• Individual/Object
• Object/Individual
• Object/Disciplines
• Object/Context
• Object/Society
• Disciplines/Individual
• Disciplines/Society
• Disciplines/Context
• Disciplines/Object

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• But where is meaning making among these
  oppositions?
• Individual/Society
• Individual/Context
• Individual/Disciplines
• Individual/Object
• Object/Individual
• Object/Disciplines
• Object/Context
• Object/Society
• Disciplines/Individual
• Disciplines/Society
• Disciplines/Context
• Disciplines/Object

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• Meaning making lies in the variety of ambiguous
  and fluid openings between these oppositions,
  embodied in transacting situated there
• Individual/Society
• Individual/Context
• Individual/Disciplines
• Individual/Object
• Object/Individual
• Object/Disciplines
• Object/Context
• Object/Society
• Disciplines/Individual
• Disciplines/Society
• Disciplines/Context
• Disciplines/Object

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• What transacting is possible in these openings?
• Individual/ ? /Society
• Individual/ ? /Context
• Individual/ ? /Disciplines
• Individual/ ? /Object
• Object/ ? /Individual
• Object/ ? /Disciplines
• Object/ ? /Context
• Object/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/ ? /Individual
• Disciplines/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/ ? /Context
• Disciplines/ ? /Object

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• Some possibilities
• Individual/Embodying/Society
• Individual/Participating/Context
• Individual/Exercising/Disciplines
• Individual/Perceiving/Object
• Object/Transforming/Individual
• Object/Occasioning/Disciplines
• Object/Participating/Context
• Object/Reflecting/Society
• Disciplines/Guiding/Individual
• Disciplines/Structuring/Society
• Disciplines/Establishing/Context
• Disciplines/Grasping/Object

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• Does transacting go both ways?
• Individual/lt--Embodying--gt/Society
• Individual/lt--Participating--gt/Context
• Individual/lt--Exercising--gt/Disciplines
• Individual/lt--Perceiving--gt/Object
• Object/lt--Transforming--gt/Individual
• Object/lt--Occasioning--gt/Disciplines
• Object/lt--Participating--gt/Context
• Object/lt--Reflecting--gt/Society
• Disciplines/lt--Guiding--gt/Individual
• Disciplines/lt--Structuring--gt/Society
• Disciplines/lt--Establishing--gt/Context
• Disciplines/lt--Grasping--gt/Object

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• What other transacting is possible in these
  openings
• Individual/ ? /Society
• Individual/ ? /Context
• Individual/ ? /Disciplines
• Individual/ ? /Object
• Object/ ? /Individual
• Object/ ? /Disciplines
• Object/ ? /Context
• Object/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/ ? /Individual
• Disciplines/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/ ? /Context
• Disciplines/ ? /Object

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• What other transacting is possible in these
  openings?
• Individual/ ? /Society
• Individual/lt--Shaping--gt/Context
• Individual/ ? /Disciplines
• Individual/ ? /Object
• Object/lt--Consuming--gt/Individual
• Object/ ? /Disciplines
• Object/ ? /Context
• Object/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/lt--Circumscribing--gt/Individual
• Disciplines/ ? /Society
• Disciplines/ ? /Context
• Disciplines/ ? /Object

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• What other transacting may exist in the active
  spaces between any of these terms?
• Object
• Disciplines
• Individual
• Society
• Context

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What other oppositions/juxtapositions do you
propose?
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And what transacting occurs in the spaces
between?
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• Such as
• Evaluation/Assessing/Practice
• Evaluation/Informing/Practice
• Evaluation/Advocating/Practice
• Evaluation/Leveraging/Practice
• Or transacting in the openings between
  stakeholders
• Educator/Resisting/Curator
• Educator/Collaborating/Curator
• Educator/Embodying/Curator

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• Or
• Object/Reflecting/Visual culture
• Visual culture/Reflecting/Object
• And,
• Object/Making/Meaning
• Meaning/Making/Object

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• Transacting theory for museum education
• Positions are entirely arbitrary, may be paired
  or linked in multiples--though one position may
  imply another
• Transacting is an active participle
• Transacting is occurring in the openings between
  any contiguous positions, in either and all
  directions
• Transacting is the process of engagement itself
  within the arbitrary, fluid and ambiguous
  openings between these positions
• Transacting does not produce meaning separate
  from itself--it embodies meaning as we are
  attending, improvising and making something of
  our lives

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• Transacting theory for museum education
• Transacting theory is grounded theory
• It emerges from the experience of museum
  educators
• It recognizes practice
• It informs practice
• It empowers the reflective practitioner

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Bridge to Black Hole Transacting Theory for
Museum Education
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Bridge to Black Hole Transactioning Theory for
Museum Education
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Bridge to Black Hole Transacting Theory for
Museum Education
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Bridge to Black Hole Transacting Theory for
Museum Education
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Does transacting meet the criteria for a good
theory?
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• Does it correspond or fit well with experience
  and practice?
• Identifying the participants
• Characterizing the process
• Situating the process in a space and time
• Is it coherent?
• Internally organized and consistent
• Is it clear and compelling?
• Simple and elegant, and we can figure it out
• Is it adequate?
• Explaining enough to do the work we want to do
  with it
• Is it fruitful?
• Informing practice, encouraging reflection,
  focusing attention, and indicating new directions
• Is it ethical?
• Enabling personally and socially responsible
  decisions