For 20 years the South Canterbury Museum’s Heritage Education Service has been working with schools around the region to teach students about the past and help them learn more about the special place where they live in the world.
To celebrate the milestone, the museum’s latest exhibition, ‘‘Heritage Education 20 years of Hands-on Education’’, opens tomorrow and aims to give the public a glimpse into the history of the service and how it has positively impacted South Canterbury students over the years.
Before the education programme was established in 2005, museum director Philip Howe and curator Davina Davis had been welcoming small groups of children into the museum for education sessions.
Mr Howe said it had been apparent the museum was well positioned to give schools an experience they could not get elsewhere.
‘‘I was an ex-primary school teacher and I enjoyed doing school education but I just didn’t have the time to focus in on it myself. There was this government fund called Learning Experiences Out of the Classroom, which was a contestable fund.
‘‘You won a contract for three years for running programmes in museums and galleries. We had a crack at it in 2004 and managed to win a contract, so in 2005 we started with our first educator, Cynthia McCaughan, and grew it from there.
‘‘I think we’ve had a very successful programme that has continued to attract both local support but also consistently won government contracts. It’s been a real boost to not just this museum but also other museums in the region.’’
He said he hoped the exhibition gave people a sense of how valuable heritage education had been and still was.
‘‘The good thing too is since it’s been running for 20 years we’ve now got parents who had been through the programme coming through with their kids.
‘‘We’re helping people understand the heritage of our region, where we are in the natural sense and who we are as people because of the way history has shaped us.’’
The primarily photographic exhibition has been curated by current museum educator Keely Kroening, who has been in the role for nearly 15 years.
She said it had been a bit odd compiling information for an exhibition about her own work.
‘‘We do have bio panels of the main educators that have been through here but I think that for all of us, the main thing was focusing on the kids and the lessons.
‘‘As I went through the photos, I was reminded of things and thought, ‘oh, I haven’t been there for ages’ or ‘that was such a cool trip’.’’
Last year 8276 students went through the education programme, the highest on record.
Mrs Kroening said being a museum educator was a very rewarding job.
‘‘I think there’s two things that I really love about this job. One is when students make connections to the local area . . . and the other is, I just love it when I’m out and kids are like, ‘look it’s that lady from the museum’.’’
Alongside the opening of the exhibition the museum, with the support of the South Canterbury Historical Society and Roselyn Fauth, was launching a new children’s book about South Canterbury as a way to give teachers a physical resource they could use when talking to students about the region.
Mrs Kroening said they would be donating copies of South Canterbury: How we lived to each school that was involved with the education service.
‘‘It’s photography from our collection and then information about that and guides for helping teachers to discuss the topics with their students.
‘‘I come from a teaching background, and I could see that sometimes when you’re teaching there is so much information on the internet that it’s actually really hard to funnel it down to what is useful. We’re hoping that the book will be a good starting place for our teachers going forward.’’
She said she wished to thank the community as a whole for being supportive of the education programme over the years.
‘‘Community is the heart of everything that we do. Without the community we wouldn’t be able to do things like visit the Ravensdown Quarry with a group of kids to learn about geology.
‘‘There are so many community groups or businesses that welcome us into their area and without the community, we wouldn’t have a museum because obviously the community also give items to the museum for us to display.’’
An official opening of the new exhibition will be held tomorrow at 5.30pm at the South Canterbury Museum and all are welcome to attend.
