Museum compass 10.
Káldy Mária
Prefatory thoughts
The Educational and Training Centre for Museums (MOKK)1, a directory of the Hungarian Open-air Museum Szentendre, launched an extensive professional-educational activity that has been enabled by the large-scale project „Museums for Everyone” Program2 realised in 2008-2013. Although all activities have a great importance, some of them are deservedly considered outstanding as these play a significant, even strategic role in museums’ future. These are the further vocational trainings for museum- and educational experts. Quality of the trainings is also guaranteed by the fact that MOKK is accredited by FAT (Adult Education Accreditation Authority)3.
As we expected and as it is verified by our experience and feedback we have received in the last two years, we have become a professional workshop that offers innovative knowledge, forms a new vision and creates an active, helping community of trainees.
As an attendant remembers: „Getting to know MOKK means that you get new eyes to see new visions, courage to make your dreams, ideas and plans come true, enthusiasm and power to become one of those who work for changing Hungarian museum-pedagogy. This way, you may get into the vivid, fresh and young flow that gives hope and goals for the future. With many thanks: Franciska Tóth, literature museologyst (Babits Mihály Memorial, Esztergom), March 19th, 2010.
Our goal is to train specialists who profess that Hungarian museums’ rich collections, their scientific and information transferring role, and experts and colleagues who work in museums and these people’s knowledge and experience result in exhibitions that have major value for the wide society – particularly for students and the young: visitors in the future.
Between 2008 and 2010 MOKK started and accredited ten different professional „museum” training programmes. It also involved working out syllabus. The 30, 60 and 120 lessons long trainings have a significant thematics concerning the vision of „museums as centres for scientific research and studies and knowlwdge”. Target group for our trainings are currently experts with higher education degree who work in museums or educational institutes.
We dedicate our trainings to museum specialists (museum managers, museologysts, exhibition organizers, museum pedagogysts, museum andragogysts, marketing- and communication experts, etc):
• Edutainment - Project methodology in museum pedagogy
• School-friendly museum environment
• How to cope with the disabled in the museum
• Networking between institutions of informal education
• Museum management training
• Exhibition management from A to Z serving public education
• Museum communication
• Museum communication serving publing education
Trainings for pedagogysts (schoolmasters, teachers, kindergarten pedagogysts, remedial teachers, tutors, leisure-time organizers, campus educators, etc):
• Partnership of museums and intitutions of public education
• Teachers’ training on educational use of museums
Our almost hundred teachers, who all come from educational institutes, ministries, upper and different cultural institutes, civilian organizations and the for-profit sphere, are experts of their field. Due to their plentiful knowledge they can not only tell about theory but also introduce into practice.
First students were welcome to our trainings in 2009. They were also present at the celebrational event of signing the support agreement. Since the beginning 304 students have entered Csilléry Klára Educational Centre where they gained theoretical and practical knowledge and built up important contacts.
Thanks to Museums for Everyone Program, trainees could take part in our trainings in very advantageous conditions4 which attract more and more people. It is also common that three-four-times-over-application arises during a course. When selecting new students, we devote great care to choose applicants from different museum types from all over the country.
From those who we select we ecpect to take part in lessons actively and contribute to topics with appropriate adult-educational methods. We rely on people not only as students but also as developers of the topic. All they need to do for this is comment lessons along methodological criteria. This means that students give feedback on lectures at the end of the day and also at the end of the course they provide a thorough rating of the training along different viewpoints. It is essential for us for keeping criteria and development.
At the end of the course students make a final, so called thesis work. The topic of the work is a project they regard as one that could be realised in their own instutuion. As a final act, two of the trainers value the thesis work and then that is followed by receiving a „Certificate”. Liability and connection does not come to an end with this step. Within two years since receiving the Certificate, students are liable to prepare short reports every six months so that MOKK can follow their activities and see how they can turn knowledge gained during the program into reality through real projects, maintain and develop it.
The 10th volume of „Museum Compass” is a selection of thesis works by our students. These show not only how colourful but also how useful, subtle and deep our trainings are. The works present not only results of the training activity of MOKK but are also useful as collection of methodology examples for museum experts and pedagogysts who would like to realise a EU project or a domestic development program with new ideas.
Earlier volumes of Museum Compass were aiming to present mainly theoretical results of central methodology development5, this time, however, along with Műhelytitok (Workshop Secrets), this volume would like to help with practical realisation.