The museum as a field of gaining experiences
Interview with ÉvaOravec
MúzeumCafé 51.
Historian and museum education specialist ÉvaOravec heads the museum education department at the SzéchenyiZsigmond Carpathian Basin Hungarian Museum of Hunting in Hatvan. Not very long ago she herself was a student and she still remembers how the interest of young people visiting the museum can be raised. She treats pupils for the museum sessions as partners and helps them become active, interested, consciously accumulating information. At the same time, the programmes lay great emphasis on supporting teachers. Nothing proves this better than the Prize of Excellence for Museum Education she was awarded for the series “Use the Museum!”, which she had developed in her previous post at the Gödöllő Royal Palace Museum. Oravec studied history and took history of museology in the modern and contemporary ages as minor subjects, adding to her teachers’ training. Her PhD theses examines the phenomena and changes in lifestyle through the dance balls and entertainment in the first half of the 20th century, particularly as they affected everyday life after World War I. She thinks it is a great challenge for teachers regarding to what extent they can prepare pupils for real life when everything around has very quickly accelerated. Emphasis has shifted from compiling encyclopaedic knowledge to gaining experience and observing phenomena. Young people will have to be able to draw conclusions independently, make decisions and separate what is important from the insignificant. Their visuality is well-developed and they handle information on a screen well, but require help in practical life. Museum education could play an outstanding role, since it can provide opportunities for children to seek out connections via their visual observation. According to Oravec, a major task of museums today is to provide experiences, moreover supporting guidelines for life. Good exhibitions present the methodology and tools of research and those who view them with open eyes can see a problem-solving method, and all that may provide help in their own life. After graduation ÉvaOravec worked for the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge for a short while, during which time she began working out, in cooperation with the Museum of Pásztó, a quiz for pupils between 10 and 14 encompassing a whole school year. Then in the Gödöllő Municipal Museum she began to hold sessions independently, as a museum education specialist, and in addition she researched and processed the entire estate of a local middle-class merchant’s family. In her present job in Hatvan’s Museum of Hunting she has a free hand to work out a new museum education system and an opportunity to build her team.