[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: What do you tell a 9-year old?



Hello all!

I, too, have had the opportunity to go to my daughter's grade school (if I remember correctly she was in 4th. or 5th. grade at the time) to talk briefly about what I do.  You really do need to speak in a very broad sense about what an archivist does, and why it's important.  I tried to relate it in some sense to their personal lives, asking them if their parents collect their essays, homework papers (A+  Good Job!), school photos, class photos, artwork, etc.  All of these things create a "tangible memory" (I explained to them what I meant by that).  Then I gave some examples in a larger sense, including the types of things important to the "memory" of my institution.  Definitely bringing along the fun stuff helps!  I brought the giant oversized one-million dollar check (from our State Governor), the infamous groundbreaking shovel, hard hat worn by the college pres. during construction of our campus, the newspaper headline "IT'LL BE PARKLAND COLLEGE!", and other attention-getting items from our collection.  I allowed time for questions at the end, and I am happy to report that they had some very good questions.  I tried to move around a lot while I was talking and took my items out among them while I was talking about them.  I posed questions to them like "Everyone knows what this is, it's a shovel.  Why would this shovel be important?"  "Have you ever thought about what you could do with a million dollars?  Take a look at this check!".  

I had a good time and I think it turned out pretty well.  The teachers thought it was interesting and had good comments.

Have fun!

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>