You have all heard, or even told, a story where you get a great toy for a child only to have them play with the box. The moral of the story is often to get simple stuff for kids to play with because they will be far more satisfied with that than anything else you can get them.
I recently started to suspect the same thing probably applies to arts experiences with kids. Adults have all these expectations for a high quality, well designed product that they impose on the experience. While the kids are thrilled with the whole experience, including the simple ancillary wrappings that adults will ignore or discard.
My nephews were going to the Museum of Natural History when they had off on Presidents’ Day. When they told me this, I commented “Oh, to see the dinosaurs?” They asked how I knew and without thinking, I replied, “Because that is what I remember from my visit.”
Actually, that isn’t entirely true as I will explain later, but the dinos make a big impression on kids my nephews’ age. I was the same age when I first went to Museum of Natural History.
When I asked them about how they liked the museum, my one nephew asked when he would get to see real dinosaurs (because, you know the skeletons alone are a disappointment to anyone with a vivid imagination). They also talked about riding the A train. Because the train is express at certain points, it rides the middle track which means at times you have one train zipping by in the opposite direction on one side of the train. But on the other side of the car, you have another train traveling in the same direction just “floating” alongside as it keeps pace. Honestly, even at my age I think it is a pretty cool phenomenon.
They actually loved running around Central Park more than the museum. Or at least, they talked about that about as much as the museum, if not a little more.
Talking to them reminded me that while many aspects of the experience are frustrating for adults, (including keeping on eye on the kids), almost every part of the experience can be magical and memorable for the kids.
Talking to them altered my thinking slightly. It isn’t important to expose kids to the arts, it is important to expose them to the whole experience and make it memorable. It doesn’t take much to make it memorable.
The attendance and participation experience as a kid, the whole experience, is what helps grow adults who love the arts. That my nephews and I were able to connect easily and immediately over the memory of the dinos hints at that.
The thing that is really most memorable about my first trip to the Museum of Natural History is both simpler and more complex. We made the visit around Christmas time and there was a huge tree in the lobby. At a table near the tree were a number of Japanese women teaching people to do origami. There were origami ornaments on the tree.
I know I must have spent at least an hour watching them. I had never seen anything like it before. I had no conception you could do that with paper. That was over 30 years ago and I still have the ornaments, both those I made and those the women gave me. I still remember being amazed they gave me the ornaments they folded. Given how hard it was to fold (for a 10 year old, at least) they seemed like precious objects to me.