Rand Grimes, Anne and Robert Kline. “Experts, Evaluators, and Explorers: Collaborating with Kids.” In Connecting Kids to History with Museum Exhibitions, edited by D. Lynn McRainey and John Russick, 75-92. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2010.
It is important to change the approach of history museums in the creation of history exhibitions in order to make them more kid-friendly. There are three advantages to working with children: they know what it is like to be a child; children can become regular on-call consultants for the museum; and having children around the museum grounds the museum team and reminds them what it means to be a family friendly institution. Children can be a part of the process of exhibition development taking on roles such as audience experts, skilled evaluators and collaborators that inspire. The examples summarized in the chapter explore new and exciting ways to develop history exhibitions with children being included and engaged in both the process and the product. Although there are history museums that are already using children’s feedback in exhibition development, there is a difference between exhibitions created for children and those that are created with children. Rand Grimes and Kline explore how to involve children in the exhibition design process from the beginning instead of after the exhibition is already completed. Children can be used in object selection, content development and the wording of text panels and labels. Children can also help influence the design by helping museums determine the interest, functionality, readability and comprehension of an exhibition. It is also important to use summative evaluations at the end of an exhibition in order to determine how the children respond to the finalized exhibition.