The role of museum in early childhood development

By Yekeen Olawale Wakeel

THE functions of museum have long been established and can be epitomised as a list of tasks: Collecting, editing, documenting, studying, researching, and maintaining and presenting their collections.

In the last few decades, the roles of museum have changed, mostly as regards the presentation of its collections.

Museum’s need arose to educate its target public as professionals sought to react more effectively to the demands of a modern, pluralistic multi-cultural society.

Museum provides direct learning to visitors through unique opportunities to explore various concepts of arts, science and social sciences.

Children’s learning takes place in a range of formal and informal settings, that is, unstructured and self-paced museum programmes.

Generally, learning in the museum is referred to as informal learning or free-choice learning and it is qualitatively different from that in school-based settings.

As a result, findings from research in school-based settings are not easily transferable to museum because learning in museum operates in rich and complex sites and focuses on concrete materials such as objects and exhibits. Lucija A et al. (2016).

Early childhood spans from birth to eight years of age.. This is a time of critical change and development as a child attains physical and mental skills he/she will use for the rest of his/her life.

It encompasses physical, socio-emotional, cognitive and motor development. This stage of life is highly needed to safeguard and maximise children’s developmental outcomes.

Now, is there any role for museum in early childhood development? As research about importance of the years in developing the brains of children becomes more wildly disseminated and as the associations between the department of the brains and cognitive, social and emotional development become more understandable, the majority of museum programmes focus on classes and tours for pre-school children and on professional development of early childhood education.

The primary emphasis is on the expertise and resources of the museum to facilitate hands-on learning.

The emerging question is: what can museum contribute to the positive development of preschool children? In order to demonstrate that museum can contribute to early learning, they must make the case that the museum is not only places for fun family outings and occasional pre-school field trips, but that they provide the kinds of learning experiences and environment that contribute to the social, cognitive and emotional development of young children.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children ( CRC) proclaims that children should have free and full access to cultural life from birth. The committee’s attention focuses on children from zero to eight years.

There is evidence that introduction to the disciplines of arts, history and science at a very young age contribute to the development of a child’s identity and builds a foundation for continued and increasingly more complex learning in school and everyday life.

Although museums are different from other learning and recreational settings by the presence of real objects, it should be noted that they play significant roles in the development of a child.

Therefore, visiting museums keeps the children thinking critically as it provides new experiences to spark imagination and introduce children to unknown topics and subject matter from around the world and local community.

It creates better opportunities for children to expand their thinking, which greatly helps them in the school administration process and the best way to teach children is to teach them when they don’t even realise it.  Â

Museum offers children a unique experience that they will not get anywhere else. It also offers hands-on-exhibits for children to discover, explore and learn from their environment.            Therefore, the museum has a huge role to play in early childhood education.

Yekeen Olawale Wakeel,

Chief Museum Education Officer,

National Museum, Ile-Ife.

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