Community Engagement and Home School Groups

The National Park Service published Stronger Together: A Manual on the Principles and Practices of Civic Engagement. This manual is a great resource for community engagement because it explores the topic in depth. The NPS manual lists four principles of community engagement:

1. Build genuine relationships.
2. Create effective engagement processes.
3. Deliver relevant interpretive and educational programs and materials.
4. Sustain civic engagement over time.

I thought it would be interesting to compare these principles to the principles established by Graham Black, author of Embedding Civil Engagement in Museums. The UK scholar proposes five principles of civil engagement for urban history museums:


(1) Urban history museums as memory institutions can collect, conserve, document and represent the cultures and life experiences of all those who live within their localities, helping to create an inclusive civil environment.
(2) Urban history museums as learning institutions can help to develop informed individuals and communities who can contribute positively to decision making about their future lives.
(3) Urban history museums as social institutions can reach out to welcome, support and represent the many voices within the communities they serve in partnerships of equals.
(4) Urban history museums as democratic institutions can actively promote civil dialogue and reflective participation in civil society.
(5) Urban history museums as responsive institutions can work to change their organisation and culture to meet the needs of contemporary society.

While each publication has its distinctive qualities, there are some key similarities between the two. They both believe that the voices within each community should be valued and respected. Both agree that museums are a unique space in which community engagement can function. And both hope to inspire people to invest in a common purpose.

While researching for my post, I found a particularly good example of a metro area that reached out to a specific audience--Atlanta institutions extended opportunities to home school groups. An article printed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New Culture of Learning; Metro Museums, Zoo Atlanta and other institutions draws droves to events tailored to home schoolers (01/31/2010), seemed to a be a case study in how to effectively engage one particular audience. As the number of students who are home schoolers rose, the area museums began to hear more voices calling for programs specific to home schoolers' needs. Lani Schoelder, a Zoo Atlanta professional, is quoted, "There were a lot of home schoolers and not a lot of programs for them, especially science-related ones." Many home school teachers/parents asked the museums in the area, "Is there anything you can do for us?" The group advocating for home school programs made their voices and needs apparent; and because of this, it seems like museums developed programs to meet those needs. This article concludes with a list of 8 institutions that now have programs specific to home-school groups. The article also discusses some of the challenges that still remain-- like how to deal with differing, personalized curricula and students' history of learning through one-on-one interaction with the instructor. Although there are still challenges, this story seems to be one of promise--a group that previously felt dismissed by cultural institutions is now seeming to be embraced by them.

To me, the Atlanta home-school story is inspiring because we can identify the application of community engagement principles; specifically, the first and third principles mentioned in the NPS manual as well as the third and fifth principles mentioned by Graham Black. In the comments section of the blog, I welcome you to discuss more examples of effective community engagement. Can you think of other museums that apply these principles successfully?