THE BRITISH MUSEUM
The British Museum is one of the world's great institutions of learning, and the first public national museum ever created. And as such it is perhaps a little forbidding to the visitor! With more than eight million items, it documents not only every conceivable aspect of the ancient world, but also the remarkably acquisitive nature of the British Empire as it sprawled over the Earth in the 18th and 19th centuries, receiving a steady stream of items from soldiers, travellers and explorers as they passed through every inhabited continent. And because the museum was founded so early - 1753 - many of the items it holds are the best exemplars in existence. The original collection of Captain Cook (Britain's greatest explorer), a 1909 Honus Wagner cigarette card, the Fijian mermaid, a 5600-year-old tattooed mummy called Ginger, a Banksy painting of 'primitive man' with a shopping cart, 2 of the only 12 Easter Island statues in international collections, one of only 18 Ife ancient brass head sculptures in existence...the quality and range of the collection stands alone. This means that there is nothing that cannot be explored.
The collection is therefore a little daunting...but it needn't be. Even if you have vaguely wondered about something in the past...be it Japanese culture, Mesopotamia, the odd family tree of Tutankhamun, what mummies are all about, the rise of writing, the evolution of art, why African masks look the way they do - the tour can be tailored accordingly. Even if you have more philosophical queries - 'are we a violent species' for example, or 'why did art evolve', or 'what is a civilisation?' - these can also be addressed. And if you don't have any particular expectations, don't feel bad! You will be taken on a remarkable world tour of the human species, with a coffee break in the middle, and will leave the museum with a much more varied understanding of the habits, quirks, drawbacks and achievements of how we came to be the way we are, and what makes it tick.
If you only go to one museum in the world, this is the one to choose.
"In three hours Dr Lawrence will bring the past to life through stories, wit and incredible knowledge. What is advertised as a tour of the British Museum is really a guided walk through human civilisation! Don’t deprive yourself of an opportunity to understand the past, and of course the present, in all its vivid glory." ~ Ophelia (2023)
BRITISH MUSEUM FOR KIDS
Museums can be a massive yawn for kids, but they needn't be!
The main problem with museums is that people - and especially children - don't feel that they 'belong' there...that it somehow isn't for them, that it has no connection to them. The past must be taken out from behind glass, and put into modern terms. The idea, therefore, is to use the same material as the adult tour, but in a manner which will catch their attention, and appeal to their taste.
In the British Museum's case, this involves breaking down the history of humanity to the personal level, to explore the embarrassing and often hilarious behaviour of people ancient and modern, to use cartoons, graphics and mnemonics to pique interest, to make them 'hunt' things in art, to really look into the gross, revolting and bizarre nature of the past, and seamlessly combine accurate historical information with repulsive observations that will make it stick in the young mind. So expect farts, stupid hats, explosions, poo, massive idiots, man boobs, peeing out of windows, people who pee purple, naked statues with their tinkles knocked off...all of which hide genuine and correct observation on ancient cultures. And once they have got over laughing at the revolting observation, their minds will latch onto the information much more readily.
As I do for the adult version, these walks can also be 'spun' to reflect specific interests, the interests of older/gifted kids, or specific school curricula - previous one-off walks have included the Silk Roads, Egyptian mummification and the rise of civilisation.
While modern museology is making great strides in how to communicate the past more equably, it's still an academic discipline: kids don't respond to that. And it's a huge uphill struggle with a collection as daunting as the British Museum with its 8+ million artefacts. Unless you are careful, children will come to associate museums with boredom, repetition and a desperation to escape, which means that they won't develop the museum 'habit' when they are older. Even if what they pick up on these tours only touches the surface of what there is to know, it means that they will be more open to museums in the future, and will pique their interests enough to make the connections that matter in adulthood.
The methods that I have developed for this approach are based solely on my experience and personality, but happen to coincide with progressive educational policy that is usually described as behaviourist (quizzes, mnemonics, memorisation), discovery-based (challenges - to find things in friezes or artworks, to look at fossils and work out what they come from, etc) dramatic (interactive; acting out of scenarios and odd activities; involving parents and guardians; handling genuine artefacts) and technological (use of digital media to illustrate context, history and original appearances). Using a combination of these methods, kids as young as 5 can be engaged for hours in a sort of treasure hunt around the museum, culminating in a quiz and rewards for their achievement.
There is no single paper that summarises my approach, but the resources cited here may be of use to get a general sense of what I do:
https://ivypanda.com/essays/museum-education-modern-methods-of-teaching-children/
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/apr2016/inspired-museums-outside-and-inside-classroom
https://gem.org.uk/9-educational-benefits-of-bringing-children-to-museums/
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/258/
BRITISH MUSEUM KIDS: MUMMY TREASURE HUNT
One of the reasons that ancient Egypt is such a popular topic is that it is just so...bizarre. While much of the western world uses numerical and alphabetical systems, scientific methods, literary structures and even the stem vocabularies of ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian nation states, Egypt prided itself in its immense antiquity and cultural continuity from the 4th millennium BC until the arrival of the Romans, remaining largely unchanged while the modern world was being created around her in the Mediterranean and Near East. And there is nothing more uniquely peculiar than the ancient Egyptians' attitudes towards death and burial.
To this end, I have developed a mummies hunt designed for children (and adults!) that takes place against the clock. Kids - perhaps with a parent as a scribe - must get through the mummies section as fast as they can, finding the items on the score sheets, and answering the questions both quickly AND accurately, because every incorrect answer loses you time!
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM: DINO ADVENTURE OR ADULT VERSION
The Natural History Museum is one of the world's earliest and best-known museums of the natural world, and contains more than 80,000,000 specimens that have been accumulated by explorers and scientists over hundreds of years. This is where most of Charles Darwin's collections ended up, along with some of the earliest and most important dinosaur fossils ever found in the UK.
This sounds daunting, but luckily this tour makes it less so! The tour starts with a quick introduction to the basics of evolution and diversity, highlighting the importance of observing characteristics - and what they mean - when looking at life both ancient and modern. We then take a detour through plate tectonics, the shape and nature of Earth, and the place of Earth within the cosmos in order to give a sense of scale and time within which biology and evolution will make sense. The main periods of earth's history will NOT be named because the idea is to give a sense of the patterns, not the details - so we will go through approaches to the past, our own histories, the birth of complex life, the patterns of invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, and using a range of fossils on display (and brought with Dr Owens) to explain how life 'works'.
We will assess adaptive radiations, examine how dinosaurs dominated the planet, then inspect the data for their disappearance and then what happened next. The bewildering world of mammalian evolution will be ordered for you, culminating with the emergence of our own species (using a volunteer as an 'early hominid'!). This line is followed in the human evolution display where we will inspect the anatomical origins of our lineage, then through the wide range of hominid species that preceded us and of which we are the only survivor...although some genes from other species have crept in along the way.
We will look at the spectacular collection of marine reptiles found by Mary Anning and her contemporaries.
The main hall of the NHM is one of London's most extravagant and extraordinary interiors. We will look into the history of the museum and the displays, and will have tea or other refreshments before we hit the dinosaur galleries where we will apply the basics of what we have learned about palaeobiology to work out the likely ancestries and behaviours of the dinosaurs on display. This will then be followed by a quiz to test what you have learned in the time, ending at the extremely extravagant giftshop where you can collect a souvenir of your tour!
This tour can be turned to fit any age: the youngest guidee was 3, the oldest 85! It assumes no former knowledge and is a great introduction to ancient (and modern) life over the past 2 billion years. It also helps introduce major themes in life on earth, and where it might be going in the future.
"Both kids adore(d) Lawrence...tour was an inspiration for us all."
"The kids had a great time. They said it was their favorite part of the trip. Even my 3 year old!"