The training of educators and teachers, between presence and distance

The paper offers an analysis of two types of professional development course, which were designed to explore the theory and practice surrounding art and cultural heritage education for children and adolescents and conducted with two different categories of participant: namely, primary/lower secondary school teachers and museum educators. Courses with both groups were held at two time points: the first during the initial strict lockdown imposed in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency and the second during the subsequent progressive reopening of schools and museums. During the former period, schools, museums, and the cultural heritage sector more generally, were struggling with the total and extremely rapid shift to the virtual medium that had just been forced upon them. While schools had necessarily continued to deliver a service, without any interruption, exploiting all possible means of connecting with their students who were confined at home, some museums had been slow to develop novel offerings. The courses during the initial lockdown were delivered remotely, while those during the later period blended online activities with a return to in-person sessions, as requested by the participants themselves. The first set of online courses for teachers exploited an original concept by contemporary artist and performer Marcella Vanzo and a contemporary art museum in Milan, using art and digital space to foster participation and inquiry and to facilitate an alternative perspective on the tools and potential of a strikingly unconventional mode of communication. Next, in collaboration with the same museum and two other contemporary artists, participants were invited to follow up by focusing again on images of digital technologies, and specifically on how to link art history with images that are universally recognized as significant, authoritative, and “educational”, while using visual languages and the digital channels that young people use to communicate and express themselves. At both stages, the teachers drew on what they had experienced together to jointly develop ad hoc teaching-learning paths and implement them with their students. With regard to the professional development courses for museum educators, the first stage involved exploring the multiple potential approaches then being trialled by organizations with responsibility for material and intangible cultural assets – from permanently accessible online content to live online activities – as well as designing and experimenting with new offerings; at the second stage, the participants had difficulty reconciling digital approaches with the value of materially interacting with cultural objects, which they viewed as essential to meaningful engagement, including in the case of younger children. Although these training trajectories are still ongoing, it is important to begin reflecting on the transition from in-person to distance modes, both in the field of professional development and within school and/or museum education. Grasping and embracing the change that has unavoidably occurred in our lives represents a key step towards meaningfully redesigning what we are trying to achieve. These courses have pointed up a tendency to alternate between openness to new design approaches that draw on multiple languages and view the deployment of digital tools as standard, and opposition to changes that can be seen as undermining more traditional methods.