I took the kids to IKEA for breakfast and then to the Liberty Science Museum yesterday. IKEA was a Swedish wonderland, as always. Liberty Science Museum was hell on wheels. All New Jersey schools were closed for the two day Teachers Union Convention, which no teacher actually attends. All those parents simultaneously decided to take their kids to the Science Museum yesterday, including moi.
The Museum was poorly run and expensive. The line for the cafeteria was an hour long, so we ate Dorritos from a vending machine for lunch. They sold us tickets for a movie, but neglected to tell us the time of the movie. My kids handled the chaos better than I did, and they got many kisses for their patience when they got home.
Not only was the Museum a disaster, but so were the other parents.
There were long lines to use the two or three computers that
actually worked in the exhibits. I saw many parents studying their
blackberries, while letting their kids play for five or ten minutes,
completely oblivious to the lines forming behind them.
My personal favorite was the computer-hogging in the environmental
exhibit, which kept repeating the message that we shouldn’t consume
more than our share of resources, and that we need to consider the
needs of the whole community. Yeah, that lesson sunk in.
Maybe I’ll write a parenting etiquette book.
Apt. 11d 
IT’s a horrible museum, even by the sinking standards of science museums. And it doesn’t have the excuse of being an old rattletrap that somebody tried to put a bit of flash on top–it’s a fairly new museum, and done poorly from top to bottom.
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I’d totally write that parenting etiquette book with you. 🙂
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How sad — that a newly built science museum is poorly designed and bad. I blame the multimedia revolutions. There’s a version of science museum design that depends way too heavily on multimedia computer based virtual reality/virtual experiment simulations. And, folks have difficulty distinguishing between science policy/science history and science.
Simulated reality is not reality, and should only be used when absolutely necessary to illustrate a scientific point.
The Exploratorium (San Francisco, located in the Palace of Fine Arts) is still my very favoritist science museum, and reading Frank Openheimer’s rules for designing a science museum should be required reading for anyone involved. Openheimer built the Exploratorium.
(Now, even the Exploratorium would probably break down if all the schools closed and all the parents took their kids there).
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“I saw many parents studying their blackberries, while letting their kids play for five or ten minutes, completely oblivious to the lines forming behind them. ”
So, what’s the parenting etiquette? I’m never really sure. ‘Cause, I do think kids should, at some age, work this out for themselves. 1) Rules should be set up –like a sign that says 5 minutes, with a timer, that beeps. 2) Kids should ask when the timer goes off to take their turn. 3) Interference should only come when that system fails.
(of course, this depends on the age of the kid, too. But, school age kids should be negotiating this for themselves, if they can).
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Next time think about coming all the way into the city … to Queens. My son and everyone else that I know raves about the science center there.
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Next time think about coming all the way into the city … to Queens. My son and everyone else that I know raves about the science center there.
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Good science museums are fun, but I think they’re all basically the same–large noisy halls where kids run around pushing buttons. And when the buttons don’t even work…We were at NASA in Houston recently. It’s a great facility, but all the simulators my daughter tried were out of order. The Vancouver BC science museum is very shiny and new (and has very nice little kid play areas and quiet investigative play areas for big kids), but the main hall is this hellish light and sound extravaganza where only one child in a hundred is ever going to learn anything. I’ve seen a number of science shows at these places which I’ve enjoyed, but truthfully, I didn’t learn a thing (other than that dry ice is fun). My husband, who was a physics major back when, and is a research chemist’s kid, says that the big noisy science museums have nothing to do with what scientific work is like.
bj?
The Smithsonian, on the other hand, is pointedly above it all. We also have a very good local museum (run by the university) in our new area in Texas with a large children’s wing. Instead of having one big, loud hall with piped-in music, there are many separate rooms, each devoted to a different theme (communication, TV weather, pioneer life, Native Americans, water and bubble play, mechanics, costumes from around the world, etc.). They also have visiting exhibits. the last one was a fantastic National Geographic one on maps and navigation that my kids went to again and again, and we are eagerly expecting a model train exhibit around Christmas.
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Laura– That’s hilarious and unsurprising. My family and Julie’s dad went to that ridiculous museum as a Plan B on April 25th. The line to Ellis Island was too long for the number of diapers we had, so thought we’d give it a try. The displays were organized with no real pattern and the “interactive” stuff was either broken, stupid, or both. Just one large pastiche of sillyness. Then, a pipe burst on the third floor, sending water cascading down the middle of the whole museum. A lot of walkie-talkie armed employees with acne wandered around, each trying to make command decisions about what to do– ultimately some “adult” decided to evacuate the whole place. Probably, that was the best way for me to conclude my first and last visit to the place.
Here’s the “evidence,” a shot of the idiot employees trying to contend with their wet fate.
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I read your blog and it breaks my heart. Such wonderful children, such well-intentioned parents. All caught up in a system that imprisons children in brick buildings for 180 days a year, and on the remaining days sends all of them out onto the fun things at the same time, such that nobody is able to have fun. We homeschool, and have the luxury of going to science museums, parks, art museums, whenever we want. We go when there is no one else there, aside from other homeschoolers. And we had an Obama bumper sticker on our minivan, right next to the homeschooling plate. (So did most of our homeschooling friends.)
It sounds like the Jersey City science museum does not get good reviews from anyone. Perhaps the commenter who said that if school is out in N.J., go to Queens had the right idea. You’ve got to go where the other parents are not.
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The Liberty science Museum is a classic example of how class trips ruin museums. The schools need to give their teachers and students a day off every once in a while, so they send to these museums. These class trips are never about learning. The teachers and schools just need someplace with a veneer of education. So, nobody cares how good the exhibits really are. Other than those few days when parents converge on the museum, it’s really about serving apathetic students and teachers.
JMT – Yes, those pimply, brain-dead workers were a huge problem yesterday. Loved the picture.
bj – Kids shouldn’t work this stuff on their own, when there are big lines forming behind them. There shouldn’t have to be signs. If there’s a big wait for a piece of equipment, you kick your kid off after one minute. This isn’t about kids behaving badly. It’s parents behaving badly. When you are out and about with your kids, you give them 100% of your attention and make sure that aren’t stomping on other people. No blackberries allowed.
Yeah, it would have been good if the pimply workers were herding parents and kids along, but parents should be able to figure this out on their own.
And you set a good example. I actually saw parents cutting lines with their kids yesterday.
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I didn’t mean “you” as in you in particular, bj. I meant “you” as in the generic parent.
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I don’t agree laura. I think school age kids should be able to manage an appropriately set up line for themselves.
But it has to be an appropriate line.
My favorite museum is noisy and chaotic. But it’s not about button pushing. That kind of museum requires staffing, though, and that’s what the museums skimp on.
Oh and I’m not sure about how one handles the younger kids, or the ones who can’t function at the “school age” level.
Parents have to set a good example, for sure.
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Yeah, I disagree. I don’t think kids have any clue how to share or to use up their appropriate share of resources without a parent telling them what to do. It’s has to be drilled into them over and over for them to get it. I saw teenagers yesterday computer hogging. The kids knew how to line up, but they needed their parents to be aware of the situation and tell them to get off. Parents aren’t used to telling their kids no and even physically pulling them off the machines. Sometimes it’s necessary.
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