Teacher Training at the Oriental Museum 3

On Tuesday October 31st the whole team took the train down to Durham to do another teacher training day at the Oriental Museum in Durham as part of our ongoing collaboration with them. We were met by Ross, Caitlin, John, and Michael, of the ULC learning and engagement team and had some time plan and catch-up. This also gave us the wonderful opportunity to explore the new exhibition “Voices: Contemporary Art and Craft from the Middle East and North Africa.”

This time we were lucky enough to have a group of over 40 first-year BA students from the Durham University School for Education, who were all incredibly engaged and enthusiastic. The day was split in a morning and afternoon session, and aimed at giving these future teachers ideas on how to teach their future pupils through the use of museums and their collections. The aim was, as always, aimed at engaging with museum collections and teaching primary-school-aged children the importance of questions around migration, cultural diversity, and inclusion via material culture and object-centred learning. The sessions were a great success and the students were extremely engaged as they explored the museum both as future teachers and through the eyes of the children they will be teaching.

It is always a joy to work with the wonderful team at the Durham Oriental Museum and continuing to develop these sessions into further links in the future! It was also great to see how eager the students were during the activities. Many responded afterwards that it had given them more confidence in working with museums in the future and ideas on how to integrate the themes and activities in their future teaching!