Museum Educator Conversations: Building Relationships Through Reciprocal Storytelling

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I explore how relationships can change the teaching practices of museum educators and strategies of entire organizations by empirically studying conversations museum educators have every day in meetings, in the hallways, and all the places where they talk about their work. I present the possibilities of reciprocal telling exchanges – where museum educators engage in a reciprocal exchange of stories – as a way they jointly organize learning for and with each other. Through transcripts and interaction analysis methods, we review four case conversations drawn from two groups of museum educators. Findings implicate the value of small talk as useful for museum educators to strengthen the relationship-building muscles for future reciprocal story exchanging about museum teaching and learning.