University Museums as Spaces of Education: The Case of the History of Education Museum at the University of Athens

Abstract

It is widely accepted that museums comprise centers for the conservation, study and reflection on culture and heritage. In the Museum context, objects are presented to visitors, not simply as artifacts, but as objects embedded in cultural significance. If one of museums’ main tasks consists in the contextualization of objects in their cultural meanings, past and present, museums may be cast anew, theoretically, as spaces not simply responsible for the preservation of artifacts, but as spaces of education as well. In the museum space, visitors, according to their own cognitive capacities and skills, and their educational backgrounds, approach such meanings mentally. University Museums form a peculiar case of museums as they provide laboratories for the training of students. It follows that, a University Museum concerned with the history of education, as it is oriented towards preserving the cultural inheritance related to education, can easily provide material for both study and research purposes to many undergraduate or postgraduate university students. It can cover an enormous variety of activities and excite the interest of different parts of the society. In this paper we present our personal experience from a period of study and professional work at the Museum for the History of Education in the University of Athens, reflecting on ways in which the museum tried to respond to students’ needs, and those students undertaking graduate studies in Departments of Education in Greece, or those who attend primary or secondary school classes.