Innovative Thinking at a Venerable Institution
"Most institutions are pretty envious of the kind of ethnic mixture that comes through our door," Edith says, noting that, "it definitely comes with responsibilities." She envisions a museum that operated as a window onto other cultures because she believes—perhaps controversially, she admits—that the strength of a community lies in its differences. "It begins with looking at commonalities, to ease our immediate xenophobia, the fear and suspicion of the stranger. But what's interesting, and what creates a desire to listen to one another and to learn, is the differences between cultures." Edith came to the Brooklyn Children's Museum five years ago with a double bachelor of arts degree in comparative literature and biology, and her imaginative approach has made much of her vision come true.

A Place Where Private Meanings Can be Shared
In planning her programming, Edith likes to work directly with a range of organizations, such as community groups, student unions, even consulates, or with activists and artists, to create a theme that is universal and inviting. In a recent program, parents and children from different communities presented their birthday celebrations. "It seems benign, but what happens is you have all these different populations exposed to a very private occasion in another community's life, whether Chinese, Jewish, or Mexican," Edith explains. Very different from watching a hired performer, the experience allows a deeper connection between the audience and the ordinary people on stage.

The Brooklyn Children's Museum in Crown Heights is the oldest children's museum in the world. © AMNH

For one performance in this series, Edith worked with the principal and parents at a Korean school, who re-enacted a Korean child's first birthday, a highly formal ceremony that dates back centuries to a time of very high infant-mortality rates. "The families in the audience were there because they were invited to a birthday party. They looked around and they saw mothers dressed in traditional silk robes, and toddlers playing the parts of 1-year-olds in decorative hats, with everyone wishing them happy birthday. And suddenly, at the end, the stage was flooded with all these kids in our after-school program who asked for a cup of Korean seaweed soup and wanted to join in the party!" Edith was delighted when the President of the museum came up to her afterwards and admitted to having felt a little uncomfortable, "as though I were in someone's living room." "That's what I wanted," Edith responds, "the feeling of being a guest, not the safety net of being an observer. There's more at stake for everybody."

Altering the traditional notion about what belongs on display behind the glass in the museum also changes the way the kids feel about the institution. "You put the glass barrier up again [with the students' objects behind it], and the museum is a different kind of a neighbor now," Edith points out. Edith feels that teachers can undertake any museum visit with this objective in mind, no matter what the exhibit happens to be. "It could be a program on amulets of Zanzibar or on conquistador masks of Guatemala; the content can be anything," she declares.

Working the Paradox: Community Requires Difference
What if there are no kids from Zanzibar or Guatemala in the class? How does a teacher in a racially and economically homogenous community open kids, for example, up to the culture of the Philippines? Though she acknowledges that it can be a challenge for teachers and students to recognize and build upon differences in such classrooms, Edith finds the underlying premise a false one. Expanding on the ideas of post-colonial film theorist, Trin-Min Hah, Edith says, "It's based on an unexamined assumption about the Self: that you and your audience belong to a primary culture, and that the question is, 'How do we introduce our Selves to these Others?' In fact, it's not about a Self among Others; it's about an Other among Others," she explains. Understanding this concept may involve rethinking one's relation to the fundamental idea of community, from one based on sameness to one based on difference. "I tell teachers, if you take a closer look, you'll see that you are quite diverse within your community, perhaps in terms of family structure or religious affiliation or country of origin. You just don't realize it because you have systematically let go of the differences—[they are] unexamined, invalidated, uncelebrated, and even unnamed. If you look deep enough, you'll find them." Edith continues, "Diversity is too often understood as a racial or even ethnic mix-up in the group that can be seen—but that is not diversity's essence, only its image. Building diversity means building an awareness, an openness to other possibilities. It's refusing a single point of reference, standard, or view. It's about refusing a discursive hegemony."

How does an awareness of Otherness breed tolerance and reduce discrimination? "Relation is based on difference," replies Edith simply. Relationships establish connections between entities that are separate and distinct "If you're constantly looking for sameness, you're never going to really have a relation to the Other. The Other is always present, and it's in that difference that we desire to commune. What is at stake but community itself?"

Using an Exhibit on Prejudice
The museum's current exhibition, called "Face to Face: Dealing with Discrimination and Prejudice,"(:1) features first-person stories and real-life scenarios about rejection and ridicule. Interactive videos, like "School Bus Showdown" and "Name That Stereotype," explore kids' behaviors and options. Feedback from kids is encouraged; they can describe their own experiences on a "Talk Back Board," or write down hurtful terms and put the paper through a "Name Shredder"—a paper shredder above a very full wastebasket.

Questions posed at the entrance to the Brooklyn Children's Museum current exhibition, "Face to Face: Dealing with Discrimination and Prejudice": Have you ever been called a name? ¿Defiendes a alguien cuando lo fastidian o dejan al lado? Prejudice hurts! ¡La discriminación no es justo!" © AMNH

In the school program that relates to the exhibition, Edith had to figure out how, in an hour and 15 minutes, she could get kids to look at difficult words such as discrimination, racism, and prejudice in a way that would make them feel connected to the history—both individual and collective—that underlies such attitudes. "What's going on when someone gets excluded from a game because she's wearing a veil, or teased because her skin is too dark?" asks the educator. A series of exercises helps kids identify with the issues and participate in safe ways. Edith starts with one called "Jump into the Circle if..." She uses a pack of cards with statements that begin with general identifiers—"Jump into the circle if you were born in New York City"—and moves to more specific ones: "... if people have ever judged you by the way you look"; "... if a friend's been called a name because of her accent"; "... if your parents have kept you apart from someone because of his religion." Edith doesn't bring up whether or not the kids have acted in these ways, because "it's hard to jump into the circle if you've acted in a way that is being questioned, and I want to build trust." After this group experience, the students explore the exhibition.

Empowering Kids to Understand Their Own Behavior
At the end of the program, Edith's peers were worried that the experience wasn't positive enough, and hadn't empowered the kids to make change. "I explained that I interpreted the word empowerment differently," she says. "For me it's very empowering to feel that you're part of a larger picture, that these little actions that you might decide to take—excluding, being suspicious, name-calling—have consequences which lead to larger and larger steps that you take in life." Her goal is that when kids go back into their own community, and share what they've seen in the exhibition, they can then make connections to their own experience.

Several parents who were interviewed about the exhibition by a cable station said they wouldn't take their kids to see it. "They said, 'No, if you don't expose kids to this kind of language, they won't use it,'" Edith recalls. "This sounds protective," she continues, "but it actually denies a whole history of inequality that children are connected to, which denies them participation in their community in a more authentic way. Not knowing that you're taking advantage of this inequality is to participate in it."

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