Hands-on history: Kids get in touch with emotions and artifacts at revamped Children's Museum

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Hands-on history: Kids get in touch with emotions and artifacts at revamped Children's Museum

Published: 19 Nov. 2024, 14:49 Updated: 19 Nov. 2024, 15:07

SHIN MIN-HEE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Children learn about historical artifacts at the National Museum of Korea's Children's Museum in central Seoul on Nov. 18. [NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA]

On a chilly yet brisk Monday morning, the National Museum of Korea in central Seoul was filled with visitors like any other day with a noticeable number of foreign tourists or clusters of students who came on field trips. As usual, the atmosphere was generally composed with hints of small chatter and the shutter sounds of phone cameras.

That is, except for the Children’s Museum, which instead erupted with laughter and song.

Children learn about historical artifacts at the National Museum of Korea's Children's Museum in central Seoul on Nov. 18. [YONHAP]

It was a special day for six- and seven-year-old children from Seongsan Preschool in Gwangjin District, eastern Seoul, as they were first in line to get a glimpse at the revamped Children’s Museum. The dozens of children were excitedly running around and touching everything they could because it was the only place inside the National Museum of Korea where they were allowed to do so.

The Children’s Museum has been temporarily closed for the past three months due to remodeling and officially opened back up again on Tuesday.

The permanent exhibition, now under a new theme, “Heritage Quest; Discovering the Magic of the Past,” includes a section where children learn about connecting to cultural heritage through emotions.

Children learn about historical artifacts at the National Museum of Korea's Children's Museum in central Seoul on Nov. 18. [NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA]

Various hands-on activities allow children to choose how they feel about a particular artifact. According to Yi Young-cin, the curator of the Children’s Museum, the most basic human emotions were categorized into happiness, anger, sadness, fear, surprise and shyness. For example, a Pensive Bodhisattva may elicit feelings of joy due to its smiling, reserved manner.

“This idea stemmed from a very abstract question, ‘Do artifacts have feelings?’” Yi said during a press conference at the museum on Monday. Previously, the section was about “discovery and empathy,” which relates to the machinery and physicality of cultural heritage. After learning that young children have had a difficult time reading emotions due to mask mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic, Yi decided to shift the attention inward.

A child is shown here drawing at the National Museum of Korea's Children's Museum in central Seoul on Nov. 18. [YONHAP]

“We implemented a lot of interactive elements because we thought looking, listening, touching and smelling with the senses would help children understand the ‘heart’ of each cultural item,” Yi said. The heart is a representation of the ideas of the people who created each artifact and how they were used in the past.

The exhibition also took arithmetic into consideration, as it is one of the first things children learn when entering elementary school. A stone striking another stone to become a hand ax teaches division, and water mixed with soil and then baked with fire to become a ceramic piece teaches addition and multiplication.

Children learn about historical artifacts at the National Museum of Korea's Children's Museum in central Seoul on Nov. 18. [YONHAP]

Other activities include creating a digital musical sequence through the sounds of traditional Korean instruments, like a janggu (hourglass-shaped drum), daegeum (large traditional bamboo flute) and haegeum (two-string zither). There’s also a forest-themed section that teaches the symbolism behind traditional Korean motifs, such as the crane for longevity and bamboo tree for integrity.

The Children’s Museum is open every day from 10 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. There are five time slots for entering each day, allowing access for about 1.5 hours at a time. Reservations are required on the National Museum of Korea’s website.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]