What is it about?
What is the role of university teaching in developing professionals in conservation? This is a paper about how we teach conservation at University level. It comes from my perspective as a teacher in Wales and was inspired by a presentation that I gave in China on teaching conservation. It is informed by a discussion on how we value things – which I believe you need to consider before you talk about how to care for it. I also talk about some of the practical limitations / realities of teaching in university. I explain the problem-based learning approach to teaching conservation which I hopes prepares people for employment.
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Why is it important?
This engages in a debate within the sector that 'universities don’t teach skills anymore'. This narrative stems from 3 sources. 1 the ‘things are not like the old days’ type narrative. 2 Some courses don’t teach much laboratory skills. 3 Not recognising that the skills needed or conservation diversity as the materials that conservators have to work with, and the immaterial heritage all need different approaches. The paper refers to research about what employers value in conservation graduates. Students are offered knowledge and encouraged to develop skills that enable them to share values with the profession and the wider society. It is the translation of this relationship into conservation decision making that is at the heart of students progressing into the profession. Any strategy for conservation must ask what and who we do conservation for? For whatever reason conservation is undertaken, the teaching of cultural heritage conservation must aim to build an active, engaged and reflective professional community, starting with the newest members, for now and for the future.
Perspectives
I consider this an important discussion because there is a huge pressure on higher education providers to cut the skills teaching of universities as this is expensive to deliver. When the sector is unable to discern the difference between courses that have backed practical teaching and those which are entirely lecture based do the whole profession harm. I find binary arguments like ‘no one teaches skills anymore’ or ‘University/Apprenticeship is the only way to teach conservation’, or ‘standards are too rigid / not rigid enough’. To think about how we pass on skills and build a lifelong commitment to personal development we need to get into the nuts and bolts of how education works.
Professor Jane Henderson
Cardiff University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: University teaching in the development of conservation professionals, Journal of the Institute of Conservation, July 2016, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/19455224.2016.1214847.
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