Persuasive Essay

This is an essay that I had for English Class. It's a persuasive essay with over one thousand words! That means this is the longest paper I've ever written.

Hands-On Museums
By Moe Joe


Imagine you are a Pharaoh of Egypt. What is it like? You can see an Egyptian Sphinx on the far side of the building. You walk toward it, then run. You’re almost there when, all of a sudden, “STOP”. A museum manager walks over and quietly tells you that you can’t touch anything. There is no touching in a museum. Is this fair? No. Museums really should make their experiences more hands-on. It would attract way more attention and money, would allow kids and adults to gain more experiences and best of all, it can be done without ruining any of the artifacts.

Museums would attract way more attention and make more money if they have more hands-on exhibits. Everyone likes attention. Businessmen want it to have million dollar corporations. School districts want it for the power it gives them over little (and big) children. Museums like attention, too. The more people they get to come in means the more money they get. Museums like admission and donation money because that’s how they get their artifacts and other things. The problem is that many museums don’t usually get enough of that kind of attention. An example would be the BYU Museum of Peoples and Cultures. It is a very small museum. Most people don’t even know it exists. But, the topic matter that they have could take up a building the size of the White House. Instead, they have their entire museum displayed in a building about the size of a normal classroom. There are almost no hands-on displays or activities. As a proof that a hands-on museum is the way to go, take Jamestown Settlement. The Jamestown Settlement in Virginia is one of the best museums I’ve seen that uses a hands-on approach to learn. It is also one of the most popular museums in Virginia. The building for it is about twice the size of our school and they still have enough money to employ full-time archeologists and the biggest museum staff I’ve ever seen. Its grounds are based like a amusement park with different sections that you can walk through and touch. They have all sorts of activities, like cannon demonstrations, and even let you walk on board the old-fashion style ships that they made at the museum. If that’s not good enough, they still have traditional exhibits for you to walk through, along with tours of the actual Jamestown site! This museum is so successful that they have as many ticket lines to get in as they have to get into Lagoon.

A hands-on approach of learning gives fun, great experiences for everyone to help them understand the past. In today’s world, machines do a lot of our work. This is good because it makes life easier on people and allows them to get more things done in a faster and usually more efficient way. It’s also a bad thing. It has given people a laid back and disrespectful view of the world. People don’t respect the ancient ways of their ancestors or show nearly as much respect for the great accomplishments of historic figures as they should. We’re like the Romans; we think that we’re civilized and look down on the unclean barbarians and the pagan Egyptians. In all actuality, we are probably less civilized than they were. They were kept humble by the land and had to work for everything they had, which wasn’t much. They were probably tougher than we are, too. The barbarians had to carry boulders large enough to crush the skulls of larger mammals and the Egyptians found ways to not only survive, but to build giant pyramids. Museums need to excite people about the past! According to psychologist Muneera Spence, 30% of the world are visual learners, 25% are auditory, and 45% are hands-on. Hands-on learning is more fun. The brain will look for fun things to associate with knowledge and giving a kinesthetic approach would be just the thing. When I was at the Nauvoo Family Living Center, they didn’t just list a bunch of facts about making candles, making ropes, or playing pioneer games. They let you try to do those activities yourself. And while I was at Jamestown, I got to hold an authentic musket. A hands-on museum not only provides better retention of knowledge but could teach lessons that are being forgotten in today’s world. A good hands-on museum will let you try to lift the barbarian’s boulders or try to write on a papyrus. You could learn how to do all these things while in a relatively safe environment.

The best part of the entire plan is that none of the historical artifacts need to be placed in any harm’s way. The museums won’t have to worry about any 2 million dollar artifacts being stolen or damaged because all of the hands-on exhibits can be made of plastic, wood, or other cheap material that factory machines can produce in a couple of seconds. It would still be just as educational because, as long as it is good quality, there won’t be much difference. Only they wouldn’t be as old and breakable. I’m not saying they should get rid of the real artifacts; they should still be displayed in protected cases. I’m just saying we should throw in some fun. Using fakes for interactive displays could also help kids make decisions on future archeological careers. My brother is a paleontologist volunteer and has received a liense allowing him to handle bones. They are extremely breakable and require long training to handle. As a result of his long training, he is the only person I know under eighteen who can prepare fossils. Maybe a lot of other people would like to do this but don’t have the opportunity. By practicing with less breakable, plastic bones, people can decide whether or not that sounds like any fun before they sign up for a course to do it. By practicing with fake items in a public museum before the real ones, it would reduce the risk of taking a class that you don’t want to do because it would give you a better idea of what that job actually did. Being able to experience things is important and having imitation artifacts for hand-on exhibits will help people have good experiences.

As I demonstrated, museums need to change to hands-on exhibits. Museums who use a hands-on approach are more successful because they attract more attention from the general public and make more money. They will provide both fun and educational experiences. People can learn old fashioned ways of life; they can feel them, not just look. Lastly, museum goers can have these great experiences without damaging the real artifacts. So let’s not just look through glass in museums. I encourage museums to go this hands-on route. People will love the new museums!