Collections-Based Pedagogy: Where Pasts Meet Futures

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

There has been a recognized teaching crisis in archaeology for at least 25 years—almost as long as there has been a “curation crisis.” In this reflection, I focus on collections-based university teaching in American archaeology. As in the popular archaeological imaginary, archaeological instruction has long emphasized fieldwork over work with existing collections. How have existing archaeological assemblages been used to teach archaeological thinking, create new knowledge, or convey values of our field? Why haven’t they been/aren’t they used more? What are the pragmatic and ethical implications of pedagogy with collections? This paper considers the past, present, and future of these questions via practitioners’ reflexive critiques of collections-based teaching from the past 25(ish) years. These debates are situated with reference to object-based pedagogy in the fields of museum studies (both critical and operational) and educational theory (especially related to research-based and service-based learning). The university classroom is an articulation point for archaeology as social practice, a setting where university-educated people—whether they become archaeologists or not—encounter disciplinary views on history, identity, power, and social change. It is also a setting of opportunity, where we reckon collectively with the discipline’s pasts to shape its futures.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38906.0