The kids without money didn't even get to look? That's mean.

"Hey, hey, shoo, you lousy freeloaders! Come back when you get some parents!"

God, that's horrible! And when I was in 4th grade, I think my allowance was $3 a week.

You had an allowance? My parents forced me to graze in the backyard for nourishment.

My allowance was $1.25 a week IF and ONLY IF I did a list of chores about ten feet long. The buck and a quarter wasn't worth my time. Many of my friends during primary school got $5-$10 per A on their report cards, but I got $1 only if I got straight As. It is no wonder I'm so goddamn cheap nowadays.

MGL, I agree -- I've seen that in every museum I've worked at. It's amazing how much pocket money kids get for these trips now.

ON the plus side, when I've done observations of kids in the gift shops, about 2/3 of them actually spend the bulk of their money on gifts for sibs and parents.

What I hate to see is when they spend $10 buying 'historic' candy sticks and fudge. Dammit, kids - you can get candy anywhere. Cheaper.

And I think it's George Hein? Who wrote Learning in Museums or something? Where he talks about how the museum gift-shop purchase should actually be looked upon as part of the learning process. The child mentally reviews the visit and chooses objects that in some way encapsulate the experience, taking home a concrete souvenir as a permanent reminder of the day.

Even so. When I taught in a residential museum program, my favorite schools were the ones who insisted that the only souvenirs the kids took home were the things they made with us. Which were really cool things -- sailors' knotwork bracelets, canvas ditty bags, wood carvings, letterpress prints, and the like.

Things I remember buying from museum gift shops as a kid:

-Tiny Jade plant (Botanical Garden)
-Quill pen (Franklin Institute)
-Copy of Declaration of Independence (somewhere in DC)
-Glass Liberty Bell (Philadelphia)
-I [heart] NY paperweight and bronze mini-Empire State (NYC)

Miko, I love what your "observation" shows...

I know that Sophie, any time we find ourselves in a shopping situation, wants to buy gifts for Evie, or Jen, etc...It warms my heart.

MGL, someone needs to tell that teacher to sit in a $%@#%@$ing corner for a while. Argh, it's tough enough being a kid without some douchebag fucking with you for not having dough. Wow that made me mad.

When I was in second grade, we had a field trip to the museum and I bought a polished rock for oh, maybe $1. I still have it.

My daughter had a field trip to the Smithsonian American Art Museum today. I work just a few Metro stops away, so I went over there, found her group, and surprised her. I spent only 5 minutes or so with them before hey had to get back on the bus, but it was totally worth it.

I don't think they were even allowed to go in the gift shop, though. She likes using the squished penny machines, when they're available.

I read that book too, Miko! It made me reevaluate the gift shop thing - I used to be against it, but then I also used to work for a snobby art museum where the shop was staffed by genuine fossils who were horrified by children. I think the souvenir can be really helpful and does reinforce the process, although I don't like the way the kids will rush through the galleries in order to get to the shop and buy, buy, buy. Here, we also give each child a shark's tooth and a pyrite crystal, so they have a souvenir whether they have money or not.

Some schools have a no gift shop policy and I understand and like that - as a parent I also appreciated the teachers who gave my kids a maximum amount they could bring with them; makes it more even.

We had a big theft last week - 4th or 5th graders and a pair of $25 consignment earrings vanished out of the shop. I blame the teacher - she's the first one I've seen who kept yelling at the kids about not stealing anything and who marched a few kids back to the register saying, "Did he PAY for this?" She treated them like thieves and lo and behold, the earrings vanished.

Huh. Expectation fulfilled!

genuine fossils

I was just at our regional museum conference and was really feeling downhearted about the profession. There are too many people working in museums who don't like facts, don't like learning, don't like exploring, and don't like people. It's really not so healthy.

The problem might be that even in our generation (and it was certainly true 30 years ago) museum work was seen as clean, genteel, and proper work for ladies of a certain class to be engaged in. It made use of their education without actually causing them to have to work terribly hard or question too many assumptions. And it still seems to attract an awful lot of people like that -- who don't want to disturb the status quo overmuch.

Don't you think that's almost inherent in the profession, Miko? Given that the point of museums is to preserve things to a certain extent, it seems like they would naturally attract those who like the status quo?

Not that I mean to imply museums themselves are stuffy, just that their goals seem inherently conservative.

And which is also not to say that museums being managed by such types is always a good thing.

(Did I include enough qualifications there? Sigh. Found the issue interesting, and wanted to make sure I'm not coming across as sarcastic.)

Actually, though, occhiblu, you'd be surprised at the range of people who work in museums. The big annual AAM conference is eye opening - I've always felt that museums, maybe kinda like libraries, are refuges for the quirky and interesting and creative - you don't go into this field unless you have a genuine love for the subject matter. For one thing, the career eliminates seriously profit/money oriented people right at the get go - you are never going to make much money at a museum; in fact, you may well come close to starvation. Hell, as a full time museum professional there have been several times where my kids qualified for the free lunch at school. And then, let's face it, it takes a certain kind of person to obsess seriously for weeks over just how best to display a pot shard so that everyone appreciates its true beauty and importance. Most museums are not really conservative so much as educational - we genuinely want people to appreciate and understand the things we are passionate about. And as schools have cut back and cut back and cut back, museums increasingly fill a lot of educational niches, from art teacher to science teacher and so on.

There is a perception that museums are run by "ladies who lunch" and that used to be true, but it's far from the norm nowadays. That's a mixed blessing, actually, since museums have relied for years on that free labor and now the pool has dried up. Finding volunteers gets harder every year and staff gets stretched thinner and thinner.