This presentation was originally given at the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ) Regional Conference held at the Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens in September 2008.

As a keynote speaker I was asked specifically to explore the connections between the contemporary roles of education, volunteerism and Friends groups in our organisations. The content applies equally well to the work of all cultural institutions.

Janelle Hatherly 2021

Introduction

This presentation explores what is meant by education and learning, especially in a botanic gardens’ context. It also distinguishes education and interpretation from recreation and entertainment. It goes on to clarify the respective roles of Education staff, volunteers and Friends and explains how each contributes to providing education for visitors. As per the heading, it attempts to address and identify the common threads that bind us all!

First let’s consider ‘What is a Botanic Garden?’ The Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ) association’s definition of 2005 articulates this well:

‘Gardens open to the public which grow plants for public enjoyment, scientific, conservation or educational purposes and have local, national and international roles.’

Public gardens can be run as government agencies, independent businesses or as not-for-profit organisations. Regardless of the operational model, each manages living plant collections and is committed to long-term survival of ‘the place’. Triple Bottom Line accounting (the three Ps: profits, people and the planet) measures the organisation’s profits, social capital and environmental health and each strives for economic, social and environmental sustainability.

To an educator like me, botanic gardens are about plants but are defined by what people do in them.

What is education?

Education is a core value for botanic gardens. Most mission statements are described in terms of educational terms such as ‘to inspire the appreciation of; increase understanding, knowledge and awareness of …’

Education differs from events/recreation in that education is about getting messages across as well as satisfying market needs and generating profits. It is about facilitating learning. It is about creating ways to engage the minds of visitors – and getting them to think about the importance of plants, the diversity of the natural environment and why botanic gardens exist at all.

Fundamentally, education in cultural institutions supports lifelong learning – not just for visitors but for staff, volunteers and Friends. It’s about creating a learning community – a group of people who share common values and beliefs, who actively engaged in learning together and from each other.

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Engaging and inspiring visitors is an elusive and challenging task and the results are often intangible; but it is something to which we all aspire. The challenge for garden educators is to move visitors on from awareness and empathy to the next level which influences attitudes and behaviours.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines education as ‘the imparting or acquisition of knowledge, skills etc; systematic instruction or training or the science or art of teaching’. And traditionally schools have been seen as places where – teachers taught and students learnt. Students were empty vessels for filling from the font of all knowledge.

I love this picture downloaded from Wikipedia. The teacher is a priest, with a class of primary school students from the outskirts of Bucharest, around 1842. It highlights what education actually is!

If you look closely, you can see that the children aren’t being empty vessels at all. While one pupil is answering the teacher, others are playing, reading, chatting to each other, looking, listening, dreaming etc. Basically, they are making sense of the world around them using their preferred learning style. Each of them is bringing his/her prior knowledge, personal experiences, culture, beliefs, prejudices etc to this ‘classroom’ which will influence their own and everyone else’s ability to learn and make new meanings.

What is learning?

In the 1980s Howard Gardner and his educational theory of multiple intelligences brought to light the different ways people learn. He said people aren’t intelligent or stupid and each individual is made up of varying levels of these seven different intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily – kinaesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal.

In the 1990s Gardner added an eighth: naturalistic – an intelligence that reflects a greater sensitivity to nature and an individual’s place in it. People with this form of intelligence have a superior ability to nurture and grow things, care for and interact with animals. They are receptive to changes in weather and the natural environment, they like being outdoors, collecting, doing and analysing things. Scientists, naturalists, conservationists, gardeners and farmers demonstrate high levels of this kind of intelligence.

Learning is about ‘meaning making’ – making sense of all the stimuli that impinge on our senses, self-selecting ideas and adding to or replacing (or even rejecting) what we already know. Adults are particularly skilled at closing their minds to situations and ideas that don’t fit in with their world view or have the potential to show them up as inferior in some way. This makes learning harder for them.

What is interpretation?

This term entered the cultural lexicon in the early 1960s after the publication of Freeman Tilden’s book ‘Interpreting our Heritage’. This seminal work developed the fundamental philosophy and underlying principles for the interpretation of human and natural history in the US National Park System. It had a profound effect on the park conservation movement in America.

Freeman Tilden (1883-1980) was a novelist, playwright, journalist and national park ranger ... but most of all he was a passionate communicator. As far back as 1957 Tilden explained the principles of interpretive philosophy. In a nutshell, he espoused:

“We protect what we understand and value.”

Written over 60 years ago the book’s style is understandably dated and almost quaint (as are the pictures). However, his words of wisdom have stood the test of time and the book has never been out of print. It’s about the art of helping visitors understand the value and significance of collections and place. I consider it a must read for all who work in museums, botanic gardens and other cultural institutions.

For those who don’t have time to read Tilden’s detailed analysis, here are his six guiding principles for effective communication with visitors paraphrased as a checklist.

Arouse visitor interest. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.
What does it all mean? Information as such is not interpretation. Interpretation is revelation based upon information. But they are entirely different things. However, all interpretation includes information.
The Story’s the thing! Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the materials presented are scientific, historical or architectural. Any art is in some degree teachable.
Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation. The chief aim of interpretation is to stimulate the visitor toward a desire to widen his/her horizon of interest and knowledge, and to gain an understanding of the greater truths that lie behind any statements of facts.
Towards a perfect whole. Interpretation should present a whole rather than a part. It is conceptual and interpreters should explain the relationships between things so visitors leave with one or more whole pictures in their mind rather than with a melange of random information.
For the younger mind. Interpretation addressed to children (say, up to the age of 12) should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it requires a separate program.

The visitor experience

Basically, education fosters learning and visitors don’t distinguish between formal/informal education; interpretation/instruction; hands-on minds-on/passive activities. Learning is learning but we need to be mindful that learning can also be a negative experience. Quoting Anita Woolfolk, the educational psychologist (1998):

“Learning occurs when experience causes a relatively permanent change in a person’s knowledge or behaviour. The change may be deliberate or unintentional, for better or worse.”

So, for those of us who communicate collections and place to visitors, what we say and how we say it, matters. It is up to each of us working in cultural institutions to ensure that our interactions with visitors result in a positive learning experience – for everyone.

While Tilden says: “A subject, no matter how obscure or arcane, will be understood by the public, so long as it is presented clearly and in an interesting fashion”, we need to be more than entertainers for learning to occur. Our visitor interactions must be accompanied by relevant factual information and concepts that stimulate thoughtfulness.

We are most clear and interesting to visitors when we hold a personal passion for the subject. Our own interest in learning allows us to have a wealth of accurate knowledge and understanding of the place and collections at our finger tips.

We aren’t empty vessels and nor are our visitors. The more we know the more we can learn. One needs knowledge to learn and learning isn’t instantaneous. One visit to our botanic gardens will never be a complete learning experience. Learning is a lengthy process and it requires opportunities for adaptation and reflection. Our role is to motivate visitors to want to learn more.

Many of us can remember a special teacher, mentor in our lives and that ‘aha!’ moment when they changed the course of our destiny. Great teachers are neither born nor made. They are a combination of both, supported by the right structures, training and incentives – just like musicians, artists and sporting heroes. What great teachers/educators have is the ability to pick the right moment to provide the right advice to each individual to launch them on their own special journey of discovery.

If I have succeeded in this presentation as an educator then I have inspired/motivated you to want to learn more. If you’re familiar with Tilden, and want to understand contemporary views of how people learn in museums (a botanic garden is a museum of living plants) I can recommend this one written in 2000 or its predecessor ‘The Museum Experience’ written in 1992.

Falk and Dierking postulate a contextual model of learning which highlights three intersecting contexts: (personal) the one we bring with us, (physical) the importance of the place and (social) our interactions with others around us. We don’t learn facts and theories in isolation – in the abstract ethereal land of the mind, but we are influenced greatly by where we are and what is presented around us. Gardens are great places for learning because we can become completely immersed in them and they can touch us in so many different ways.

And we are social creatures, we visit gardens in groups and learn from each other. There’s a huge body of research into socially-mediated learning and how the information we get from another person is as salient as the information we get from our own minds.

This is why it is often said that you learn more in the social sessions at a conference than in the presentations. And I believe the best measure of a successful conference is one where people leave saying there wasn’t enough time. They leave wanting more – and hopefully are motivated to continue learning, discussing and debating. Unanimous satisfaction with timing is unrealistic and we know that 15 minutes or a whole day can be too long when we are bored or tired!

The learning journey

My passion for lifelong learning has taken me on a career path as a secondary school science teacher, textbook author and editor, and education professional in four museums and botanic gardens. I am privileged to have been part of the heady days in museum learning in the 1990s.

At the Australian Museum. under the directorship of the inimitable Dr Des Griffin, staff, volunteers and Friends, explored epistemology (philosophical framework or the theory of learning), pedagogy (art or science of teaching) and philosophical -isms such as constructivism (knowledge does not exist independent of the learner). It all got a bit out of hand when postmodernism emerged in Western philosophy destabilising the notion of absolute truth and the validity of reliable knowledge. But we had fun learning and visitors benefited as we developed magnificent thoughtful exhibitions and public programs.

Humanity has always mused about learning and as a museum educator I repeatedly find relevance in the teachings of:

French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). Cogito ergo sum (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am) or better, I am thinking, therefore I exist.
Swiss philosopher, Jean Piaget (1896 -1980) – we learn through play, making approximations and mistakes. His work is the basis of our focus on constructivism.
Russian Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) is a pioneer of learning in social contexts. He defines a Zone of Proximal Development where, using language, our world view is extended by collaborating with a skilled instructor or more knowledgeable peers and we connect concepts.

I personally apply Vygotsky’s scaffolded learning in all aspects of my life.

The collages below give an overview of some of the educational activities and interpretive elements we use at the Botanic Gardens Trust (BGT) in Sydney to convey relevant, engaging and clear messages about plants and botanic gardens to visitors.

The range of possibilities is limitless but we always design our programs with the targeted audience in mind.

BABQ on the second image refers to ‘Big Answers to Big Questions’, an ambitious multifaceted public program we designed in 2004 to run over the course of a year to address environmental issues and the important social challenges of creating a sustainable future.

Our aim was to provide balanced information and encourage public debate around three current hot topics:

addressing water shortages and proliferation of bottled water,
picking up on interest sparked by tree replacement in the Domain,
exploring the links between traditional plant breeding and emerging gene technology.

The program’s mascot was a little green man, a stylised figure balancing facts and opinions. It formed an easily recognisable and appealing link to all BABQ events.

If you think designing face-to-face learning opportunities is challenging, designing effective stand-alone educational displays and signage is even more so. Simple plants labels are great and generally satisfy the “What’s that?” question for all audiences but it’s hard to work out what exactly needs to be labelled, how many labels to produce and a maintenance plan to keep them updated, legible and in the ground!

As well as well-labelled plants, botanic gardens need to create themed gardens and seasonal exhibitions to communicate their messages and science. Hopefully you can now appreciate the challenges of catering for the different learning needs of individuals and groups who are likely to see it. It takes highly skilled multi-disciplinary project teams to achieve this.

I hope this discussion gives you a better appreciation of the need for skilled educators in your botanic garden. Anyone can and many people do deliver education in botanic gardens but many of us wonder what messages, if any, are being taken away. Educators develop sophisticated evaluation strategies to go some way towards assessing this.

How Friends and volunteers are involved with education

We need to look at the bigger picture when it comes to education because of the predominance of volunteers and Friends groups involved in all aspects of running a botanic garden. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics census of 1999-2000, 75% of all gardens have less than nine paid persons and are predominantly run by volunteers.

Larger and better-funded state and national botanic gardens have hundreds of people involved in their operations.

At the BGT our education staff:

Are trained professionals who have been merit selected for their skills and experience
Understand key messages and can write learning objectives to facilitate lifelong learning in all sectors of the community
Use tried and true activities and strategies that promote appreciation and deepen understanding of the roles of botanic gardens
Stay abreast of contemporary learning theory and explore new ways of engaging the community.

At the BGT the role of our Friends is to support the aims and objectives of the organisation through:

Fundraising – ability to raise funds to meet government shortfalls
Volunteers – ability to provide a ready group of passionate individual helpers/give the general public a way to get involved with the day-to-day activities of the Gardens
Advocacy – ability to provide an independent voice on issues that threaten or negatively impact on the Gardens
Staff education and training – offer scholarships

The last point – the ability to offer scholarships – helps maintain a learning environment and ensures BGT staff are the best they can be. This reinforces how our Friends support a learning culture.

At the BGT our volunteers are:

Individuals who do work of benefit to the community, of their own free will, and without monetary reward.
Individuals with passion and a commitment to plants, gardens and the environment (BGT and/or the Friends).
Individuals bringing a range of skills and knowledge, strengths and weaknesses.

The Trust has about 500-600 active volunteers. About half of them work directly with the Friends running income-generating events, growing plants for sale to the public, providing catering, meet-and-greet services and office support. They also welcome visitors at Information Booths.

The other 50% work with BGT staff directly – for example, volunteers mount Herbarium specimens, do bush regeneration at Mount Annan Botanic Garden, others prepare and deliver guided walks as well as interpret from touch tables.

These specialist volunteers come from a range of backgrounds and demonstrate that they can (or are prepared to be trained) to do some aspects of the work that staff need done. This simply adds to the effectiveness of the Unit or frees specialist staff to do higher level tasks.

Any perception and anxieties that volunteers might replace paid staff (often hard-won positions) can be dispelled if there is clear definition of roles. At the BGT we have established a Volunteer Program Committee to ensure good practices for volunteerism. Here are the elements we use to ensure a happy harmonious learning environment:

What follows are some suggestions for Friends and volunteers to think about (or discuss in groups) so they are better able to contribute to educational goals of their organisation.

What is our common thread – the thing that binds us?

Staff, Friends or volunteers are like-minded people who share a love of plants and public gardens. They are keen to turn people on to plants and are able to sustain an organisation’s long-term vision. Let’s face it, we need to plan in decades when working with slow-growing plants and evolving gardens!

Together we face environmental, bureaucratic and financial challenges. Our enthusiasm and passion are not enough. We need expertise to choose the right plants/hybrids and the appropriate place to keep them alive and cared for (despite drought, grazing animals etc). We need specialised knowledge of botany and skills in plant identification as well as propagation and effective communication skills.

We need project management skills for all the infrastructure that’s involved and an ability to raise and manage funds associated with such a complex, large, dynamic outdoor and public space. Our organisations need the support of staff, volunteers, Friends and, in time, the whole community to succeed.

If botanic gardens are defined by what people do in them, then people decide how all these elements are woven together and what is created.

What does the botanic garden you’re involved in look like?

Does your vision have threads in common with others who work or visit there? Is it a finished product or a work in progress? Is it still a pile of threads and you can’t afford to buy any fabric or needles? Is your botanic garden ordinary or something special? What skills can you offer to help with this creation?

Botanic gardens are like a rich tapestry –and those who work in them get the pleasure of their creation.

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If together we create a masterpiece, it will give public enjoyment, survive and become more valued as the years pass. Our society as a whole will call it a living treasure, a cultural institution reflecting the things that contemporary society considers important. People will visit it often and fund its preservation.

Made up of plants, people and place, botanic gardens are alive, aesthetically pleasing, complex, rich yet priceless human creations and a reflection of ourselves.

Whether part of regional, state or national botanic gardens our Gardens are all just at different stages of this evolutionary journey and what a botanic garden becomes will depend on its unique location and what factors impinge upon it – environmental; the government of the time; the staff, the volunteers and supporting organisations (Friends); the public’s appreciation of it.

Where there is enough community ownership its survival and prosperity will be assured … for 200 years and more, like Sydney’s Domain.

But beware, the following might be more like your Garden’s situation and your reality:

This sweet Leunig creator couldn’t see the wood for the trees – or his tapestry for the thread. His head was filled with a sense of frustration:

He had been working on this tapestry all his life (or so it seemed); no-one appreciated him; he couldn’t imagine it would ever get finished; he resented the lack of support from others; he resented their interference on his tapestry; he was frustrated by the Occupational Health & Safety rules and bureaucratic regulations that thwarted his passion and stopped him expressing himself, and realising his vision.

If you relate to any part of this, your organisation needs to move forward by … eliminating the negative and accentuating the positive!

If you all band together, you’ll create your vision, share the journey and ensure that your garden tapestry survives and increases in value.

And in conclusion, I’d just like to share this image of a beautiful and meaning-ful quilt lovingly created by about 30 BGT staff, Friends and volunteers who share a passion for quilting and botanic gardens.

The quilt commemorates the centenary of the opening on 8 March 1901 of the first dedicated home for the National Herbarium of New South Wales and it is on permanent display in our Anderson Building.

It is made up of reminders of the current and past activities of the BGT’s National Herbarium, a leading Australian centre for plant systematics. And is a great example of the common thread that binds us all!

Education, Volunteering and Friends: Is there a common thread?