May 30th Blog Post: Training Day

As the title suggests, this week's blog post will be focused on my training day that took place last Saturday on May 24th. This training not only served as my first day as an intern, but also my first day at the Orange County Regional History Center. 

My training day began at 10 am when we began with a PowerPoint presentation walked us through the basic requirements of our jobs as teachers and guides for the children we will be educating. The main focus of the presentation involved explaining the behavior of young children. Our presenters explained that young children mimic the adults and teenagers around them, so it is very important to remain engaged and excited for the activities we will be doing. What surprised me a little bit was how much a class of children go to the bathroom. We spent a few minutes on this topic as it is one of the primary tasks the volunteers will be carrying out. My training consisted of more than just a seminar, but actual hands-on activity.

After the presentation, we were divided into 4 groups and sent out to various stations to participate in the task we will do during our program. One station involved setting up and taking down the tents we will be using for shade outside. The next station involved cleaning up a classroom after a bunch of children trashed the place. Another station involved making friendship bracelets since many children struggle to make these cleanly and quickly. The last part of the training involved a tour of the museum itself, which really impressed me.

The museum itself exists in the old Orange County Court House. This makes the building structure a bit unique for a museum. The building consists of 4 floors with exhibitions on floors 2-4. The education areas sit on the third floor across from one of the exhibitions. The current exhibits feature an exploration of Central Florida's unique ecosystem, original native habitants, pioneer agriculture, Black history, tourism, and one of the original court rooms. There is also a temporary exhibition about Orlando for its 150-year anniversary curated by the community. During my tour, I was impressed by the details and care put into the design and layout of each exhibit. Despite how small the building seems at first, each room seems to go on forever.  On one last note, one of the exhibitions had me thinking about how history interacts with the education of children.

During the tour, we were briefly shown the Black focused exhibition, but then were told that we will not really interact with the area as the subject matter could be too much for young kids to handle. This got me thinking about what kind of content we can discuss with children in the field of history. I wonder what kind of content we will be discussing and educating the kids on. I hope I can provide a rough idea of that in my next blog post about my first week in my internship.