Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Week 1


Today I finished my first week at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. My role for the coming weeks is to assist in running a smooth Design Camp for children ages 6-10.  Although I worked 2 days the week prior, it was mostly office work including filing, compiling the campers information and getting to know the Cooper Hewitt Museum.  But this week is when the real fun began.

On Monday, we welcomed a total of 45 campers (or friends, like we like to call them). I worked mostly with the 6-8 age group along with 3 teachers and one other intern. We played with legos, made bracelets, learned each others name and introduced this weeks project: Places and Spaces. This week the campers would be tasked with building a model of a playground, picnic, performance or game space depending on what user card they were given. The user card specified what requirements the space needed to fulfill including if it needed a rood and the audience it would be servicing. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed. Our campers are brilliant and quick-witted. They already had so much prior knowledge about architecture and design including what a prototype and blueprint is.

Seeing as it was my first week, I thought my role mostly would be more focused on keeping an eye on the campers and making sure they were making safe decisions as well as ensuring the Design Studio and materials were ready to use. However, I had a lot more opportunity to interact and get to know my new friends. And this was my favorite part! The campers taught me so much through their spontaneity, kindness, and friendship. Although it was only 5 days, many of them formed genuine friendships that restore my hope in Manhattan. Despite this, there were some bumps in the road. For example, some kids got hurt while working on their projects or simply playing around. Working around these issues was a first for me. There are protocol and specific ways that the situation could best be handled all of which I needed to learn. I also learned the importance of code-switching. It’s easy to correct kids when they’re doing something they aren’t supposed to but it’s not easy to do so the right way. You could be too harsh or too lenient and so it’s important that you not only measure how you say things but the words you’re using. For example, rather than saying “you're not supposed to do that” or “that’s wrong, please stop”, you could say “It’s not the time to be silly”. Although it seems almost minuscule, I could see the difference in their behavior when the latter phrase was used.

Today was  Presentation Day and I couldn’t be more proud! Although it was hectic in trying to set everything up, the end result was more than worth it. All of their hard work was displayed and they all demonstrated how much thought they put into every piece they made. Overall, this past week has been incredible! I learned so much from my campers and other counselors. I didn’t think working with kids would have gone so well or that I would have enjoyed it as much but I’m so glad I’ve gotten the chance to work with them.

Next week I’ll be working with the 9-10 group and I must admit I’m a little nervous. I think I’ll struggle with trying to connect with them because of the age difference but I’m excited to see what happens.

P.S Sorry I didn’t include many pictures, I didn’t get a chance to take as many as I wanted but I’ll make sure to include more next week!

Until next time,
Maira

The Cooper Hewitt Museum Garden

                                          A (bad) picture of some of their beautiful projects

Video of some of the projects

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