Exhibiting Mounds in Wilkinson County: Implications for Diverse Community Engagement in Public Archaeology and Museum Education

Native American mound sites in the Lower Mississippi Valley can tell us a lot about past peoples but are rapidly disappearing due to land development, looting, and erosion. The communities local to these important archaeological resources are the best equipped to protect them due to their proximity, but many locals are unaware of both their importance to archaeological research and the meaning they hold for Native people. This thesis presents a case study on how to engage with a diverse rural community, some members of which are already invested in archaeology, but most of which have not expressed interest. I posit that the best way to engage with the community is by focusing on its children. In Summer 2019, I co-curated and designed an exhibit about the history of Lower Mississippi Valley moundbuilding in the Wilkinson County Museum in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. The exhibit showcases artifacts from local sites and includes information about how mounds and their associated sites were constructed and used through time. In addition, my team hosted an archaeology fair on the day the exhibit opened. Hands-on activities during this festival and an exhibit-focused activity booklet helped children to understand archaeological information and methods. The festival was well-attended, but there was a notable racial discrepancy between the community that the exhibit attracted and the Wilkinson County community more broadly. Future phases of this project will focus on local schools to ensure that we engage with a more representative sample of the population. A field trip program will provide Wilkinson County children with more opportunities for hands-on learning, and a children’s book about a local mound site will provide a personal link to archaeology for a regional audience

The doll : the figure of the doll in culture and theory

Constance Eileen King, in her Dolls and Dolls' Houses (1977), describes the doll above (Figure 1) as a 'French bisque-headed doll with jointed body, fixed eyes and open mouth. The original costume is very decorative. Marked "* 95" for Phoenix Baby'. King's description is doll-collection speak, and shows a particular way of looking at dolls, one which typically identifies the country of origin (French), the name of the dollseries (Phoenix Baby), materials of which the doll is made (head made of bisque, a kind of unglazed porcelain) and any identifying marks it might have, with a particular emphasis on dress and head. This type of doll is usually referred to as a bebe, a word registered by French and German manufacturers by 1850 to describe a doll suggesting a child somewhere between the ages of four and twelve. The Liebe (in Figure 1) is a doll allright, but it is a very particular kind of doll, and gives a very particular idea of what a doll is. This doll represents perhaps the most nostalgically stereotypical idea of a doll: it shows a little girl in a pretty dress. If one goes and looks at the range of more modern dolls which clutter the shelves in toy stores--Ginny, Barbie, Cindy, Baby Dribbles, My First Baby, Action Man, Skydancer, Polly Pocket, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Spice Girls dolls, Power Rangers and Star Trek dolls, Furbies, to mention a few--one finds that dolls come representing a huge variety of different ages, social classes, ethnic and national backgrounds, occupations, hobbies. They are made of a variety of materials and combinations of materials; wood, leather, cloth, metal, composition (strengthened papier meiche), celluloid, plastic, wax, porcelain, stone. Often they are also what we might call borderline or fantasy human figures, half-monsters, three quarter animals, one third machines, in various combinations. Even though the French bebe might be immediately recognisable as a doll, and would conform to a conventional idea of a doll, it is by no means a typical doll. There is no typical doll

Washington University Record, October 7, 1999

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/record/1840/thumbnail.jp

Kenyon Collegian - September 27, 1990

https://digital.kenyon.edu/collegian/1572/thumbnail.jp

Washington University Record, December 12, 1991

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/record/1569/thumbnail.jp

Columns Fall 2008

Features the article Summer School in the Tropics . This summer, the jungles and beaches of Indonesia served as a classroom for about 20 Southern students. Take a peek at their journey through pictures and journal entries.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/alumni_newsletter/1165/thumbnail.jp

Washington University Record, November 13, 1997

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/record/1775/thumbnail.jp

Unmasking Children\u27s Agency

The goal of this paper is to identify (unmask) and critique the movement to promote children’s agency as a cornerstone of research, care, education and intervention with children. The article makes a case that this movement is harmful to a scientific approach to the study of childhood, distorts or ignores key understandings of the evolution of childhood and culture. The article demonstrates that the agency movement is ethnocentric, classist and hegemonic representing the dominance of contemporary bourgeoisie child-rearing. It imposes a single, privileged ethnotheory of childhood upon the diverse societies of the world with alternative ethnotheories and practices. Lastly, the article argues that the movement is not efficacious either in advancing theory or practice

The Arts and Technology: How Educational Technology Can Bring Humanities Further Into Elementary and Primary School Systems

As the world becomes more inclined to implement technology in nearly every aspect of society, the United States Department of Education must find a way to incorporate new styles of modern and high-tech teaching without pushing out certain subjects from its curriculum. I believe technology can be used to bring the Humanities further into the classroom. In today’s society American education programs are desperately trying to make up for subpar primary school scores in mathematics and science. According to the government accredited international education forum (the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) the United States was found to be below the OECD average in science ranking 25th, reading 24th and mathematics 41st (Businessinsider.com). With these mediocre scores the United States has been forced to take drastic measure in bolstering its primary education systems. While an added emphasis in elementary math and science curriculum is an obvious route, it seems that the removal or distancing from the arts and other social forms of education has also become part of the solution. While science, technology, engineering and math are all extremely important, the United States Department of Education should be able to recommend modernized approaches that incorporate art history, history, literature, art, music, philosophy and language. In our ever-changing high-tech world, the Humanities are needed in our classrooms to supply equality and perspective. The Humanities widen our thought process, build global understanding, assist in the formation of critical thinking skills, train individuals to communicate and share, bolster moral accountability and cultural sensitivity, support scientific advancements through unique societal perspectives, guide humanity towards a more rational and inclusive way of thinking, and create a well-balanced 21st century scholar. In today’s modern society it is more than reasonable to explore options that involve the intertwining of technology and the arts in our elementary school systems. It must also be mentioned, the goal of this paper is to in now way lessen or devalue the role of the instructor, rather, the research provided is aimed at highlighting certain types of technologies that can potentially assist primary and elementary educators who aspire to further incorporate the Humanities and its core philosophies into their curriculum