Learning in a museum

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

“Our class visited the engineering museum on a wet Wednesday. We were given worksheets with twelve boxes to complete, beginning with the date of the first machine in the entrance hall. I found the date, copied it and moved on. At the third display, a volunteer asked whether I wanted to turn a handle. The model lifted a small weight. When he added a second wheel, I could lift it with less effort, though I had to turn farther.

That handle did more for my understanding than the first three boxes. The machine stopped being a fact behind glass and became a question in my arm: why was the easier movement the longer one? The volunteer did not answer immediately. He let me try both arrangements again. I completed the worksheet later, but I remember the resistance of the handle more clearly than the dates. Museums can preserve objects and still give visitors something to do with their minds. The danger is treating activity as noise and understanding as a sheet with every space filled.”

Source B: an original nineteenth-century-style letter or account, written for practice; this is not an archival document.

“During a recent visit to the collection of mechanical inventions, I observed a party of pupils copying labels with great industry. Their master had prepared a list of particulars, and the children pursued each missing date as though the machines had been installed chiefly to conceal it. I do not object to accurate information. I object to the assumption that carrying it away on paper proves that an idea has travelled with it.

One boy remained beside a model pump after his companions had moved on. The attendant showed him how the motion of one part caused another to rise. The boy asked the same question in three forms, each more exact than the last. Here, I thought, was a useful delay. A museum should not be judged only by how much it contains, but by what attention it awakens. Labels are necessary servants; they make indifferent masters. Let a child leave knowing fewer dates if he also leaves with a question he is capable of pursuing.”

Refer to both sources. Infer the differences in the learning activities described at the museums. Write a summary supported by details from both sources.