I think it is very hard to teach to a general audience at an intermediate level because that grey area between noobs and experts is so vast.
I have had a lot of interests I’ve tried to learn about on my own, and it is usually pretty easy to start out from nothing, since everything you get exposed to is new, and you feel an immediate acquisition of knowledge or skill.
Then at the expert level, you’re interacting with people that should all have a high level of existing knowledge, and you don’t need to worry about the audience coming into a presentation with wildly different degrees of understanding.
For a place like a museum that is usually designed to cater to a general audience, keeping things simple is simply going to appeal to a larger potential group of people. This is something I can lose sight of myself in talking with people about subjects I enjoy. They either aren’t into it as much as I am and can only stay engaged so long, or I need to do a lot of talking to find out where their current level of experience is before I can start really elaborating.
If you can find staff that is willing to be engaged at a museum or whatever place you may be at, talking with them can really help you get a lot more out of things, whether that is to ELI5 or to go deeper into the subject. I’ve had people be able to explain different things to me in art museums or historical reenactments, and I’ve talked to lots of zookeepers and rehab workers to learn more about their captive breeding programs, animals that may not be currently out for display, training and education programs, or about various laws and regulations when working with animals that would bore 99% of a general audience. I love when people ask me about things at work or at events, because there are usually so few people that actually want me to really talk about some of the specialized things I know! Most people working these places will have a passion for what they are doing and may really appreciate having someone to share that with.
I think it is very hard to teach to a general audience at an intermediate level because that grey area between noobs and experts is so vast.
I have had a lot of interests I’ve tried to learn about on my own, and it is usually pretty easy to start out from nothing, since everything you get exposed to is new, and you feel an immediate acquisition of knowledge or skill.
Then at the expert level, you’re interacting with people that should all have a high level of existing knowledge, and you don’t need to worry about the audience coming into a presentation with wildly different degrees of understanding.
For a place like a museum that is usually designed to cater to a general audience, keeping things simple is simply going to appeal to a larger potential group of people. This is something I can lose sight of myself in talking with people about subjects I enjoy. They either aren’t into it as much as I am and can only stay engaged so long, or I need to do a lot of talking to find out where their current level of experience is before I can start really elaborating.
If you can find staff that is willing to be engaged at a museum or whatever place you may be at, talking with them can really help you get a lot more out of things, whether that is to ELI5 or to go deeper into the subject. I’ve had people be able to explain different things to me in art museums or historical reenactments, and I’ve talked to lots of zookeepers and rehab workers to learn more about their captive breeding programs, animals that may not be currently out for display, training and education programs, or about various laws and regulations when working with animals that would bore 99% of a general audience. I love when people ask me about things at work or at events, because there are usually so few people that actually want me to really talk about some of the specialized things I know! Most people working these places will have a passion for what they are doing and may really appreciate having someone to share that with.