Educating Conservators for Lifelong Commitment

This research develops from the perceived need within the profession of a conservation education that encourages cultural sensitivity and a cooperative, flexible and reflective approach to practice. The focus of the paper is on postgraduate study. It explores the ways in which a series of museum-based reflective activities can be used to encourage students to examine their own beliefs and assumptions and explore ideas about cultural values within their peer group and the wider community. The reflective learning journals, introduced by me into the conservation studio and used as educational tools in my previous research are here even more central to the work. A range of student writing is analysed to provide evidence of a deepening understanding of the wider context of conservation in contemporary life and of a deepening commitment to the conservation profession’s core values