Step by Step2000 Unit 7 Approaching Culture（在线收听）

Unit 7 Approaching Culture

Part II Museums in the modern world

Museums have changed. They are no longer places for the privileged few or for bored vacationers to visit on rainy days.

At a science museum in Ontario, Canada, you can feel your hair stand on end as harmless electricity passes through your body. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you can look at 17th century instruments while listening to their music. At the Modern Museum in Sweden, you can put on costumes provided by the Stockholm Opera. At New York’s American Museum of Natural History recently, you could have helped make a bone-by-bone reproduction of the museum’s stegosaurus, a beast that lived 200 million years ago.

As these examples show, museums are reaching out to new audiences, particularly the young, the poor, and the less educated members of the population. As a result, attendance is increasing.

Many museums have changed in appearance. Some of the old, gray museums have been rebuilt, and the newer ones are open and modern in their architecture. Inside, there is modern lighting, color, and sound. Instead of displaying everything they own, museum directors show fewer objects and leave open spaces where visitors can gather and sit down. They also bring together in one display a group of objects drawn from various parts of the museum in an effort to represent the whole lifestyle of a region or a historical period. In one room, for instance, you may find materials, clothing, tools, cooking pots, furniture, and art works of a particular place and time.

More and more museum directors are realizing that people learn best when they can somehow become part of what they are seeing. In many science museums, for example, there are no guided tours, they visitor is encouraged to touch, listen, operate, and experiment so as to discover scientific principles for himself. He can have the experience of operating a spaceship or a computer. He can experiment with glass blowing and papermaking. The purpose is not only to provide fun but also to help people feel at home in the world of science. The theory is that people who do not understand science will probably fear it, and those who fear science will not use it to best advantage.

Many museums now provide educational services and children’s departments. In addition to the usual displays, they also offer film showings and dance programs. Instead of being places that one “should” visit, they are places to enjoy.

Part III Kwanzaa

On the day after Christmas in 1966, a small group of Americans in the western city of Los Angeles began a seven-day celebration. The celebration was not religious. Its purpose was to honor black culture, especially the importance of the family. The celebration is Kwanzaa.

The word Kwanzaa is Swahili. It means “first fruits of the harvest.” Today, millions of African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa during the month of December. Families in Canada, Britain, France and Africa also celebrate it. The main celebration is held for seven days after Christmas from December 26 through January 1. Kwanzaa, however, does not replace Christmas. Most people who celebrate Kwanzaa also celebrate Christmas. Kwanzaa is a time for black families to discusses seven goals to live by all year. The seven goals are unity, personal independence, joint responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. On each of the seven days of Kwanzaa, family members gather to light a black, red or green candle in a special candleholder. Each day, the family discusses one of the goals. People may also get together for a party and enjoy a holiday meal. They may play some African music.

Maulana Karenga is a college professor who developed Kwanzaa. He says Kwanzaa’s goal of unity includes unity in the family, in the local community, in the nation and in the African community throughout the world. He also says that celebrating Kwanzaa will not cure the social problems of blacks. But he says that honoring the goals of Kwanzaa will make people more creative and productive citizens.