Hanging Out at the Children's Museum

Imust admit it, I am not exactly the museum-going type. I can speed through the halls of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 36 minutes and through Los Angeles' Natural History Museum in a record 22.

But behold avid museum-goers! Before you condemn me for my uncouth, uncultured ways, I'd like to announce that I am converted. I have discovered a museum that holds my fleeting attention span for longer than an hour (an amazing task indeed)--the Children's Museum of Boston.

The exhibits are arranged on four levels and connected by a staircase/jungle-gym that climbs up the center of the museum. Note: Although the signs say the "staircase" is for all ages, watch out for territorial little kids like the one who accosted me. "Why are you here? This is for kids!" he barked.

But despite the example set by my jungle gym confrontation, most children who visit the museum appreciate its exhibits for what they offer: whimsical hands-on introductions to serious everyday topics, complete with an idealistic "be kind to your neighbor" spin.

Harvard University Medical Services sponsors the exhibit "Mind Your Own Business," which looks at health and our bodies. Included is the mini-display, "Who Minded Our Business," which talks about AIDS through magazine articles and recorded phone messages.

For the steel-stomached, the museum offers "Scoop on Poop." This gross but hilarious exhibit explains the not-so pleasant bodily functions of burping, diarrhea and passing gas. The model toilet--complete with (you guessed it) imitation poop--is a definite favorite. Somehow, even though kids and adults alike find it repulsive, they make repeated trips to stare into the porcelain bowl.

In "What If You Couldn't...?," children begin to understand what life is like with a disability. They trek across surfaces of brick, rock and sand in a wheelchair, finger sign language and peck on a braille typewriter.

The ultimate exhibit is the Kids Bridge, a 46 foot long bridge that symbolizes the need to cross racial and ethnic boundaries peacefully.

Kids can peer into a cluster of miniature houses and view the lives of all different types of Bostonians. Barbie-doll sized humanoids carry on the everyday activities that typify modern life.

Children learn how to hopscotch in Ethiopian, Italian and Chinese fashion, how to imitate animal sounds and how to say "I love you" in Spanish, Cambodian, Haitian Creole and Cantonese. All of this comes from the Kids Bridge "instructors," interactive television screens which connect the viewer with hyperactive videotaped peers.

Also featured in the Kids Bridge is a selection of stories from children who have encountered racism. Kids are asked to think of responses and to write them on a board. Some reactions read, "This program really helps you to understand that [color] don't matter" and "Everyone are the same inside."

In addition to the displays, the Children's Museum houses some great shopping spots. The museum shop itself is cool--it stocks the complete collection of Raffi in Concert tapes--but it's not the coolest. That distinction is left to The Recycle, which introduces kids to environmentally-aware, conservation-conscious consumerism.

About 50 four-foot tall barrels inhabit The Recycle, each filled with a trove of loot for purchase. Monopoly pieces and galaxy sparkle paper go for 25 cents and CD cases for 50 cents. I purchased a roll of silver mylar tape for 40 cents as well as a 50 cent windup motor that clicks and unwinds.

The Recycle not only offers such rareties as miniature plastic E.T.s for the bargain-basement price of a nickel, but it demonstrates that recycling can and does work.

Okay, so you skeptics might be saying, "The Children's Museum (gasp), how puerile! Why would I ever go there?!?"

But really, the Children's Museum offers more than you would think.

Issues such as conservation, AIDS and discrimination need to be confronted by children and non-children alike. The Children's Museum allows us to do so, and what's better, it isn't boring. Even for me, the eternal museum-speedster.

And where else could you find a building with a Computer Museum on one side and a built-in McDonald's on the other?