Interview with Delphine Issenmann

What's your most memorable teaching moment with objects?

I was with my colleague Sébastien Soubiran, who is currently director of the Jardin des sciences and a science historian. He had asked me to accompany him for a course involving objects from physics collections. I was very surprised, because I had a very academic view of courses. As a student, I'd never had a course based on objects, and I found the experience completely incredible, because it showed that a different pedagogy was possible. It was particularly interesting in this context, because it was aimed at physics students, for whom the question of museums, collections and the past was by no means something that could be taken for granted. It was more of a challenge to get them interested. The simple fact of coming into contact with objects from collections steeped in history was clearly a challenge for them to understand. They had a different reading from mine, which was just as interesting and relevant. Sébastien led this discovery with them, letting them express themselves, giving them time to approach the objects, but guiding them with steps. I was in this comfortable position of assistant for this first course, which really opened up a whole range of activities that was going to be something I wanted to devote myself to.

In a previous conversation, you mentioned the importance of adapting and how you're constantly trying to innovate your business in terms of the objects you use, to keep students engaged, etc. What are the different aspects of your courses that you try to innovate and how do you do this?

There's a key moment, the moment of object selection. We project ourselves into something we want to lead the students towards. It can be thematic, it can be questioning, it can be the challenge of choosing an object that from a morphological point of view is going to say very little, it can be something very simple, but from which we can find lots of great things to say, and that's what's stimulating.

If you're dealing with heterogeneous groups who have difficulty getting to grips with this initial frustration, where they don't immediately have access to "what the object is", "what it's for", or lack information about it, the situation can become complex. They must not be discouraged or frustrated. We need to accompany them through this first stage, guiding their gaze and their way of discovering objects. It's a question of constant dialogue, observing them, analyzing their reactions during the sessions to see if they're in difficulty, if they need more "individualized" support. This means keeping the number of students to a minimum.

We also often get them to work in groups. One of the challenges in this respect, and one that requires adaptation, is to see how the group will form around the work required. As part of a course, we ask our students to build an exhibition or an online content enhancement project. Sometimes, we have students with different backgrounds, who have to cross their methodologies, and that's what's so interesting. Sometimes it's different approaches: how can they interact, complement each other rather than clash? Then, of course, there's the temperament of each individual, and how we get them to learn to listen to each other, to work together effectively and to organize themselves. As the course progresses and I gain experience, I accumulate different typologies of difficulty profiles, questions they may ask themselves, tools to suggest to them.

Talking about the importance of adapting to your audience, you mentioned the challenge of capturing students' attention and interest in your course. What methods do you use to achieve this?

Two years ago, during the covid period, we had to wear masks during classes. The first session went well. Before the second session, my colleague sent me a message saying "there's one of the students who's hard of hearing, you're going to have to see with her how to make things go better for this person". I hadn't yet identified her because she'd arrived late, so she hadn't been able to attend the first session. As I had my mask on, she couldn't read my lips, so she could hardly hear or follow anything. I wrote her an email saying:

Delphine: "Can you point me to things that might help?"

Student: "What would be interesting is if you could send me the courses in advance."

Delphine: "But the problem is that it's a course based on live observation of objects, it's not like a written format with slides."

In situations like this, how do you go about it?

It also involved informing the students in this group that they were going to have to work a little differently. What we did was, as the observations were made, I wrote the key words on the board for her to take note of and absorb. Afterwards, I devoted more time to this group so that I could work with them in a more specific way. The members of the group she was in handled the situation very well, and were particularly helpful in enabling her to get in touch with them and prepare the work. What's more, she wasn't a French speaker, so there was also the language barrier. Getting her to express herself as much as possible was the best way to get a precise idea of her level of understanding. Not having anticipated anything, it was a real challenge. But in the end, the experience turned out well.

If tomorrow you had to teach a lesson with a Greek vase, what would you do? What would this one look like?

Of course, I immediately ask myself, what is this Greek vase? As curator, I'll first look to see if the object is fragile and can be handled. The aim, of course, is for the students to actually touch the object. Otherwise, I don't think it's of any interest to them, because the object becomes distant again. I think it's important to have an idea of the information and documentation available on the object beforehand. It's not uncommon for students to find things that I hadn't had access to, which helps to complete our research. Then I'd run the course in exactly the same way as for scientific instruments and the like. Often, we choose objects from different collections. Last year, for example, we worked with Dogon necklaces, medical instruments, botanical and paleontological objects, photographs and maps. The idea is to show that all objects can be approached in the same way.