This webinar will recall Tilden’s sixth principle about tackling younger minds. Do we follow a fundamentally different approach as Tilden suggested? Which tools and methods are good to use? How do children experience heritage?

The world is changing rapidly, sometimes too fast to follow its progress. Heritage interpretation can help us to slow down the pace, to listen, to imagine and to be children. We’ll try to find answers and encourage discussion through different examples and initiatives from a mum and interpreter’s perspective.

Iva Caleta Plesa is a tourist guide for Zagreb, a French and Russian language teacher, museologist, heritage interpreter and IE Certified Interpretive Trainer. Together with her husband Boris, she runs Doremiza, a small creative space for workshops, photo sessions, lectures and meetings. Iva has a special interest in heritage interpretation for children. She is a member of a development team for the IE module for interpretation for children. She is curious, loves to travel and meet other people and beside heritage interpretation, she is passionate about all forms of learning and dancing.

The Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) training was held for the second time this year in Zaprešić, in the Novi Dvori castle of the governor Jelačić. The course was organised by the Tourist Board of the City of Zaprešić. The course usually lasts five days but the tourist board provided an additional day of training dedicated to communication skills and public speaking.

Attendees learn from each other
Building on their previous work from various interactive tasks and detailed exercises, the participants gradually revealed the meaning in their final interpretive talks and showed the difference between great interpretation and what a presentation or tourist guide looks like when they use only facts. Everyone designed a gift to give to the other attendees, although it was neither an instruction nor an obligation. They put a lot of effort into the visual presentation and included all of our senses. Precisely because of the diverse society and numerous group tasks, the participants learned a lot from each other.

As a Chinese proverb says: “Teachers open the door, but you have to enter on your own”.
I believe that these participants entered the methodology and understood the importance of heritage interpretation and preservation, how they can use various techniques to increase the interest and involve visitors and provide them with leadership experience and arouse emotions to find a deeper meaning. The spark of interpretation was thrown in and the fire started. And the proof of that was in the great creative and detailed presentations of intangible heritage that the participants presented on the last day of their course. We were treated to presentations on topics from the traditional housewife and woollen socks to the history of the castle, coats of arms, tiny nativity scenes and gingerbread hearts.

Looking to the future
Adrenaline, desire for certification, and the good energy created among the participants are the best incentives. After the first CIG training in Zaprešić in June this year, several participants have already experienced change in their lives, securing jobs leading interpretive walks and even working in theatre. Lifelong learning never ends and it is always a good idea to invest in yourself.

Ivana Zrilić is an IE Certified Interpretive Trainer. She is a licensed tourist guide for several Croatian regions and since February 2017 has been working as a mentor/ teacher in the Lifelong Learning of the Baltazar University in Zagreb, sharing her knowledge and more than 20 years’ experience in guiding with new generations of tour guides. You can contact her at: ivana_zrilic@yahoo.com.

To cite this article: Zrilić, Ivana (2020) ‘The second CIG course in Zaprešić‘. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 4-2020, 15.

Available online: http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/IE_newsletter_2020_4_winter.pdf

An IE Certified Interpretive Guide (CIG) course was held in San Sebastian – Donostia (Basque Country) in October. It was organised by Aktibatu-Bizibiziki consultancy agency (www.aktibatu.eus) and led by Evarist March Sarlat. A group of twelve people shared diverse knowledge and experiences, enhancing creativity through their collective brains and cooperation.

They were five intensive days held in Ekogunea, a space specially designed to extend ecological culture from environmental awareness to action (www.ekogunea.es). Our training took place among happy animals, community gardens and a space specifically designed to support environmental education, which we used to test our individual and group skills.

Combining theory and practice, indoors and outdoors, in different individual and group activities, we assimilated the bases of interpretation and the six principles of Tilden, training in the use of resources and the structure that allows us to design talks and interpretive tours in a professional way, and so contributing to improving the understanding, connection and involvement of people in the care of our planet.

Three examples of messages we explored through new eyes:

How to talk about biomimicry… without mentioning it
Here, for instance, a group of colleagues brought us closer to nature as a source of inspiration in modern design: what does the shape of the egg, the plumage of geese or the membranes of ducks have to do with the design of tools, instruments and even vehicles?

Traditional games and the commons
We saw how hopscotch, a popular children’s game, can serve as a bridge to talk about aspects of culture in relation to cooperation and the commons.

Bio and cultural diversity
We looked at different oak tree leaf shapes, the result of hybridization between native and non-native species, to conclude that the richness of a territory is deeply linked to biodiversity and that cultural diversity is one more expression of it.

We ended the course even more convinced that guiding, more than a trivial pastime, can become an educational and empowering act. Today, more than ever, interpreting is key to transmit a holistic vision of the territory, which will facilitate a deeper connection between people and nature, not as tourists but as responsible citizens in a resilient world.

We are excited about generating new interpretive routes with content and messages that contribute to regenerating our relationship with our territory, the Basque Country, and our planet.

Karlos Solana Arruti is an educator and mountaineer, a passionate guide of Gipuzkoa, his herrialde – or territory – in the Basque Country. Karlos can be contacted through social networks: @Karlos Solana.Solana.

Flor Savanti is an anthro-archaeologist designing and guiding cultural and natural experiences in the Basque Country and the Pyrenees. Connect with her at: info@bakeana.com or www.bakeana.com. 

To cite this article:
Solana Arruti, Karlos and Savanti, Flor  (2020) ‘Cooperation and love for the land’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 4-2020, 11.

Available online: http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/IE_newsletter_2020_4_winter.pdf