ITP 2012: Day 22 – Ishaq Mohammd Bello

The 5th July was a very special day for Africa, Oceania and Americas ITP group, as we were looking forward to going to Oxford. Oxford University is one of the oldest and amongst the best universities in the world.

It all started at around 8 am at Schafer House, when Katherine Coleman joined us with our new colleagues from Ghana, Gideon Agyare and Patricia Amo (part of the Africa Programme). After that we headed to the station for our trip to Oxford.

The Ashmolean Museum of art and archeology, University of Oxford was of interest because most of us are in the learning departments of our museums. We really wanted to know how their educational services work, with the contribution of the university’s dons.

We were welcomed by Jude Barrett the Chief Education Officer who took us to their learning department for tea and coffee and for a discussion of their services. Afterwards, we toured around the exhibition galleries and admired their collections.

 

On our way to the Pitt Rivers Museum we had our lunch and walked in Oxford, seeing different colleges and where some of the interesting movies like Harry Potter and Inspector Morse were filmed within the University.

We passed through Oxford University Museum of Natural History and we were inspired by fossils, animals, birds, butterflies and dinosaurs on display. Then we saw the Pitt River Museum. At the museum we were greeted by Michael O’Hanlon who introduced us to the Museum. The collections and displays were unique. We then went for coffee in the staff room, where we met Christopher Morton and Salma Caller. After coffee Christopher took us to the archives storage and Salma took us to the learning department and told us about their wonderful educational services with handling collections.

I have learned to be a father to all the children around the globe through new ideas and skills gained at the British museum, UK partner museums and professional colleagues from all over the world.

Ishaq Mohammd Bello

Nigeria