What To Do When Your Plan Falls Apart
One of the most important attributes an education department should have is flexibility, because things always go awry. No matter how well planned your event or how well prepared you are, something can, and likely will, go sideways.
Why Do Plans Fall Apart?
There are so many ways an education program can get derailed before it even starts.
Maybe you just realized a co-worker used the last up the last of the glue sticks. Perhaps the weather took a nasty turn and your exclusively outdoor program is now an indoor program. More than once, emergency maintenance has made my program space unavailable.
The point is, it happens. And regardless of whether or not it’s your own fault, you have to change direction without losing your cool.
4 Steps to Take When Your Plan Falls Apart
Step 1: Take a breath.
Decisions made in a panic are never good decisions. Take a breath and remember, this isn’t actually the end of the world. You will think better and come up with a clear plan if you give your brain some oxygen.
Step 2: Refrain from blame.
Okay, this can be really hard. When a forced change happens because of another person’s mistake or negligence, it is so tempting to jump into angry resentment. But changing horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak, takes a lot of effort. Don’t waste your time and energy on anger when you need to focus on adapting. There will always be time to regroup and assess what went wrong later.
Step 3: Remember your priorities.
Focus on what is most important - giving your museum visitors the experience they are expecting (and in some cases, paid for). Think through what specifically you promised them. At the very least, you must fulfil that promise. Remember that as museum educators, one of our most valuable assets is our creativity. There is usually more than one way to accomplish something. Start with what you absolutely must do, and then go from there.
Step 4: Let go of perfectionism.
Sometimes, your program won’t be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be great. In fact, if you are doing your job well enough, it’s likely the visitors won’t even know the difference. Never say, “Well, normally, we’d do XYZ here, but…” They don’t need to know that. Good enough is usually good enough, especially in emergencies.
The Way Doing Frontier Laundry is Supposed To Look
A Case in Point
Recently, at the tail end of a 6-day work-week, I pulled into work, mentally gearing up for the girl scout program I had starting in an hour. As soon as my tires crossed the entrance gate, I remembered that I had left one of the activities I needed in the trunk of my other car, which at that point was an hour away from me and my soon-to-arrive girl scouts.
Ugh.
See, two days earlier, I had done this same program, and needed to take the supplies home to clean them. I loaded them up and thought, “I have two days. I don’t need to take care of this right now.” And then I promptly forgot.
Naturally, I was immediately flustered. But in the end, no one was the wiser except for me. Here’s how I solved the problem:
The Way Frontier Laundry Looks When You Leave Your Supplies at Home (Not as cool, but it still gets the point across)
I stopped. I simply stood still for a moment and took a breath.
I could have let myself spiral into guilt and frustration over this. Due to the effects of COVID closures on our site, I lost my entire team. For over a year, I’ve been running the education department alone, and I am tired and overworked. This was my 6th day in a row of programs, and it was my 2nd 6-day work week that month. Did I need a break? Yes. Did I need more staff? Yes. Was this the time to worry about that? No.
I considered what I really needed to pull off the program. This was a program about life on the frontier and it specifically included a hands-on activity doing laundry. I have a whole pile of small kid-size shirts and pants I bought at Goodwill years ago for this purpose; and they were all in my other car, still wet and gross from two days earlier. But what I did have were some aprons, and adult-size shirts and skirts which I use to dress our mannequin for other programs. While I wouldn’t want the small girls to actually try to wash these clothes (one, because they would be too heavy for kids when wet, and two, I didn’t want them smeared with mud), I quickly decided this would be a water-free activity. I just put the clothes and the washboard in the bucket and let them pretend to wash.
Was this the perfect way to do this program? Of course not! But they literally never knew it was done any other way and at the end of the day, they had the experience they came for.
One Last Word
The most important thing to remember when your plans fall apart is that you are an educator. If you can teach, show, or explain your points in ANY way, you are doing your job. And in my experience, the most flexible and most creative employees in a museum work in the education department. You can totally handle a minor crisis.
But I will confess the one thing that makes all the difference in being able to shift gears and replace one activity with a make-do version is knowing where your supplies are. You should have a well-organized supply area, so that you can lay your hands immediately on anything you need. And you ought to have a working knowledge of everything that is at your disposal - all the craft supplies, all the teaching materials, all the props. You must know what you have before you need it. In the coming weeks, I’ll be updating my Educator Resource Library with an inventory template to help you know what you have. Sign up today to be the first to know when it’s available! And in the meantime, you can check out the other ready-to-use helpful templates made by an educator for you!