The Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk wants to improve your emotional quotient. The old way of thinking ”” that you either have a high EQ or you don”™t ”” has faded. The museum, acting in concert with more than 60 municipal, educational and research entities, has embraced EQ as a teachable mental health strategy accessible through music, art and literature.
Stepping Stones, which dates to 2000, is available to rent for business events. Its conversation starters include a storybook look by Centerbrook Architects of Middlesex County and, inside, a Rube Goldberg device to challenge the best Rube Goldbergs, called the ColorCoaster. A quick about-face and the EQ world of social and emotional learning ”” called SEL ”” unfolds.
In a roughly 2,000-square-foot space in the 303 West Ave. facility, a homegrown SEL effort opened in February after a year of planning and construction. Its goal is to make better citizens through self-knowledge, including knowing and naming some of our darker thoughts, like frustration and anger.
The “Express Yourself” exhibit is a potential template for similar exhibits and will be the theme of the museum”™s address to the 31st annual Small Museum Association meeting in Maryland in February. It recently won the Excellence Award from the Connecticut Art Directors Club, based in Centerbrook.
A business that opts for a night at the museum might find its employees surrounding the Cooperation Table to their own betterment. The table is designed to frustrate and does so wonderfully. Word panels cite the universality of emotions like frustration; coping is the secret to success.
Whether CEO or youngster, “These are strategies that work at home and in business,” said museum Director of Learning and Experience Kim Kuta Dring, a 10-year museum staff veteran.
Who, young or old, could argue with the unifying joy of a bongo circle? It”™s right beside the Cooperation Table and not far from the personal space analyzer. Those familiar with Jerry Seinfeld”™s take on “close talkers” will recognize the genius of the device. Many stations, like a giant version of a Lite-Brite, are analogous to Bugs Bunny cartoons: Kids and adults find them equally edifying and infectiously amusing ”“ perhaps leading to a better EQ.
“We want people to take these lessons out into the world,” Kuta Dring said. “That”™s true education, when lessons move into the home and business and continue to function.”
The museum sees 260,000 visits per year, and since the exhibit opened in February virtually all attendees have participated in at least some of the Express Yourself room”™s 16 separate stations.
“The kids love it and the adults are excited by the fun and the education,” said Kuta Dring. “But you could say that of many things. We offer something different: the learning of social and emotional wellness. The idea that you either have this wellness or you don”™t is not true.”
She toured the exhibit room recently with Linda Kwong, for three months the museum”™s public relations manager. Kwong, in turn, had recently toured with a bona fide client: her 6-year-old nephew.
“We”™re telling a gem of a story here,” Kwong said. “It”™s all about learning to interact. When you can name a feeling, it encourages talk about that feeling.”
“All emotions are normal,” said Kuta Dring. “The challenge is understanding how to manage them and making decisions to change the emotions. How do you go from frustration to no frustration? How do you transition? Adults do this; children, too. You can learn to improve at this.”
“Knowing the vocabulary ”” identifying the feelings ”” is half the battle,” Kuta Dring said.
Some 60 groups in Norwalk helped in the effort, including Norwalk ACTS, a partnership of Norwalk leaders and organizations committed to helping youths “cradle to career” and founded in 2005, and Fairfield and Yale universities.
The museum, including the “Express Yourself” exhibit, is available for rent by businesses for events or informational meetings. Asked if the presence of 16 separate stations emphasizing social and emotional knowledge might enliven such gatherings, Kuta Dring said, “Absolutely.”
