The Interpreter Archive

Archetypes

By
Legacy
Published: February 6, 2010Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , ,

by Alan Leftridge

leftridgeThe situation was perplexing. I had anticipated a mob-scene, but there were perhaps a dozen people standing in groups of two or three, chatting in low voices.

A half-hour earlier, the concierge confided to me that the Rolling Stones were going to perform the next night in Little Rock and that they were soon arriving to stay at the hotel. His disinterest caused me to ask if they had performed in the city before. Bemused, he said yes, and then declared that they always stay at the Peabody. The concierge appeared indifferent, but I was excited to see the band members up close. Linda and I found a seat in the lobby, no more than 10 paces from the entrance.

Positioned beside me was a middle-aged man who asked, “Are you here to see the Stones?”

“Not their concert,” I said. “I have to leave in the morning. But, since they are staying in the hotel I thought it would be interesting to see them in person. Have you seen them?”

“I saw them in 1975 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City,” he said. “They performed with Billy Preston, Chakka Khan, and The Eagles. The ticket price was $12.” We laughed.

Time passed, and the collection of onlookers did not increase. Then, to our left entered a person through the front door of the hotel, and with long strides advanced across the lobby towards the bank of elevators. “It’s Ronnie Wood, get his picture, get his picture,” Linda whispered.

“No… that’s not Ronnie Wood,” I said. “He looks too small.”

A few moments later another person entered.

“Alan! Keith Richards. Get a picture!”

“Come  on… he can’t be Richards,” I said. “He’s too small and he looks like a caricature. These must be body-doubles intended to distract us. The Stones must be coming in another entry.”

A third person came through the door. “Hi Charlie,” the guy next to me called out.

I turned to Linda. “It is Charlie Watts…. Nobody else looks like he does.”

“Of course it is,” she said, “and you didn’t get any pictures!”

Mick Jagger followed, also smaller than I expected. It was then that I realized that my archetypical prototype of a rock-and-roll star was that these larger-than-life personas would be a traveling spectacle, impressive in physical stature, dodging a frenzy of fans. I was wrong.

Classical Greek thinkers like Plato asserted that all things have a set of characteristics that give them their essence. This mode of ideological thought leads to a philosophy of essentialism concluding that every thing is definable by its fixed prime example. The prototype leads to an archetype. To Plato, “a rabbit is a rabbit is a rabbit.” There is not such a thing as rabbit-ness. Plato denied that there are many ways to describe the characteristics of a rabbit. The archetypes that we behold vary, depending on our experiences and background. Nonetheless, most of us have Greek essentialism burned into our cultural psyche. We seek quintessence in all aspects of life.

I once considered The Rolling Stones’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” as representative of perfection in its original composition. Other bands’ attempts to cover the song seemed poor renditions, and an affront to my sensibilities. The same held true for the complete Beatles library. How could any band play an acceptable version of “Eight Days a Week” or “Eleanor Rigby”? Yet, in spite of this bias, I have heard many interpretations of these songs—some instrumental, others vocal, many blending music genres— that have been more than pleasing to my taste.

We look for expressions of perfection in our daily lives. A quick survey of my satellite television programming shows no fewer than 10 stations dedicated to our search for archetypes—channels that program the latest fashion, home, health, and fitness trends.

Television also provides a framework for political discourse. Politicians exploit a perceived desire to find an archetype of the most-common American. Some politicians assert that they alone know and draw the support of the “real Americans.” Political pundits and politicians pinpoint the attributes of people we should try to be like. Most of the time the characteristics are biased, exaggerated, or beyond our understanding.

We are attracted to archetypes because of our world-view. Yet, Heraclitus, another classical Greek scholar, believed that nothing is fixed, that all is fluid. Following his philosophy, our common concepts of archetypes should change through enlightenment. It follows that our interpretive field should reflect this fluidity.

Programs require constant scrutiny by people who have an understanding of future audience demographic shifts and are trained to seek innovative ways to interpret the resources. Managers and planners must be willing, regardless of costs, to make continuous changes to programs so that the interpretation reflects evolving paradigms. Diligent reflection will help us continue to renew our standards of excellence through recognizing our tendencies to create archetypes.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

Sharing the Ignorance

By
Legacy
Published: December 6, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , , , , , , , ,

leftridgeby Alan Leftridge

Nicole frowned. I could see her displeasure with unfolding events.

“What are you thinking?”

She declared, “The guide has lost control; he has turned his presentation over to the audience. I guess that is easy to do when not sure of your material.”

We blended into the bulk of tourists and followed the guide toward the next stop, Crystal Lake. Soon, we broke into a meadow and one of the visitors spoke out, “Look, a field of lovely purple flowers.” The interpreter halted and turned toward the group and said, “As beautiful as the flowers appear, they do not belong here. These are spotted knapweed, an exotic plant whose seeds were accidently brought into the country from Europe in the late 1800s. The knapweed crowds out native species because it is poisonous to other plants, allowing the weed to spread rapidly in open fields.”

A visitor declared, “I think the seeds came here as stuffing in the saddles of conquistadors. It got released when the saddles tore open.”

“Yes. Yes…yes,” echoed throughout the group, as some people who had heard a similar story openly agreed.

Another visitor observed, “The meadow is completely covered, the knapweed has taken over.”

The interpreter replied, “Like many exotics, it does not have a natural control—nothing eats it, and no fungus kills it. The knapweed crowds out the native plants.”

“It’s an example of Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest,’” a person to the right declared.

“Exactly,” said the guide.

I could see by the head nods that most everyone in the group agreed—except for Nicole and me. Looking my way, she said, “That does it, I’ve got to say something.” Addressing everyone, she broke in with, “Excuse me, but Darwin did not coin the phrase “survival of the fittest,” Herbert Spencer introduced it. He extended Darwin’s theory of natural selection into realms of sociology and ethics. Survival of the fittest was used to justify Social Darwinism.” The guide looked blank, and by the sound of shuffling feet I could tell the group was ready to move on to Crystal Lake. The matter was dropped, but Nicole remained agitated.

We lagged behind the group absorbed in our thoughts when she muttered, “Knapweed seeds in conquistadors’ saddles, ‘survival of the fittest,’ they are just sharing the ignorance.”

I laughed, for I had not heard that phrase applied for several years. I recalled hearing it when I was still teaching in academia and as a member of the university-wide curriculum committee, we approved new class applications. Courses were proposed in traditional instructional formats: lectures, lecture/discussions, labs, recitations, fieldwork experiences, or seminars. Committee members had a strong bias against seminars—a process that relied on the students providing much of the content under the leadership of a faculty member. In practice, little-involved or less-concerned faculty would allow students to run the classes. The students would provide virtually all the instruction, based on their explorations of the topics. Sharing their findings was effective when the students were knowledgeable and expressive; when not, they were “sharing the ignorance.” This is what Nicole was responding to, the spreading of information that has not been vetted.

What encourages spreading misinformation? One trait is our desire to accept statements made by family, friends, and colleagues as fact, because we hold those people in high regard. Another is our dependence on the Internet. Online encyclopedias and dedicated websites may not be subject to peer review or authoritative examination. Misinformation abounds. Also, the proliferation of cable and satellite TV stations that depend on entertainment for news programs do not always provide reality. This is accentuated by the trend towards dogmatic TV and radio news programs. Programs that are founded on fundamental biases eclipse their ability to report evenhanded information. Finally, and perhaps most notable, is our inability to apply critical-thinking skills when confronted with additional information. The pace of our society does not inspire us to evaluate the quality of the knowledge we receive. We have little time to process information and determine its value. As a result, we often turn to information sources to which we are devoted, and ignore the breadth and extent of multiple resources.

What must we do to assure that we are providing accurate interpretation? Certainly, we cannot conduct empirical research on every issue. However, we can be scholars in our own resource area. We can seek credible sources of information and use critical-thinking skills to rebuff misinformation. The public deserves programs, websites, panels, and exhibits crafted by authorities of their resources, and interpreters with excellent communications skills. Otherwise, we might just be sharing the ignorance.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

Tourists

By
Legacy
Published: October 11, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , ,

leftridgeby Alan Leftridge

“From where are you moving?” the bank officer asked while fumbling with papers. Her desk nameplate said grace.

“Ohio.”

“What part?”

“North of Cincinnati, the town of Oxford.”

“Oh…I’ve never been to Ohio. In fact, the farther east I have been is to Redding [150 miles away] to visit my brother.”

Grace paused to think while biting on her lower lip. After several long, drawn-out moments she smiled, “And the farthest south I’ve been is to go shopping in Santa Rosa [220 miles away]. Many times, actually, during the holiday seasons.”

Another pause, and more thinking as she collected her thoughts, her eyes fixed on some object on the wall across the lobby. “I went north to Crescent City [75 miles away] for vacation once.”

Then with a big grin, “And, I’ve been to the ocean [west two miles away] several times…mostly when I was a child, though.”

She must have read my dismayed look, and continued, “Traveling has not been that important to me, I suppose. All my life I’ve been content to stay around home here in northern California. Maybe when I retire I’ll get the urge. Now how much do you want to deposit into your new checking account?”

It may be hard to believe the truth of this story during the height of the tourist season when the highways are congested, the accommodations are jam-packed, the restaurants are crowded, and long lines form at park entrance kiosks. It seems that everyone must be traveling. I learned many years ago a fact that holds true today: Most people stay close to home and don’t explore the world around them.

A friend recounts a story of an elder Hawaiian man he met near Waialua Bay on Oahu. The man offered that he had never in his 70 years been to the other side of the island. When asked why not, he replied, “Why would I? Everything I need or want is here.” The stories of Grace and the Hawaiian reinforce the impression that some people choose not to travel for leisure.

A similar story comes to mind about the day my fourth-grade class visited the Kansas City Museum. Our teacher, Mrs. Sprague, gathered us on the front steps and with a wave of her hand directed our attention to the residence across the street.

“The neighbor who lives in that house has resided there all of her life, and she has never visited this museum.” I don’t know why she told us that or how she knew that information, but that declaration, true or otherwise, affected me ever after. I decided I was not going to be like that neighbor; I was going to experience what was around me and, if possible, go to places far, far away.

You may have heard the saying, “Everybody hates a tourist.” Some critics declare that destination-oriented travelers do not want to take the time to enjoy the ambiance of the places they are passing through. It’s as if they are trying to get someplace else that they think is going to be more enjoyable. Maybe it’s because they fear that somewhere, at that moment, somebody is having more fun than they are, and they must get to their destination in order to start enjoying themselves, as well.

We often malign tourists. The irony is that all of us are tourists outside the immediate boundaries of our own lives. Even when we travel for leisure, we cannot help but speculate how the locals manage. (How do these people make a living? What do they do for fun? Why would anyone want to live here?) We try to get a taste of local life. Although we will never know what it is like to live in these places, our world is enlarged by the brief encounters. Travel expands our circle of understanding, opportunities for enlightenment, and compassion for others. We return home re-created.

Acknowledging the benefits of our own leisure travel experiences should help us temper any antipathy we may have towards other tourists. They may think they are merely traveling through communities seeking their leisure destination, but in a real sense they cannot help but be changed by the totality of the experience.

Not long ago, while navigating the sidewalks of the Arcata city plaza, I was caught with, “Well, hello there!” directed at me. It was Grace. I had not seen her since the bank many years before. A gleeful expression beamed from her face as she waved a piece of paper. “It’s my AAA travel itinerary,” she declared. “I am retired and I am going to see the rest of the world. I may even tour the wonders of Ohio.”

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

Connections

By
Legacy
Published: August 1, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , , ,

by Alan Leftridge

leftridge“I have a gift for you.”

I am fortunate that during my training seminars I have the prospect of learning ideas and techniques from the participants. During introductions, I challenge the participants to relate one thing about themselves that no one else in the group knows. Even long-time acquaintances are eager to share something new, and the stories are enlightening and often amusing. It was at a recent training when a member introduced himself and demonstrated a good example of making intellectual and emotional connections.

“My story begins with my great-great-great-grandfather, who at 10 years old accompanied his father to Philadelphia in the spring of 1862. Abraham Lincoln happened to be in Philadelphia, too.”

He scanned the group and challenged us to recall the magnitude of Lincoln’s presidency and tumultuous times.

“By chance, they encountered Lincoln in central Philadelphia. The father, anxious to give his son a chance to meet the president, approached him. The father introduced himself and his son, and they both shook Lincoln’s hand.”

He continued, “The story shifts to 40 years later when the boy, now a man, is congratulating his own son who is graduating from law school. ‘My son,’ he solemnly declared, ‘I have a gift to go along with my best wishes.’ He reached out and shook his son’s hand. ‘You have now shaken the hand that shook Abraham Lincoln’s.’ Since that day, the tradition stayed in the family, with each father passing along his gift to the next generation.”

He looked around the room again, “And so it was, when I finished college, my father presented me with the gift of the handshake. Now, I want to shake each of your hands, so that you too will have shaken the hand of the man, who shook the hand of the man, who shook the hand of the man, who shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln.”

Everyone in the seminar was delighted with his story, and I was impressed with how he connected our cognitive perceptions of Abraham Lincoln with a personal emotion.

Most frontline and nonpersonal interpretation is geared toward imparting information through words. We find it easy to construct these concrete interpretive messages because our formal schooling emphasizes and rewards acquisition of information and logic. As a result, interpreters often forgo attempting to establish meanings through emotion.

Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1981 for discovering that each hemisphere of the brain “thinks” in a different way. The left side processes written and spoken information, words, and logic. The right side of the brain establishes meanings through visualization, creativity, and emotion. Acknowledging the importance of the two ways of processing information helps us design more complete interpretive opportunities. Here is another example of making connections using the intellectual and emotional parts of the brain.

Although the calendar declares it is springtime, I acknowledge spring’s arrival with the return of broad-tailed hummingbirds. Broad-tailed hummingbirds are fascinating to me for several reasons, including: they hunt insects in flight, they will return to my property and use the same nest as last year, and they winter as far south as Guatemala. Traveling to and from Guatemala requires some of these finger-length birds weighing little more than a penny to cross part of the Gulf of Mexico. Once they begin that segment of the flight, there is no turning back. The birds must make the long trip without stopping. They often bunch along the coastline waiting for barometric pressure and weather conditions to be favorable, and then leave in mass. A mistake could bring peril. A human analogy might be when you need to make a long trip in your car while on a tight schedule. You start the engine, look at the gas gauge and calculate whether you have enough fuel to arrive at your destination without stopping for gas. You determine that you can, but without total certainty. What if you run out of gas on a deserted stretch of road? Are you willing to face the consequences of an empty tank?

Hummingbirds may not feel a sense of anxiety over their situation, but you can when you consider your own. Through personification, you can apply feelings about your situation to the birds’—and feel emotion for the difficulty they face. By providing new information concerning the broad-tailed hummingbird, I have provoked the opportunity for you to make both an intellectual connection (imagine the weight and length of the bird) and an emotional connection (applying its migration to a travel situation familiar to you).

We interpreters want to help visitors make connections that will last a lifetime. The catch is that in order to get the most from the brain, we need to target both sides. Coupling feelings with information strengthens the cognitive and emotive capabilities of the brain, providing a better opportunity for us to meet our interpretive goals.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

Assumptions

By
Legacy
Published: June 2, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Alan Leftridge

leftridgeWe were skimming the treetops, searching for an updraft to lift the Cessna 172 to a better altitude for viewing the surroundings. Joe had offered me a ride in his airplane and I was excited to get an airborne view of my home and immediate valley. I was watching the treetops pass just below my feet when I was attracted to the sound of wind rushing by Joe’s open window, and of Joe swatting at a small bee with a folded map. A few moments passed and he forced the bee out. Closing the window, he handed me the map and exclaimed, “I don’t want to be distracted at a critical moment.” Startled, I shot back, “There’s going to be a critical moment?”

Joe shrugged and instructed me to open the map. It was an aviation map with unfamiliar lines and circles. “I’m leaving for Minneapolis in the morning,” I heard him say through my headphones. “I need to get fuel before I leave. Look on the map and tell me how to get to St. Ignatius.”

I looked at him with bewilderment, and then motioned, “It’s… on the other side of that mountain range!”

“Yeah, I thought so. Tell me the route to get over the range.”

Joe had just appointed me navigator.

We tried to cross over the mountains three times before we gained enough altitude to skim through a pass. I glanced at the fuel gage, shuddered, and then spotted St. Ignatius on the horizon.

My condition appeared like the story line of Gilligan’s Island. I thought I was on a tour, but I ended up in a different state of affairs. My mistake was that I misidentified why Joe was willing to take me on a flight. I wanted sightseeing, whereas he expected a navigator.

As interpreters, we often misidentify what people are looking for. Working day in and day out at our sites, we develop assumptions based on patterns of visitors’ behavior and what we believe the purpose of our site to be. The assumptions may be old or totally out of line with visitors’ changing interests.

I recall visiting a new nature center and asking the interpreter at the information desk about their attendance record. She related the short history of their facility and surrounding grounds this way:

“The center was built three years ago. We thought that visitors would flock to us because the center was new, and an addition to local educational and outdoor leisure opportunities. It didn’t happen. So, we advertised on the radio and used other communications venues with public service announcements; still no interest. Then, someone from the parks department said they wanted to store their excess picnic tables behind the nature center. Instead of storing them, we responded by arranging them on the grassy area in front of the center. To our surprise, we had whole groups of people coming for family outings, picnicking and enjoying the grassy open space. Some of the people would wander into the center out of curiosity. That’s when we began to get ‘visitors.’”

She continued, “We realized that the demographic was different than we thought. We knew that our community was family oriented, but we didn’t understand its multi-generational composition. Grandparents, parents, and young children were coming into the center in family groups. This provided the challenge of developing interpretation in which older family members taught younger, and younger taught older. It has provided a richness in our interpretation that we didn’t anticipate three years ago.”

I think it is sensible to consider what our intuition tells us about our visitors and what they want. Our instincts into what visitors are seeking are easy to come by; just think of what we look for during our leisure time away from home.

For the most part, we seek for relaxing experiences that involve quality recreational activities in places that are not over-run with other visitors. We like places that offer a wide variety of activities that are enjoyable to get to by car, by way of good roads. Once we get to a destination, we expect a safe experience at clean, well-maintained, accessible facilities. We want convenient and easy-to-find resources and, when necessary, information about lodging and good food. Weather is a constant interest. An accurate weather forecast helps us make last minute decisions. After all, our holiday time is limited; we want to know if the weather is going to cooperate as we seek adventurous fun, scenic views, or favorable conditions for our activities of choice.

We also desire learning through personal or nonpersonal interpretation. Quite possibly, it is the opportunities for the unexpected that affect us the most, whether it is viewing wildlife uncommon to us, happening upon rare natural wonders, or being enlightened by a new perspective of a culture or historical event.

Every tourist season presents us with new visitors’ interests and needs, ones that evolve due to societal events. By imagining ourselves as visitors and considering contemporary social pressures, we can anticipate what people are seeking. This helps us prepare our messages to meet our visitors’ needs.

I made a false assumption on the day of the airplane flight, that Joe was going to take me sightseeing. If I had anticipated the possibilities before we taxied, I might have asked the right questions and learned that he wanted to refuel, leading to my unexpected adventure. The knowledge would have given me the opportunity to prepare.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

A True Legacy

By
Legacy
Published: March 21, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Alan Leftridge
March/April 2009

leftridge“How is your training program constructed?” I inquired.

Anna looked at me quizzically, and declared, “We don’t have a formal training program. New people are ‘taken under the wing’ of an experienced guide and shown how to give the tours. We then continue to work closely, sharing ideas and techniques.”

I expected Anna to detail an intricate, structured interpretive training program. Instead, she told me that none existed. In fact, none had existed in the 28-year history of the museum.

I wondered: Where did Anna acquire her interpretive abilities? Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, points out that successful people have life histories involving luck, opportunity, and people who offer them critical developmental stimulation. Anna’s 40-minute tour was one of the most informative, interpretive, and entertaining programs I had experienced. On the surface, it seemed reasonable to think that she had years of formal training as a frontline interpreter. Anna had not. Instead, she and the other 30 staff interpreters trained one another through informal mentoring, with more experienced guides sharing with newcomers their techniques.

Mentoring facilitates creative renewal of the profession. Director Steven Spielberg reinforced Gladwell’s thesis when he paid tribute to his mentors at the 2009 Golden Globe Awards where he received the prestigious C.B. DeMille Award. Spielberg declared, “None of the movies that I’ve made throughout my whole life would have been possible…without somebody first believing in me, and I really believe that being a mentor to talented newcomers is a very time-honored tradition.”

A mentor might be an advisor, a trusted friend, an acquaintance, a teacher, or a colleague. A mentor bestows a legacy—a lasting gift to a patron.

Take a moment to recall the people in your life who helped you become who you are: your mentors.

Mentors give several advantages to the interpretive profession, to interpretive programs, and to interpreters themselves. Individual interpreters benefit as their mentors help them develop research competence and communication skills. It is an advantage for younger interpreters to learn how to conduct deep research about their resource, and learn tried-and-true ways to convey a subject to multiple audiences.

Mentors themselves find intrinsic rewards by sharing their knowledge, skills, and techniques with less experienced interpreters. Mentors delight in passing along best practices to those who want to learn. Spielberg affirmed that he honored the opportunity to mentor others “beyond all else.”

The process of mentoring provides professional continuity as interpreters work together toward common goals, considering new ideas, developing skills, and sharing their talents. The process binds interpretation into a more cohesive profession.

Furthermore, the mentoring process carries forward institutional knowledge as more experienced staff members share the chronology of events and decisions that built the interpretive program. This sharing provides an outline of how the institution, as well as the profession, functions. Also, the mentoring process encourages professional development among staff members. Mentors help their partners find new source materials and suggest training opportunities.

There are two types of mentoring relationships: formal and informal. Informal relationships develop on their own between individuals. Partners may be friends, a parent and a child, a teacher and a student, or two co-workers. Anna was trained as a guide in an informal mentoring environment, co-worker to co-worker. Informal relationships evolve as staff members become acquainted with each other and help is requested or offered.

Many organizational managers understand the value of mentoring and have institutionalized the process by way of a formal program. Formal mentoring is an assigned relationship associated with an organizational training program that is designed to promote employee development. Formal programs have goals, objectives, and training strategies. Tangible incentives are awarded for meeting goals in prescribed time-frames. One advantage of formal mentoring is that it encourages investment in the process, thereby strengthening relationships, results, and the institution.

Whether formal or informal, we have all benefitted from the process—as a mentee and as a mentor, too. I am confident you can remember when a parent, colleague, or friend shared his or her enthusiasm and knowledge for the natural or cultural world. Whether you are aware or not, you may be serving as a mentor to someone, right now. That’s what interpreters do. Imagine if you made it intentional. That is how your legacy is carried forward.

Dr. Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana.

Balance

By
Legacy
Published: February 1, 2009Posted in: The InterpreterTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Alan Leftridge
January/February 2009

leftridgeI was happy with the campfire program I had conducted. By reading the postures and the facial expressions of my audience, I knew they had been engaged. I felt justified to be proud of my presentation as the visitors began exiting the amphitheater. At least a dozen people approached to thank me, another group huddled around me asking questions and commenting. Then, off to my left, I overheard a woman reporting to her husband as she walked away, “He sounded just like a teacher.”

I was deflated. While I was a teacher by profession through most of the year, I wanted to be recognized as an interpreter during the summer season. I felt I had succeeded in making the transition. After the visitors left to return to their campsites, I turned to my companion, who also heard the comment, and asked, “What did she mean?”

“You asked too many questions,” was the response. “Teachers often overuse questions as a technique to structure a lesson.”

My use of questioning strategies was open to debate, but the debate did not matter. What mattered to me was the comment, which I took as a criticism. Even considering all the positive feedback, I could not shake the impact of the statement as I packed my campfire-program belongings to return home. I discussed the episode with some friends, and they reminded me that several visitors approached me with strong positive comments. Why would one criticism cancel all of the positive remarks?

It does not seem rational to focus on negative remarks at the expense of the positive. In fact, most of us do. We might conduct a great program, design a wonderful panel, or craft a superlative web site, but it can take just one negative remark to color the perceptions of our performance. One person’s disapproval of our work may have a lasting impact. It seems to be human nature to discount positive responses, focusing instead on the minority of negative comments. This introduces self-doubt. How do we learn to process feedback that produces emotional responses, in a productive way?

Pop-music icon Frank Sinatra recorded “My Way,” suggesting that he sought affirmation from no one but himself. I have never met an interpreter who is that self-assured. Everyone I know would be dejected if the group they looked to most for confirmation rejected their interpretation in total. Interpreters look for positive responses from four origins: visitors, peers, supervisors, and mentors. These foundations are not mutually exclusive. The affirmations we are looking for come from a combination of the sources, though one may be dominant.

There are good reasons to evaluate visitors’ outlying comments with caution. Most interpretation takes place where visitors elect to participate. That does not mean they are happy to be there. Troublesome travel itineraries, stressful family dynamics, and nagging travel discomforts sometimes affect visitor experiences. The frontline interpreter can be the unwitting target of discontent. It is important to remember, too, that the visitor is not the expert on your narrative. The small minority who voice criticism may not be the most qualified to assess any interpretive effort. You and your interpretive team are the experts.

Continually modifying programs to meet the challenges of far-flung negative visitor comments can cause programs to suffer. This can begin an ill-advised pattern of making changes to meet minority interests, at the expense of maintaining the good structural elements of the presentations. In time, programs take on the defensive characteristics of just addressing criticisms.

The people who should be the experts about your narrative, and know how to artfully communicate the story to visitors, are your peers, mentors, and sometimes your supervisors. A mentor has an intimate understanding of your purpose and how to communicate it with diverse audiences. A mentor is your closest ally, and, by virtue of being a supportive colleague, has the responsibility of giving valid feedback.

I learned a lesson at that campfire program 20 years ago—to be attentive to how I choose questions in frontline and non-personal interpretation. From that night forward, I also began to realize that, while negative visitor comments should be considered, the people best qualified to provide constructive feedback are those in our own profession who are most familiar with the narrative. Finally, I learned that knowledge of the resource, honoring audiences’ interests, and applying interpretive skills builds confidence. It is confidence that helps us place into balance the minority of negative comments we sometimes receive.