The Museum of Special Education in Levoča is a unique specialised institution, which was established thanks to the efforts to document the development of special education and special facilities in Slovakia. The museum has been in operation since November 1990 and is housed in a building in the historic core of the Levoča town conservation area. In May 2017, the museum opened its doors in renovated premises with new, innovative and modern exhibitions.
The Museum of Special Education in Levoča is a specialized museum with nationwide scope, with comprehensive documentation in the field of special education, special pedagogy and education of pupils with disabilities. It specializes in collecting, preserving, professionally evaluating, managing, using and making available material documents from the history of special education and the disabled.
The uniqueness of the museum, from its inception to the present, is that it charts the history of special education as a whole, particularly the four basic disabilities - visual, auditory, physical and mental disabilities.
The original exposition of the Levoca Museum presenting the history of special education in Slovakia has undergone a significant transformationwhich made it more attractive to the contemporary visitor.
The essence is an authentic and extraordinary experience. Visitors can try out the movement in the kitchen located in a dark chamber, simulating the home of a blind person who knows everything only through touch and sound. An oversized model of an ear, with an auricle almost 160 cm high, brings the functioning of human hearing closer.
All information to the exhibits are not only in Slovak, English and Braille. Visitors can also use the currently popular QR codes, which allow them to learn even more from their mobile phones or tablets. Deaf visitors can request a video guide in sign language.
The modern, interactive permanent exhibition is divided into four separate units: 1. History 2. Library and reading room 3. Learning aids 4. Human senses
It includes a special library with a study room with nearly four thousand book titles. The third section presents teaching aids used today and in the past by special school pupils with various kinds of handicaps. The tour ends in the largest section, dedicated to the human senses - of touch, sight, hearing and smell. The visitor gets to know the children in an interactive and fun way. Through questions and answers, it identifies individual smells, sounds or the contents of dark openings. He is aware of the uniqueness, functionality, importance of the human senses, but also of the experience, the situation if one of the senses is absent.
The museum also hosts various exhibitions, talks, theatre performances and creative workshops in which the main heroes are pupils of special schools in the region.
The Museum of Special Education in Levoča realizes its mission through activities:
- collecting,
- documentary-recording and protective,
- cultural-presentational,
- educational and counselling.
Currently the museum has:
- modern, interactive exhibition,
- Depository,
- archive of documentary materials,
- exhibition spaces,
- screening room.
Year 2020 is particularly special for the Museum of Special Education in Levoča. At the beginning of the year, it was awarded the title of the Best Cultural and Educational Facility of the Prešov Self-Governing Region for 2019, it has prepared a new offer of museum, experiential-educational programmes and in the autumn it is preparing an interesting tactile exhibition In the Footsteps of the Gothic Route.
SOURCE and PHOTO: Museum of Special Education in Levoča
