Social Impact

I was somewhat familiar with the supports provided for guests with these needs, such as sensory kits and the use of fidget toys, thanks to articles and webpages I had stumbled across when independently researching access tools for museums. These kits and fidgets provide outlets for visitors to self-regulate when they become overwhelmed in the gallery, helping them avoid overstimulation. With my basic knowledge of how these tools could benefit the students we work with, I knew this would be a great project to take on, hopefully improving the way we welcome students of all abilities at the museum. However, my understanding of these tools only really began to solidify through conversations I had with various stakeholders involved in accessibility at cultural institutions around NYC. 

Prior to meeting with these stakeholders, I prepared a set of questions to ask them, focusing on their experiences implementing accessibility supports at their respective institutions. Over the course of six months, I met with eight access workers and learned about the successes and challenges they face in their work, as well as the strategies they employ to make museums more accessible. What I gathered from these meetings was that, first and foremost, there is a lot of incredible and unique work being done across NYC by stakeholders who are deeply invested in making museums, libraries, and theaters accessible to everyone. I also recognized that, while many institutions are constantly innovating and creating new ways to welcome guests of all abilities, they are often adapting and implementing existing accessibility supports to meet their institution’s needs. One such support that was used by the majority of stakeholders I spoke to was the sensory kit. 

Through these conversations, I got to see and hear about the different fidgets and supports included in these kits as well as the strategies different institutions have used to make them available to the public. After completing these conversations with stakeholders, I went forward and continued to look more into sensory kits and all that they may include, deciding on three different types of fidgets, noise-cancelling headphones, and disposable earplugs. When I felt I had enough information and a solid list of fidgets, I went ahead and proposed my idea to upper management within the Education Department and received the go-ahead to not only order the necessary materials, but also to bring them onto the floor to test. 

For the month of August 2025, I took the lead in testing these supports. There were no tours that I focused on in particular, but rather, I focused on the age range. I opted to introduce these supports to elementary school and middle school age students, as, in my experience, these two age groups often struggle the most with staying engaged throughout content-heavy field trips. To introduce the fidgets, I let students know at the beginning of the field trip that I had fidgets available for them to use, should they choose to take one at any point. In this moment, I also told students how to use them and what would happen if they were seen misusing them anywhere in the museum. While I tried to maintain some structure throughout this process, it was difficult to remain consistent as I had no planned procedure prior to beginning my testing. Looking back, I recognize that this was due to a gap in my own knowledge about how fidgets could work in a field trip setting, as well as a departmental need to test these supports before the start of the school year in September.

  After my field trips for the month of August were complete, I took the time to reflect on the varying degrees of success I encountered. Over the course of this slower summer month, I taught four field trips during which fidget toys were introduced to students between the ages of 5-14. Looking back on how students engaged with these supports, I felt incredibly proud that I had seemed to foster a space where learners not only had different resources available to them, but also felt comfortable enough to ask to use them. 

Largely, students seemed to enjoy having the fidgets available and had the agency to either pick one up if they realized later that they would benefit, or put them back if they were not in need of a fidget. Getting students to feel comfortable in a museum setting is sometimes difficult, so I considered it a major success that the learners I worked with felt empowered enough to make decisions based on what they believed would help them most. And while there were great successes such as this, I also recognized that some aspects of this testing period did not work as well.

For example, some younger students struggled to remember the rules for safely using the fidgets and needed redirection, while others had them taken away altogether. Another problem that I noticed across field trips had less to do with the learners’ ages, and more to do with the structure of the trips. Of the four tours I was able to test fidgets on, two took place in an exhibition about graffiti in NYC, and the other two took place on a field trip focused on a century-old dollhouse in MCNY’s collection. Unlike some of our other, more content-heavy trips, these two experiences are much more hands-on and provide students with in-gallery activities to complete. Not only did this mean there was less of a need for fidgets as students were more consistently engaged and/or moving around, but it also meant that the addition of fidgets actually made it more difficult for them to complete their tasks, as it was another thing they had to carry from stop to stop.

When I first reported the findings of my experiment to my managers, I felt ashamed that a project I was so passionate about had produced less-than-stellar results. For many weeks after the fact, I wanted to move forward and forget that I had, in my eyes, failed. Two months after my testing had completed, I organized a training session for MCNY’s educators to learn more about preventing sensory overwhelm in gallery spaces,to be led by fellow access worker, Anna Martin. During this training, Anna explained her approach to using fidget toys on field trips, in which she empowers teachers to make decisions based on what they know about their students. This made me realize that while I wanted students to feel comfortable asking for fidgets, I gave them too much freedom without first consulting with the teacher to see if they believed their group could handle it. Rather than announce them to the students, I should have connected with the teacher at the beginning of the field trip to give them the agency in deciding how and when the fidgets are handed out. 

I also learned from Anna that even with the teacher’s knowledge at our disposal, there is always a chance that students will not use them properly and will have them taken away. Anna encouraged us to view these experiments not as failures, but rather as opportunities for learning. The very act of introducing these fidgets to students on a field trip is a success, as it means that the work put in behind the scenes manifested into something palpable for guests to engage with. In my final year as an FAO Fellow, I aim to continuously reframe less-than-desirable outcomes into opportunities for growth, furthering my understanding that small steps with setbacks are better than no steps at all.