I am Dolores Quintana
Un poco sobre mí
Where I've worked
Head of Learning Museu del Carme
- Run all schools, family and access programming for a city museum with about 190,000 visitors a year.
- Rebuilt the schools offer around three age bands instead of one; bookings went from 4,100 to 11,600 pupils a year.
- Started a free Saturday session for families in the two neighbourhoods the museum had never reached. It runs at capacity most weeks.
- Manage four educators and a rotating bench of eleven freelance facilitators.
Learning consultant Independent
- Designed family programmes and gallery activities for four regional museums and a science centre.
- Wrote the label-writing guide that two of them still use.
Early-years teacher CEIP Sant Joan
- Class teacher, ages four to six, up to 26 children.
- Ran the school's outdoor learning programme and the annual trip nobody else wanted to organise.
- Six years of learning that a plan surviving first contact with a Tuesday afternoon is a good plan.
Teaching assistant Escola Bressol La Mar
Nursery room, ages two to three. Where I learned to sit on the floor and stop announcing things.
Things I made
Hands On
Permanent handling gallery
A room of real objects children are allowed to pick up, with replicas only where the insurer insisted. Took two years to get approved and eleven weeks to build. Average dwell time is 24 minutes, which is longer than anywhere else in the building.
Sábados Abiertos
Free family programme
Free drop-in Saturday sessions with a bus route paid for by the museum. Started with nine families in the first month and now turns people away. The bus was the whole trick.
quintanalearning.example/sabadosShort Words
Label-writing guide
A twelve-page guide for curators on writing labels a nine-year-old can read without an adult. Mostly it is a list of words to stop using. Adopted by four museums so far.
The Travelling Suitcase
Loan boxes for schools
Six themed object boxes that go out to schools that cannot afford the coach fare. Booked solid two terms ahead; the ceramics box has been repaired four times, which I choose to read as success.
What I do
Learning design
Programme design, gallery activities, object handling, storytelling, outdoor learningPeople
Team leading, facilitator training, teacher liaison, volunteer coordinationAccess
SEND provision, relaxed openings, multilingual sessions, low-cost outreachLanguages
Spanish (native), Valencian (native), English (fluent)Studied at
Universitat de València
MA Museum Education & Heritage Interpretation
Part-time, while teaching. Dissertation on museum anxiety in first-time family visitors.
Universitat de València
Grado en Maestro de Educación Infantil
Kind words
Dolores argued for two years that we should let children touch things. She was right, our conservator is still speaking to her, and it is now the busiest room we have.
She is the only museum person who has ever asked me what my class was actually studying before telling me what the visit would be.
My son is autistic and we had stopped going to museums. The relaxed opening was the first time in three years he asked to stay longer.
Also
Premi Cultura Oberta
Regional award for cultural access
2024
For 'Sábados Abiertos'. The bus driver came to the ceremony.
Let Them Touch It
Talk, Spanish Museums Education Network
2023
Twenty minutes on why the handling gallery took two years to approve.
Facilitator training programme
Museu del Carme
2022 — Present
Two days, twice a year, for freelance facilitators. Thirty-eight people through it so far.