Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose

I do quite a bit of work with school kids; I run streamside hands-on events on water quality and watershed ecology. Sam Ham's book, Interpretation - Making a Difference on Purpose, focused my attention on the fact that, while the bodies of my audience are captive, their minds are not. Ham provides a very straightforward and clear explanation of how to teach and how to influence a group that is NOT captive in a school room and under the pressure of examinations and grades. The audiences that are addressed by historical site docents, park ranger naturalists, and other interpreters, are not captive; unlike students in a classroom, they are free to walk if the presentation doesn't interest them. The core of Ham's book is easily summarized: theme, organization, relevance, and enjoyment. A snappy, eye-catching theme piques the interest and curiosity of the group. A well-organized, clear presentation with a logical train of ideas makes it easy for the group to understand the concepts being presented. Making the material being presented relevant to the experiences and interests of the group keeps the group's attention focused and makes the material more memorable. And an enjoyable, entertaining presentation helps to keep minds (and bodies) from wandering off.Ham goes into detail, discussing the various objectives of the interpreter--provoking interest, teaching, enhancing an experience, entertaining, creating appreciative attitudes, and, sometimes, behavior modification. The book is well supplied with examples, both good and bad, to illustrate his points. And he makes extensive use of scientific findings on how we communicate, process information, and learn, and on what is likely to focus our attention and cause us to care.This book, while written for interpreters dealing with non-captive audiences-by-choice, is also quite relevant to those of us who deal with captive audiences. Our students' bodies may be captive, but their minds are certainly free to wander off. Thanks very much, Sam; I'm most grateful for your book. And, although the kids I'll be working with won't realize it, they should be grateful, too.

Working on real life sustainability related challenges, in a widely conservative community, it was extremely difficult to get our messages out in meaningful ways, to make a ‘real difference’ in the way people could think about and act within their homes, at work, in their community and in their environments so that our city could continue to develop to improve the way of life, and also help to preserve the natural environments that we value so dearly, yet often behave in the opposite direction.Our community has had the privilege of working with Sam over the past 5 years to not only learn Thematic Interpretation but to also adopt and practice applying his knowledge and achieving real outcomes in communicating about complex environmental challenges in ways that actually matter to residents, businesses, government and large industry in their everyday lives and business operations.We have now developed a ‘community of practice’ of sharing our own experiences and knowledge by provoking people to think deeply in positive ways, where they are changing their own behaviours, practicing new ones and becoming involved in community activities and communicating in new meaningful ways, and we credit this largely to the learning we have adopted from Sam’s work on Thematic Interpretation.When I read this new book, it was like I was instantly back listening and learning from Sam as though he was right back here coaching me. This book is as provocative, informative and easy to process as participating in one of Sam’s Thematic Interpretation workshops, and I take my hat off to him for producing such a valuable and important book that encapsulates an adaptive and replicable framework that we are not only practicing in our own community, but also now with our collaborations in other communities from my small home town in the country, to small villages in Fiji, to complex communities in Port Moresby, and now with the Bronx in New York.A great book that is practical and is being applied to make a real difference in our community.

In 1978, after a one-year hiatus from the University of Idaho College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Range Management, I changed my major from Forest Resource Management to Wildland Recreation Management in the Interpretation option. I had to choose a new adviser, and I picked Sam Ham (not yet Dr. Ham) out of the figurative hat. I was one of his earliest students. Little did I know he would become my mentor.Years later, Sam asked if I would review the early drafts of a book he was writing about interpretation. I of course accepted the honor. What immediately got and held my attention in those early chapters and the finished book was the non-academic tone of “Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose”. This is not a book, I thought, but rather an extended, printed conversation over a cup of coffee where one topic blends logically into another. There is not a drop of academia in this book outside of the requisite citations. It is a coherent compilation of ideas and concepts that may have been newly born or revisited with a different take when I was in his classes but are now time-tested and backed by research.In the course of learning and utilizing what Sam taught us about interpretation, I discovered strengths and talents I never would have guessed I had. I would wager that any reader of this book – from the neophyte like I was to the seasoned pro – will discover hidden strengths and talents as well and also enjoy the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards afforded by such discovery.Malcolm Montgomery, Washington State University

A great, up to date, book full of advice backed up by research for anyone involved in communication but especially heritage interpretation.

Sam Ham is an expert in his field and this is a must read for anyone who is into Environmental or Heritage Interpretation. There is nothing bad to be said about this book...except for the format.Instead of putting parenthetical citations in-text and putting foot notes at the bottom of the page, they opted for endnotes, presumably for the sake of the everyday Joe. So one has to flip to the end of the chapter repeatedly--sometimes more than 50 times in one chapter!I'd venture to guess this book is used largely by professionals and those with degrees in a related field. Why dumb it down for the layman?

This is a good book to read for anyone involved in interpretation and I highly recommend it. There are so many invaluable insights in this book. Dr. Ham expresses interpretation as a specialized form of communication which is both an art and science, following in the footsteps of Tilden Freeman. What I think is missing is a more in-depth discussion about understanding any interpretation as one point of view among many possible points of view, and that by nature interpretation is socially constructed, situational, multivalent and contested. Still, this book should be on every interpreter's bookshelf. It adds much to the craft of interpretation.

I purchased this book to improve upon my interpretation skills. I am very happy with this purchase.

Un libro esencial para todos los que trabajan en la interpretación del patrimonio natural y/o cultural. Después del grande suceso de “Interpretación Ambiental” esto libro de Sam Ham se dedica más a explicar los modernos conceptos de la interpretación y como estos se aplican en la misión de informar y educar visitantes.