13-Year-Old West Hartford Student Tells Metropolitan: 'Your Map Is Wrong'

[SoCalDem]

http://www.courant.com/community/west-hartford/hc-west-hartford-coady-museum-20120502,0,4394350.story


During a September visit to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, 13-year-old Benjamin Lerman Coady noticed an error in one of it maps of the Justinian conquests. He notified the staff and in January he received a letter from Dr. Helen Evans the museum's Mary and Michael Jaharis curator for Byzantine art (shown with him here) notifying him that he was correct in his assertion and the map would be updated. (na, hc / May 2, 2012)


By AMANDA FALCONE, [e-mail] The Hartford Courant

10:10 p.m. EDT, May 2, 2012
WEST HARTFORD ——

Every so often, a visitor at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City questions the accuracy of an exhibit, but Helen Evans, one of the museum's curators, says not all of them are right.

Benjamin Lerman Coady, however, was.

Benjamin, 13, of West Hartford, is a seventh-grader at Renbrook School. Fascinated by history, he reads ahead in his textbooks. His mother sees his passion for the past and tries to provide an environment where Benjamin feels free to explore his interests. That's how mother and son ended up at The Metropolitan Museum of Art last summer.

snip

Benjamin wasn't quite sure what to expect at the art museum. He and his mother had visited the American Museum of Natural History a few times, but the Metropolitan was a new experience. Benjamin said he thought he'd see "just art on a wall." He said he quickly learned that The Metropolitan is about more than just paintings — it's also about history. While touring the museum, Benjamin and his mother stopped to look at the permanent exhibit about the Byzantine Empire — a part of history Benjamin had just studied in school.

A map of the empire in the 6th century was on display, and Benjamin said he immediately began to check the dates. The map was supposed to show when the empire was at its largest, but Spain and part of Africa were missing, he said. Benjamin told a museum docent about his observation, who instructed him to fill out a form at the front desk. "The front desk didn't believe me," he said, explaining that he never expected to hear back from the museum. "I'm only a kid." In September, he received a letter from the museum's senior vice president for external affairs. It said that his comments were being forwarded to the museum's medieval art department for further review.

A few months later — in January, Evans, the museum's Mary and Michael Jaharis curator for Byzantine art, sent Benjamin an email: "You are, of course, correct about the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian," she wrote.

snip

[malaise]

1. Very cool

Bravo Benjamin!!

[Justice wanted]

2. BRAVO!!! Perhaps we are seeing the Future Indiana Jones.

[gratuitous]

3. So, who did the Metropolitan blame?

Some lowly staffer? President Obama? Some obscure legislation from the Nixon administration? What? They simply acknowledged their error, made the correction, and thanked Master Coady for pointing it out? How does that work?

Well done, Benjamin. Well done, Metropolitan.

[SoCalDem]

4. When I was in the finals of the State Spelling Bee (7th grade), I found a misspelled word

in the instruction booklet. I pointed it out to them and we all had a good laugh.. Needless to say, I did not win, or I would be totally rich & famous today...and I am not

[LASlibinSC]

5. Justinian...wwhhaaat?

Good on ya, Benjamin! Keep it up, women love smart guys!

[LibertyLover]

6. I love the Met -

al thought in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I worked there for 5 years, so I'm a bit biased. The curators were wonderful and always ready to talk about their treasures, even with a lowly Senior Administrative Assistant. I worked for the Controller and each month had to deliver the budget printouts to department offices. It was a wonderful couple of hours. You wouldn't believe were some of the curatorial offices were located. The best part was when I got to use my keys to open a door that the public wasn't allowed to use so I could get to the back areas to deliver stuff. Once, a group of tourons tried to follow me and had to be stopped by a guard. Guard: "I'm very sorry but you can't go in there." Touron: "But that woman just did." Guard: "She works here, has an ID card and she has a key." Touron: "Oh." Ah, good times. Best directions I ever got for finding an office: "Just turn left at the turkey." The door to European Sculpture and Decorative Arts' office was in one of their galleries. To find it you turned left at the vitrine with the life-sized porcelain turkey tureen.

[SoCalDem]

7. We used to tell people to turn left at the Giant pig on a pole

Piggly Wiggly

[LibertyLover]

8. Oh that is too funny!

[Jim Lane]

11. Is "touron" what museum staffers call visitors? From tourist + moron? (n/t)

[LibertyLover]

13. Oh lord no -

we were never that polite about visitors! Actually I got that word, and you are correct in its derivation by the way, from a person I knew who worked for the US National Park Service ( - go figure).

[Odin2005]

9. Smart kid, reminds me of myself at that age!

[mainer]

10. I'm just as impressed by the Met for listening

Good for them, being willing to hear him out, and admit there was an error.

[JI7]

12. good for him