What is the political role of art education in rural communities?
Kate Baird is a museum educator at the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri. She is also a founder of Placeworks, which offers art residencies and field trips at no cost to participating...
View ArticleWhy are children’s museums museums? – Take 3
For the past few months I have been working an article related to children’s museums, and thinking a great deal about the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, when children’s museums transformed from...
View ArticleWhy visit childrens museums? Interview with Elizabeth Kaplan
Elizabeth Kaplan is a lawyer who lives in Louisville, Kentucky and a college friend of mine. When she visited Peoria recently I learned that she has taken her children to children’s museums all over...
View ArticleWhat is the role of objects in an institution committed to social justice?
Museum educator Andrea Jones writes a blog called Peak Lab Experience – a blog I highly recommend reading. Like many of her posts, Museums, Can We Stop Letting Objects Control The Narrative?, published...
View ArticleShould museums be storytellers or truth-tellers?
What do museums have to say about, or learn from, recent events in Charlottesville? Museum leaders and professionals have shared statements condemning and consoling, from their position as community...
View ArticleWhat is the job of a culturally-specific museum?
This post is by Janine Okmin, Associate Director of Education at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, where she develops resources for schools and teachers, and trains museum tour guides. Formerly the...
View ArticleCan Museums Be Neutral?
A few months ago, Mike Murawski, in partnership with LaTanya Autry of the Mississippi Museum of Art and The Empathetic Museum, created t-shirts to support a “Museums are not Neutral” campaign. Murawski...
View ArticleHow do we change a museum’s relationship with its building? Interview with...
Dr. Steven Snyder is the President & CEO for the Fleet Science Center in San Diego, CA. Since taking on the role in 2013, Steve has redefined the Fleet’s role, taking it from a science center in...
View ArticleDo museums have a responsibility to name and address issues of contemporary...
In the past few months, I’ve visited the museum Eastern State Penitentiary twice. The museum is exemplary for its excellent audio tour (which you can hear parts of here) and the way it incorporates art...
View ArticleHow Can Museums Help Visitors Effect Social Change?
Museums have long sought a role for themselves in changing our society. For example, art museums once aimed to acculturate the working class by fostering specific ideas about high art and high...
View Article