What does a museum educator do? (And do we need them?)

A few weeks ago, a colleague told me that she is optimistic that her museum is becoming a truly educational institution. “And when that happens,” she said, “we’ll put ourselves out of business.” In other words, the purpose of a museum’s education department is to help keep the institution focused on its educational goals. In a museum in which everyone understands this educational focus, no education department would be necessary.

This statement captures critical tensions in the museum education field. Museums are focusing more on visitors, community, and participation; education departments are essential because educators have expertise and connections that help build a vibrant visitorship. But as museums play with staff structures (see, for example, restructuring of staff at the Oakland Museum of California), and begin to make the visitor experience a more central concern, what do educators have to offer? Could the greatest sign of success be irrelevance?

At the core of this quandary is the question: What does a museum educator do? Are museum educators program designers and teachers, who work with groups such as schools and families, turning the galleries into classrooms for select audiences? Are museum educators visitor advocates, representing the visitor on exhibition and program development teams, or during the redesign of museum spaces and amenities? Are educators a specialized team of marketers, who bring new visitors in to the museum, increasing the quantity and diversity of audiences? Are educators experts in creating engaging and participatory visitor experiences – and if so, what does that mean, and what do we gain (or lose) by turning from education to participation?

The museum education field is currently unsure about its primary role in museums. As Exhibit A, consider the varying titles held by the leadership of various education departments. (Selected institutions that use this title are listed in parenthesis; many of these titles come from recent job postings.)  The titles are important for two reasons. One reason is that they evidence the field’s struggle for vocabulary to define what it is museum educators do. The second reason is that these job titles may reflect differences in the positions themselves, and growing differences in the roles of education departments across museums.

• Director / Chair of Education (Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art): This is a traditional title, still the most common, but it is being rethought presumably because it does not do a very good job of describing what it is museum educators do. It dates back to a time when educators primarily ran lectures and tour programs for adults, and tours for school audiences. In how many museums is this still what museum educators do? (My guess: Many.)  And if we want to change this, where is the field’s clear argument for what the role of museum educator is becoming?
• Director of Education and Public Programs (Concord Museum; Palm Springs Art Museum): This title implies that public programs are somehow separate from education. Underlying this are myriad assumptions about what “education” is and is not (why isn’t a public program an education program? Because the content is academic? Because the audience is not children and families?), and what types of expertise educators have and do not have (public programs staff are likely to have less of an education background than their colleagues in school and family programs, but more content expertise).
• Curator of Education (Detroit Zoo; Hood Museum): This title implies that education staff create programs as curators create exhibitions, separating programs from exhibitions (rather than considering programs a part of exhibitions) while placing programs and exhibitions on a theoretically equal footing. I would be curious to know whether museums with a Curator of Education have a different inter-departmental dynamic than those with a Director of Education.
• Education and Interpretation Supervisor (Corning Museum of Glass): The word “interpretation” implies responsibility for interpreting objects and exhibitions, mediating between what the museum places on view and the visitor’s experience of these objects. This is somewhat ironic in an era in which museum education understands interpretation to be an individualized effort to make meaning of objects, rather than the presentation of an academic context for each object.
• Vice President, Learning and Interpretation (Detroit Institute of Arts): The first part of this title echoes the United Kingdom’s use of “learning” and “learning departments” instead of “education.” Presumably “learning” sounds less formal than “education,” and captures a broader range of visitor experience, although it still connotes cognitive (rather than physical or emotional) experiences.
• Head of Interpretation and Participatory Experiences (Minneapolis Institute of Arts): This title swaps educational or learning experiences for participatory experiences. This echoes Nina Simon’s ongoing call for a participatory museum. But what do we mean by participation? What type of participation? What is the role of programs in participation, and what is the role of exhibitions and front-line staff?
• Director of Education and Curator of Public Practice (Walker Art Center); Curator of Public Practice (Oakland Museum of California) – a whole new kettle of fish conflating educational practice and social practice art. As artists grow more interested in direct engagement of audiences through social practice, their role in museums verges on territory previously belonging to educators. This title reclaims contested space for education departments, perhaps arguing that social practice art is an educational endeavor that should exist in an educational space. It also allows educators to think more broadly than education or learning, allowing them to cross over into an artistic discipline in which unusual experiences are created and offered.

Of note in the above titles are two dramatic shifts in the work of education departments.  First is the involvement of education staff in the work of interpretation, indicating involvement in the creation of exhibitions. In January, four colleagues (Judith Koke, Heather Nielsen, Jennifer Czajkowski, and Julia Forbes) wrote on the Center for the Future of Museums blog that:

art museum educators with expertise in free-choice learning, visitor motivation, cultural attitudes, physical and cognitive accessibility and modes of response and participation are beginning to take a leadership role in the shaping of visitor experiences in gallery spaces. At this moment in time, most such staff work under the title of “interpretive planner.” It is up to us to determine how this position develops in the next decade.

One of the key questions to be addressed as this position develops is: What expertise must educators have to be interpretive planners? Often museum educators have content backgrounds (an MA or PhD in art, science, or history, or – in art museums – an MFA). If museum educators claim to have expertise in free-choice learning, visitor motivation, cultural attitudes, accessibility, and modes of response and participation, how do we build this into professional and pre-professional training, and emphasize this as a background needed in this field? To do so would be to privilege education as a vocation – something that bucks a trend in a society which thinks teachers often do not know their subjects deeply, bring little to the table, and should teach from scripted curricula.

Further, is the expertise of an interpretive planner the same as that of an educational program planner? Or are these two very separate roles? And if they are separate, what connects them within a department, and what is the best word to use for this department?

The second shift evidenced by these job titles is the shift from education to engagement. Participation and public practice do not signify an educational experience, but rather, an engaging one. What is the relationship between education and engagement? (Of note here is that museums derive nonprofit status from their claim to be educational institutions. However, nonprofit status is understood to be under siege from various forces – see, for example, Elizabeth Merritt’s posts on the topic and her related pinterest board.) Is the slow swing from education to engagement related to museums staking out a new position for themselves in the non-nonprofit market? Is the expertise needed to engage similar to the expertise needed to educate? Have we been engaging all along while calling it education? Are programs changing, or just vocabulary?

Nowhere in these titles is the idea that museum educator should take on the role of community or social worker – a museum role promoted by Lois Silverman, Elaine Gurian, and Gretchen Jennings, among others. Do museums not see this is part of their role? Or do they feel it belongs elsewhere in the museum?

I do not have an answer to “What does a museum educator do?” I do believe that museum educators are needed, but I am also convinced that as a field we need to come up with a more clear idea about our role in the 21st century museum, in order to avoid a future working as entertainers and marketers. I would love to hear other thoughts on this – and am also wondering if this has potential for a discussion session at the AAM 2015 conference. Thoughts?