Rebecca Shulman

Why Should Schools Visit Museums?

A current project of mine calls for a very specific justification of school visits to museums. I believe strongly that school groups should visit museums, and that museums should provide great programs for these groups, despite the fact that the these visits are time-consuming (for schools as well as museums) and expensive. But this project is leading me toContinue reading “Why Should Schools Visit Museums?”

Arts Education Elevator Speech: Everything You See Here Was Imagined

At the Face to Face conference last March, Russell Granet urged me to draft an elevator speech – a quick and cogent argument for why the arts matter. Russell noted that this is something the arts education world has not done very effectively. We can explain how the arts support the curriculum or list theContinue reading “Arts Education Elevator Speech: Everything You See Here Was Imagined”

Visitor Feedback, By Blog Post

In our socially networked world, posts about museums make the rounds fast. These posts are often applauded, decried, or laughed at. But they are useful for something more: we can mine these posts for specific ideas about what’s working or not, and use this as a springboard for reflecting on and improving the work weContinue reading “Visitor Feedback, By Blog Post”

The Everything Museum

As a newcomer to Peoria, Illinois, last week’s Illinois Association of Museums conference was a great way to learn about the local museum landscape. In particular, I find the “everything” museum of great interest. In large metropolitan areas such as New York or Chicago, museums generally collect and display artifacts relating to a single discipline.Continue reading “The Everything Museum”

Good Questions

Asking good questions is essential to museum practice. Exhibitions are explorations of a topic, often driven by a curator’s curiosity, even when not explicitly framed around a question. Tours explore questions masked as a theme: How do artists explore place? How can we learn about the 19th century through household objects? Inquiry-based museum education, and participatoryContinue reading “Good Questions”