Franke L. Smith is an Education Coordinator at Hickory Hill, a Watson-Brown Foundation historic home, near Augusta, Georgia. At the American Alliance of Museums conference in May, Franke and I began a conversation about a program she offers, and whether and why it may be controversial. This program, “Cotton Pickin’ Field Trip,” teaches students about the history of…
This week’s guest post is by Christine Baron, Assistant Professor Social Studies and Education at Columbia Teachers College. Chris is a former high school history teacher and museum educator, and directed the development of educational and interpretation programs at the Old North Church, Boston. Her research focuses on using museums and historic sites as laboratories for history teacher…
This guest post is from Michelle Grohe. For the past ten years Michelle has been the Director of School & Teacher Programs at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, where she has overseen the School Partnership, an intensive multiple-experience program with local Boston schools, including in-depth professional development with classroom teachers. Michelle has…
The Schools and Museums series has featured a variety of perspectives on what field trips might mean for students. This post, by David Bowles, takes on that question from a slightly different angle, asking what the kids themselves express interest in. David was interviewed for this blog in September. As Assistant Museum Educator for School…
In a recent on-line discussion, I found myself enmeshed in a prickly debate about whether museums should be operated as businesses. Some great points were made on the “pro-business” side: museums need income to keep the lights on; getting visitors through the door is essential to generating income both from earned revenue and from funders;…
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 to…
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 we…
Museum Questions 