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 this week, made me think. In this case, the question it made me think about was: What is the role of objects in an institution…
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 the country. With this in mind, I interviewed Elizabeth for Museum Questions. We so often hear from colleagues; this post is…
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 spaces with collections-based exhibits aimed at elementary school children into play spaces for the under-10 set. At first I understood this transformation as the…
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 rural schools. Placeworks is a partnership of the Springfield Art Museum and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, which is funded by the…
Because we live in a culture in which we primarily receive information written and shared by those who think just like us, I have spent the last two weeks immersed in a flood of media that deepens my despair at the world this election has cast us in to. Some day, it will be the job…
In March I had a conversation with an insightful colleague, Amy Boyle, an educator at the Guggenheim Museum. Amy suggested that open-ended interpretation might be problematic in a climate in which political discourse disregards facts, and candidates and supporters make up their own truths. I’m not sure I’ve captured the challenges and opportunities offered by this…
A few weeks ago, I walked into the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum to find floor staff creating a clever string of “lights” made of construction paper and cardboard tubes. They wanted to hang it from our tree – a big, fake oak tree that sits just inside our lobby, and is one of the first things…
Lately, I have been thinking about the relationship between museums and cities, and how museums support or impact their cities. As part of this exploration, I picked up Gail Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg’s recent book, Cities, Museums, and Soft Power. This book explores questions of cultural capital, and the ways in which museums wield power. The book makes…
This is a post I have been trying to write for a long time – over a year. I’m still struggling, so bear with me. There has been a great deal written over the past few years about museums and storytelling. Storytelling was the theme of the 2013 Annual Alliance of Museums conference. In a 2014…
As I emerge from the chaos of opening a new museum, I am still thinking about the question “Why are children’s museums museums?” which I blogged about in February. In that post I offered three ideas, which grew out of speaking with Barbara Meyerson and Elaine Heumann Gurian, and reading articles by Stephen Weil. In a…
Because nonprofit leadership is messy
Being a mom is so much more than simply “being mom.” It’s about still knowing yourself, finding time for the people you love, the things you love and knowing you would do anything for those who call you mom.
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Thoughts on 21st Century museum leadership by Anne Ackerson and Joan Baldwin
“Museum educators possess a love of learning and a commitment to nurture and develop an informed and humane citizenry.”
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Musings on the therapeutic, empowerment, and wellbeing-enhancing possibilities of the museum
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Peer-populated resources for art history teachers
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
"There is no cure for curiosity." ~Dorothy Parker
thoughts on museums, content, design, and why they matter
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
A Forum for Reflecting on Practice
