I’m so happy to feature the following guest post from Melanie Adams, Managing Director of Community Education and Events at the Missouri History Museum and President of the Association of Midwest Museums. The Missouri History Museum has been extremely responsive to all of the issues surrounding the events in August in nearby Ferguson, MO. For…
The recent series of events, from Ferguson to Cleveland and New York, have created a watershed moment. Things must change. New laws and policies will help, but any movement toward greater cultural and racial understanding and communication must be supported by our country’s cultural and educational infrastructure. Museums are a part of this educational…
Almost 27 years ago, 42 tons of the poisonous methyl isocyanate gas escaped from the American pesticide factory Union Carbide in Bhopal. It killed about 4,00 people in the first few days, and eventually left over 14,000 dead. It has been called the world’s worst industrial disaster, and residents say that even today, more than…
The museum blogosphere in the past few weeks has been filled with postings related to the work of museum educators and the role of museums as educational institutions. Rebecca Herz has posted a number of articles and interviews with teachers and museum educators on her blog Museum Questions. Rebecca is examining from many angles the…
The second part of my guest post on the Incluseum blog looks at some specific qualities of empathetic practice and provides examples of how that practice might be carried out. If you are reading this on email, and wish to comment or subscribe, please click on Museum Commons
Participants at Town Hall meeting held in August 2014 by Missouri History Museum soon after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Photo: Emanuele Berry|St. Louis Public Radio How many of you were aware that, earlier this year, the AAM (American Alliance of Museums) Board published a new policy statement on diversity and inclusion?…
For some months now museum educator, consultant, and blogger Rebecca Herz and I have been exchanging thoughts on the roles and future of museum educators, mostly by email. But we’ve also been talking about making our conversations more public. Rebecca’s recent thoughtful post, What Does a Museum Educator Do? (And Do We Need Them?) offers, I…
I’ve written a guest post on museums and the unaccompanied children at the border for AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums. Below is the introduction. The theme of the Alliance 2015 conference is Museums and Social Value. Leading up to that meeting in Atlanta, CFM will be hosting a number of guest bloggers addressing various aspects of…
In the context of my periodic posts on The Empathetic Museum, I’m preparing a guest post for another site on how museums are/might be concerned with this humanitarian crisis. There is a great deal written today about museums, community and inclusiveness, as well as museums as forums. How do these qualities to which museums aspire…
Over the past few years I have posted periodically from Kolkata, Inda, where colleague Karen Lee and I teach a course as part of an MS program in science communication for science museum professionals. The organization that sponsors our teaching as well as the science communications MS is the National Council of Science…