February 3, 2022
I recently read the book Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences: How to Connect with Teachers and Engage Students which is a series of articles edited by Tara Young offering comprehensive insight at best practices in working with K-12 audiences including teachers and students. I appreciate that there is a number of different perspectives in the field to contribute to this book so readers can learn from museum professionals who work in more than one type of museum. The book is divided into four parts to help organize the articles based on topics: Setting the Stage, Building Blocks, Questions and New Paradigms, and Solutions and Innovative Models. Each part has six or seven chapters written by various writers in the museum education field.
The Setting the Stage section focuses on establishing and financing K-12 programs as well as on how to engage with students. In the Building Blocks section, the chapters discuss the core elements of successful programming including mission alignment, educator recruitment and training, working with teacher advisory boards, and anti-racist teaching practices.
Questions and New Paradigms has case studies in which museum education practitioners reconsider established approaches to museums’ work with schools and engage in iterative processes to update and improve them. It is important to see case studies especially within books since we need to see examples of practical practices not just discussing theory in museum education. The fourth section, Solutions and Innovative Models, provides examples of programs that were reimagined for the current status of museum/school collaborations.
This book covers a wide range of topics in museum education including but are not limited to the field trip past and present, financial realities of the education department in museums, integrating engineering and empathy in the preschool/kindergarten classroom, creating effective teacher advisory boards, building a new model for staffing school programs, sustainable training for museum education staff, mastering field trip logistics, virtual learning, and teaching slavery at historic sites and lessons learned. It is an important book for both emerging and experienced museum professionals who need to have a better understanding of museum education practices. I plan to continue to refer to this book in my career and to utilize it for the book project I began last year.
To learn more about Creating Meaningful Museum Experiences for K-12 Audiences, check out the link here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538146798
To learn more about the book project I started last year, take a look at the Buy Lindsey a Coffee! page on the website.
