Briley Rasmussen - Professionalizing Practice. A Critical Look at Recent Practice in Museum Education

A Publication of the Museum Education Roundtable

Editors-in-Chief

TINA R. NOLAN, Ed.D
Interim Director of Partnerships, National College of Education at National-Louis University

CYNTHIA ROBINSON
Director of Museum Studies, Tufts University

A Critical Look at Recent Practice in Museum Education

AMELIA CHAPMAN, Curator of Education, Pacific Asia Museum

MARIA DEL CARMEN COSSOU, Program Coordinator and Acting Volunteer Manager, Office of Education and Outreach, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

MARY KAY CUNNINGHAM, Museum Experience and Interpretation Specialist

KAREN L. DALY, Executive Director, Dumbarton House

BROOK DIGIOVANNI EVANS, Head of Gallery Learning Education, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

ERIK HOLLAND, Curator of Education, State Historical Society of North Dakota

MARK HOWELL, Program and Education Coordinator, Library of Virginia

CAROLE KRUCOFF, Head of Public Education, Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago

MARK LARSON, Associate Professor, Educational Leadership and Secondary Education, National Louis University

BETH MALONEY, Museum Education Consultant and Vice President, Museum Education Roundtable

ELISABETH NEVINS, Principal, Seed Education Consulting

ALEXA MILLER, Project Mentor, ArtScience Labs and Independent Arts Learning Specialist

SCOTT PATTISON, Research and Evaluation Associate, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

VICTORIA RAMIREZ, PH.D., W.T. and Louise J. Moran Education Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

NANCY RICHNER, Museum Education Director, Hofstra University Museum

LAURA ROBERTS, Advisor, Bank Street College Leadership in Museum Education Program and Independent Museum Professional

JULIA ROSE, Director, West Baton Rouge Museum

TANIA SAID SCHULER, Curator of Education, Ball State University Museum of Art

SUSAN SPERO, Professor, Museum Studies Program, John F. Kennedy University

LAUREEN TRAINER, Manager of Visitor Research & Program Evaluation, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Photo Editor

ELISABETH NEVINS, Principal, Seed Education Consulting

Copy Editors

HANNAH HELLER, SARAH MARGERUM, TINA NOLAN, CYNTHIA ROBINSON

The Museum Education Roundtable (MER) is a nonprofit organization based in Washington DC, dedicated to enriching and promoting the field of museum education. Through publications, programs, and communication networks, MER fosters professionalism, encourages leadership, scholarship, and research in museum-based learning, and advocates for the inclusion and application of museum-based learning in the general education arena. For more information on MER and its activities, please visit the MER website at www.museumeducation.info and click on contact us. MER members receive the Journal of Museum Education as a benefit of membership. To join MER, visit the website at www.museumeducation.info or write to MER at PO Box 15727, Washington, DC 20003.

Copyright 2012 Museum Education Roundtable

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Production and Composition by Detta Penna, Penna Design

ISBN 13: 978-1-61132-820-2 (pbk)

Compared to many other peer-reviewed journals, each JME issue comes to fruition in a relatively short time span. From the MER publication committee's approval of the guest-editors proposal to the journals arrival in your mailbox, the process takes just under a year.

This reasonable turn-around time (for a print publication) enables us to forecast and address current trends in the field in ways that are both timely and useful to our readers. In this issue, guest editors Scott Winterrowd and Briley Rasmussen respond to the continued confusion about what museum educators do by examining the history of museum education and assessing its evolution to spark conversations about its future, grounded in a shared understanding of where weve been. Another article expands upon the spring 2012 issues early childhood focus by turning a lens on babies mothers. Yet another asks the evergrowing number of museums that conduct simulated archeological digs with school groups to rethink the activity to better reflect actual process and scholarship. Still another article offers a critical response to an article published in the November/December 2011 issue of Museum News and challenges us all to think about the issue of authority and museum education in new ways. JMEs final volume of 2012 will continue the tradition of issue-based relevance. Guest editors Patrick Roberts and Asja Mandic are assembling articles that examine museum educations response to radical social change from international perspectives.

Looking toward the 2013 and 2014 JME issues, what topics and trends lie ahead and what should we be addressing? Issue-based questions that weve been discussing include:

We'd love to hear your ideas and see your proposals for guest-editing a section of an upcoming JME, or for contributing single manuscripts for consideration.

Contact us at: Cynthia.Robinson@tufts.edu and Tina.Nolan@nl.edu. You can also reach us both at our gmail site: jmuseed@gmail.com.