Many regional museum education roundtables face challenges that can affect the very survival of their groups. The Museum Education Roundtable itself recently faced a situation that required the MER board to take a new direction on how the Journal of Museum Education would be published. Similar concerns have resulted in migrating the organization's member newsletter to a blog format. This blog in fact!
We recently received a question from Maija Sedzielarz, a school visit coordinator at the Science Museum of Minnesota. She expressed concerns over what seemed to be a lack of support and feedback from members of the regional museum education group. She asked:
"How do other places keep their very loose, informal groups going? Or is it just the nature of the beast that these groups will flow and ebb, as those who need it, re-energize it from time to time. I have been involved in museum professional organizations for quite some time and see this phenomenon a lot. Hmmm... maybe it's me!"
We decided to write this article so that we could get your feedback and suggestions. Let's hear from you. Please use the comment feature to post your answer.
Jim Angus
MER Board Member
Thursday, February 21, 2008
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3 comments:
I've been involved in several different regional museum educational groups and I've certainly seen what Maija describes. I think the key is to build a community of practitioners. This might mean forming special interest groups or committees that have monthly or quarterly conference calls. Meetings or calls tend to spur participants in a forum to act and get what they've committed to doing done. When I lived in California, we set up regional visits. We'd car pool from Los Angeles to San Francisco to meet with our counterparts, tour their facilities and hear what they were up to. This was a very successful way to build the community needed to sustain a group.
As an aside, Maija and other like her might consider joining the Museum-Ed email discussion forum. It is well established and perfect for questions like this. You can get information on the forum at http://museum-ed.org.
Coire
As I complete my coursework for a Master's in museum education, I find myself trying to meet and interact with as many museum educators as possible. I live in a museum-rich area, Dallas-Fort Worth Texas. While there are nearly a dozen regionally to nationally known institutions in the area, I find that the site specific focus and professional demands within the education departments of each museum tend to require much of the attention of the educators. I find myself talking to friends working in each museum either at their workplace or at weekend informal social events. I share Maija's frustration to some extent, but I wondered if it was due to the fact that I am not formally employed yet.
I do know that when I attended the Texas Art Educator's Association convention that there were few museum educators present, but I think that is related more to the conference's focus than the interest of the museum educators statewide.
I keep hoping to find a good online forum for museum educators in which I can participate.
Is this the one?
This organization (the Museum Education Roundtable) and the AAM Education Committee (Edcom) are probably two of the most active national museum education groups. I've been involved with MER for around 10 years. What I've discovered is that you need to become a part of the organization to reap the maximum benefit in terms of networking, collaboration and learning. I joined the MER board about 6 years ago and I have facilitated sessions at AAM. These two activities have really launched me into a community of museum educators. So I would recommend that you become a MER member and participate in MERs activities.
I also suggest that you subscribe to museum-ed (www.museum-ed.org) to participate in a very active email-based discussion.
Let MER know if you want to become involved!
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