Comments on: Preparing to be Educated at EduCon

By: George Meadows

George Meadows — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:30:26 +0000

Martha, another conversation you might be interested in joining – I was talking to Doug Sanford about the new minor in Museum Studies, and we were both thinking it would be great for the new College of Education to offer a certificate program in Museum Education. It would be set up for inservice teachers and other interested people. I’ll keep you up to date as things progress.

By: Martha

Martha — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:09:35 +0000

@George — thanks for the comment! I LOVE your mini-museum in a tackle box activity. One of my favorite things to do (even as an adult) at the beach is to collect things from the area and put together a little “exhibit” on a piece of driftwood. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to do it with me.

I’ll definitely look up the Sobel reading — sounds fascinating. And I’d love to hear more about the developing conversations at UMW about place-based learning.

Also, you should definitely consider coming to Educon! You’d have a lot to contribute, particularly from a teacher education standpoint.

By: George Meadows

George Meadows — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:05:58 +0000

Martha, this is really great stuff. I really liked your thoughts on museums – bringing them into the classroom and being a model for making and sharing knowledge. I’ve started to develop this concept a bit in my Elementary Science Methods class. Last semester I had the students take small plastic tackle boxes – one of those with adjustable spacers so you change the size/number of sections – and mark off a roughly 100 sq ft area somewhere outside. The assignment was to make a “mini-museum” of that area, filling the box with samples of what they thought was interesting and/or representative of the area. They also had to draw diagrams and maps of the samples and area as well.

This kind of fits in with an idea I’ve been reading a lot about lately – place based learning. If you get a chance read David Sobel’s Ecophobia – its a great read, talks about kids, nature, and learning, only about 48 pages. I’ve got a spare copy if you’re interested.

And, on the topic of museums, I had a good sidewalk conversation with Eric Gable, talking about the concept of place-based learning and how it fits into museum design – something he’s very interested in. And some of the CPR people are interested as well – Jason Matzke is doing a Stafford campus weekend course for teachers on Environmentalism and I’m meeting with JohnL Johnson to talk about place based learning and education.

Must be a new paradigm or gestalt or something.

By: Martha

Martha — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:54:02 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Leslie. I’ll be interested to check out the LB program. Isn’t it funny, though, how when we do talk about K-12 in relation to higher education we rarely seem to be discussing those “lofty goal[s] of educating engaged citizens?” I have some thoughts about why that is that I want to articulate, but I have more thinking to do.

As for the museum job, yeah, I think it’s unlikely I’ll ever find myself working in that sector without returning to school. And even then, as you say, the competition is killer–and you’re someone with amazing credentials in this area!

By: Leslie M-B

Leslie M-B — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:47:41 +0000

Thanks for a great post, Martha.

You’ve made me think about an initiative established in the 1990s in Long Beach, California. It was called the “Seamless Education” initiative, and you can read about its ongoing effects in other Long Beach education programs. Basically, the idea was that any kid who went through K-12 in Long Beach should be able to continue seamlessly into community college and/or the state university (CSULB). I’m not sure how this plays out in other parts of the country, but my impression is that a lot of college-bound high school students end up staying in Long Beach for higher ed, so that kind of collaboration among the school district, the community college district, and the CSU (which both has a campus in LB and which is headquartered in LB as a system) makes a lot of sense. The initiative has a career component, too, if I’m remembering correctly, so it’s focused on employment more than just maybe the lofty goal of educating engaged citizens, but hey, it’s a start.

I was delighted to hear about your science museum employment visions. I, too, have always wanted to work in a science museum. During grad school I worked for a few years as an educator, exhibit developer, and evaluator for a small science center in town, but I’d really like to step up to a natural history museum. Museum jobs are incredibly competitive, however, and if I applied for them locally, I’d be competing with my own students in the JFKU Museum Studies program. (Awkward!)

I hope you enjoy EduCon. If you do, maybe I can put it on my schedule for next year!