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What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

  • 1.  What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 16 days ago

    Dear All

    What was one experience you had in a museum that affected you in becoming a museum professional? I have been going to museums since I was a kid and have enjoyed it. I also had the privilege to go to Monet's home in France and that was great. I also enjoy looking at his paintings. I look forward to the stories.

    Thanks,

    Rachel



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    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
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  • 2.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 14 days ago

    Hi Rachel! I grew up in a rural inland environment and our regional museum provided the opportunity for my school to explore the rocky shoreline at the beach. We were able to learn about the ocean environment and the animals that live there in situ, and then go back to the museum to hear museum educators explain our local ocean ecosystem. It was particularly memorable because the museum gave many of us children our first connection to the ocean. 

    Museum educators working alongside school teachers is a great combination!



    ------------------------------
    Grace Lange
    Conservation Technician
    Auckland
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  • 3.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 13 days ago

    Dear Grace

    Sounds like a wonderful small museum experience that your future and turned you into a museum goer. 

    Thanks,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 13 days ago
    I grew up in NYC and went on field trips to museums. The Egyptian collections at the Metropolitan taught me that museums could transport you through time and space and across cultures.  It drew me to museum work where I have always tried to achieve transportive exhibits that allow visitors to have those experiences for themselves.







  • 5.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 13 days ago

    Dear

    Barbara

    That is great thanks for sharing. I love the arms and armer at the Met, because it shows how armer  changed over time. 

    Thanks,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 13 days ago

    Great question!

    I wrote my answer for my book that came out last year:

    I nestle onto a cozy ledge in a dark corner of the gold room in the Hall of Gems and Minerals. The screen behind me is white, blank, and has been for some time. The fuzzy fabric I once rolled around as a little boy is peeling off the walls, held up in places by tape. 

     

    Outside the theater, I hear the voices of the pre-recorded narrators piped in from overhead speakers, guiding no one past their cases of magnificent samples, arranged in a circle, endlessly looping from one station to another, imparting wisdom. I wonder how many more cycles they have left before they are permanently silenced in a few hours, when the Hall is closed for demolition. 

     

    I imagine much of the collections behind glass, or within arm's reach, will return like old friends when the Hall reopens, with a new design, in just a few year's time. But the inviting playfulness of the mysterious cavern that has dutifully housed them these past four decades will be lost forever. 

     

    The space is a wondrous mix of light and dark, of raised platforms and sunken dens, creating rich sight lines and multiple pathways, perfect for a young explorer. 

     

    This was my first favorite Hall in the Museum, as a rambunctious seven-year old, exploring the cave-like room with my sister, running up and down the curved ramps past topaz and tourmaline, resting on the petrified wood before brushing the purple amethysts in their geode bed, stomping up and down the carpeted curved benches cum staircases, and slipping down the giant Jade slide. 

     

    It can feel like a betrayal, when a museum hall closes. That is quite an uncommon occurrence, but when it does, what happens to all the memories once stored there, of childhood visits, of first dates, of times we eventually brought children of our own? 

     

    When I leave I do not walk. I run, down the curved ramp, arms pumping in imitation of the oblivious children around me, lost in their own play, the light from the petrified wood flashing by as I speed out towards the exit.



    ------------------------------
    Barry Joseph
    Founder
    Brooklyn Seltzer Museum
    Brooklyn NY
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 12 days ago

    Dear Berry

    What a great story. Such a good way to love museums from the start.

    Thanks for sharring,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 13 days ago
    Edited by Ann Prentice Wagner 13 days ago

    Dear Rachel and everyone-

    I was lucky enough to grow up in the Washington, DC, area with its many museums that my family visited a lot. Having them be free really helped! When I was 10 I took a summer school anthropology class that included a field trip to visit the National Museum of Natural History behind the scenes. I was amazed to realize not only how many fabulous things were in storage, but also what a vital community of people existed behind the scenes. I immediately decided I wanted to work in a museum when I grew up. I went in the direction of art, after doing internships at the Smithsonian during a couple of undergrad summers. It was the love for those museum workers and museum visitors, as well as collections, that made this field irresistible.

    Ann Wagner

    Bradbury Art Museum, Arkansas State University



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    Ann Prentice Wagner PhD
    Jackey and Curtis Finch, Jr., Curator of Drawings
    Bradbury Art Museum
    State University AR
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 12 days ago

    Dear Ann

    Great, always fun to see behind the scenes in museum. I have had that opportunity a few times myself.

    Thanks for sharing,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 11 days ago

    My story is more "museum-ish."  I grew up living in an apartment in the Riverdale section of the Bronx -- "Briar Oaks."  As I understand its apartment building's history, it was built on the highest natural elevation in the City of New York.  (almost certainly an important Native American site) During the excavation for the apartment building, numerous Native American artifacts were unearthed; accordingly, the lobby of the apartment building included 4 large display cabinets containing these artifacts, along with 2 (or maybe 4?) very large oil paintings depicting Native Americans.  So, growing up between 1955 and 1965 (my zero to 10 years old years -- around 1965, all that was removed during "remodeling -- to sleek modern furniture) almost every day of that early childhood involved walking through the equivalent of a small history museum.  I credit that (along with some instrumental elementary school visits to MOMA, and the Met -- I still have the postcards purchased at the gift shops) as inspiring my museum work.



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    Daniel Ellison JD
    Durham NC
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  • 11.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 10 days ago

    Dear Daniel

    Sounds like a great and unique experience.  What a  good way to grow up. 

    Thanks,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 9 days ago

    It was on a fourth grade field trip to Pennsybury Manor, the recreated home of William Penn, that I got the bug.  I was impressed by the staff and loved wandering around this huge house.  For Christmas that year I got a new housecoat that I thought looked like the jackets the Pennsbury Manor tour guides were wearing.  When no one was in the room, I donned that jacket and began giving play tours of the town on the train platform my father had set up.  I'm sure the adults were in an adjacent room silently laughing their heads off.  Then in college my boyfriend took me to see In the Russian Style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a fashion exhibition organized by Dianna Vreeland and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and I realized that my love of fashion and textiles could be part of museum exhibitions. I was hooked and still love working in this field.



    ------------------------------
    Marian Ann Montgomery PhD
    Curator of Clothing and Textiles
    Museum of Texas Tech University
    Lubbock TX
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  • 13.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 9 days ago

    Dear Marian

    That is great and yeah it's interesting how fashion is both practical and art. 

    Thanks for sharing.

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 9 days ago
    Edited by Andrea Mugnier 9 days ago

    My parents took me to Colonial Williamsburg when I was 10. I was at the perfect age to understand enough about history to really enjoy it and make sense of what I saw there. I thought about things like candles being dipped and the blacksmith making horseshoes for years afterward. I was really intrigued by the idea of people having to make everything they needed, and that there were people that still knew how to do those things. The second museum experience was when I was in college and a friend and I drove 8 hours to New Orleans in an elderly, un-air conditioned Toyota Corolla to go see the first King Tut exhibition that toured the US in about 1977. The artifacts were just incredible- their beauty was mesmerizing, and I really got into reading the labels about what the items were used for and how they were made. Those experiences shaped my interest in history and how museums could both teach and influence my understanding of the past. And they were both a lot of fun too! As I remember everybody wore King Tut costumes for Mardi Gras that year.



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    Andrea Mugnier
    Program Manager
    Best Buddies International
    Albuquerque, NM
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  • 15.  RE: What was one experience you had in a museum as a kid that affected you in becoming a museum professional ?

    Posted 6 days ago

    Dear Abdrea

    Wonderful, so great when we have these opportunities in our lives. My grandmother took me to colonial Williamsburg. It is a good memory.

    Thanks,

    Rachel



    ------------------------------
    Rachel Alschuler
    Museum Education/ Visitor Experience
    San Francisco CA
    ------------------------------