Anniversary Special: One Year of Writing about Museum Education

Added to Medium, October 19, 2017

As a way to celebrate both the one-year anniversary and my birthday tomorrow, I decided to reflect on the past year and share plans moving forward for the blog. It has been exactly a year today since I started my first blog entry on Medium, and so much has happened since then. When I began my blog, I talked about how I became the museum educator I am and what led me to start writing it. I stated in my blog,

This story will continue not only with a discussion about my experiences in greater detail but I also will discuss recent topics in the field as well as recent books and journal articles I read. I also will write about conferences and workshops I attended. What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to give educators and aspiring educators both a personal account of and resources on the museum education field.

Now a year later, I kept my promise and discussed recent topics in the field including museum professionals leaving the field and what to do to make the field more appealing to stay in. Also, I discussed what I have been reading and discussed topics based on what I read in books, journals, blog posts, and articles. I briefly discussed my professional development experience in the blog.

Since I started the blog a year ago, I have met with many people who have expressed their thoughts, opinions, and insights on the ideas I shared. I shared my blog posts each week on social media outlets LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach out to people especially other museum professionals. Especially on LinkedIn, I read many comments, opinions, and insights to the topics I discussed. I am thankful for everyone who has read and responded to this blog since you all gave me insights on your perspectives on the museum field and continued the discussion on these topics. Also, I thank those who reached out to ask me questions and for my advice. When you respond to these blog posts, I am able to not only know what you thought about the current topic we are also able to learn from one another to keep moving our field forward. Because of this blog, I have also became even more involved in the field than before I started writing.

Ever since I began writing this blog there have been many developments including meeting new people, joining Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM), and creating a new website to promote the blog in addition to sharing resources I come across.

After writing about gender equity in the Lunch with NEMA program, I was asked if I would be interested in joining Gender Equity in Museums Movement (GEMM) which is dedicated to educating museum professionals about gender equity and assisting museum professionals in discussing gender equity among colleagues. In addition to this, I created a website that is used as my professional reference and where I promote my blog.

When I created my website, https://lookingbackmovingforwardinmuseumeducation.com, I hoped to promote not only my blog but to also promote my expertise by sharing resources I refer to and open communication with viewers to discuss topics on museums. I designed my website so visitors can see an abbreviated version of my resume, and if they are interested in learning specific experiences there is a contact page where they can ask me to send them a copy of my resume. Also, my website has various resources organized into various topics including education and interpretation, educational resources, books on museums and public history, and blogs I read. These are resources I share that show I keep up to date on current topics and trends in the field. While I update my website, I also check on the number of individuals who have accessed my website.

I have seen people who have visited my website come from not only within the United States but from many countries around the world. There were individuals from Iceland, Israel, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Japan, India, Spain, Germany, Ireland, China, Bangladesh, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, Russia, Switzerland, and Italy. When I saw the amount of people from different countries visiting my website, I saw the potential in continuing to make my website grow and reach out to more people.

I have learned a lot in this experience and I am thankful for each moment that led me to this point in my career.

Moving forward, I have additional ideas and projects I am continuing to work on. Since I realize there is international attention to this website as well, I will look out for resources that discuss international museum topics to add to my website.

While I have posted for the most part only once a week, I know that there is so much I want to write about so I want to write more than once on a regular basis. In order to do so, I want to make sure this blog and website can be financially supported to keep it running. I will launch my Patreon page to help support my website and blog.

Patreon, for those not familiar with the website, is a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or patrons. It is popular among YouTube video makers, artists, writers, podcasters, musicians, and other creators who post regularly online.

On my Patreon page I encourage all to make a contribution to help support the blog and website, and/or share my page with others. There are a number of rewards you can earn when you contribute which are: acknowledgement on my website, send information you come across to me on museums and history, and make requests for what I should write about for the blog. When you make higher contributions, in addition to the previously mentioned rewards we can arrange for an hour meeting, a two-hour meeting, or an unlimited meeting for either a meet and greet or seek consulting advice.

My goals are when I reach 50 patrons contributing I will post two blog entries per week instead of once per week. As more patrons contribute to my blog and website, I will increase the number of blog entries per week.

I encourage visiting and sharing my Patreon page, listed here: https://www.patreon.com/lindseysteward

Thank you all for your continued support during the past year, and I hope you all continue to read as I continue to give educators and aspiring educators both a personal account of and resources on the museum education field.

Published by lindseystewardgoldberg

I am a passionate and dedicated individual who is determined to provide local and national history for future generations to appreciate their roots and teach the next generation. My love for museums began from a very young age. When I was a child, my family encouraged myself and my sisters to visit various historic sites and museums including Plimoth Plantation and Salem Witch Museum, and continued as I grew up when I saw places such as the Birthplace of Abigail Adams. My lifelong passion for history led me to earn my Bachelors degree in History from Western New England University and my Masters degree in Public History from Central Connecticut State University. While I was in the Central Connecticut State University Public History graduate program, I worked on the Connecticut Historical Society’s “Cooking by the Book” exhibit that my group came up with the original proposal for. I also helped set up art exhibits at CCSU’s art galleries, and wrote a lesson plan on women contributions to society in the eighteenth century as a final project in the program for the Stanley-Whitman House museum. Along the way, I gained various experiences within school activities and museums. My experiences include working with students in school programs at the Stanley-Whitman House in Farmington, Connecticut, Connecticut’s Old State House, and Connecticut Landmarks Hartford properties. I also volunteered at the Franklin Historical Museum in Franklin, Massachusetts where I provided tours for visitors, helped organize public programs connected with town events, and kept an inventory of the museum’s collections. I became a full time Museum Educator with the Long Island Museum where I teach programs, and take on administrative roles such as schedule programs. Today, I am an independent museum professional working on various projects for museums and historical societies. For instance, I joined the Three Village Historical Society working on various projects, both in person and virtually, in the education department. I continue to look for opportunities in which I educate school groups and the public on the significance of the arts, history, and sciences in our society through the museum education field.

Leave a Comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s