A field trip opportunity unlike any other

This weekend is the grand opening weekend of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The newest museum is the 19th one in the family of Smithsonian institutions. And with all the coverage about the historical significance of this museum, we thought it would be worth taking a look of the power of a simple field trip to a museum.

Several years ago, EducationNext published The Educational Value of Field Trips. The piece begins with a brief history of the field trip once being a cornerstone of public education in America. Schools saw the benefits of these experiences out of the classrooms justified the costs.

With field trips, public schools viewed themselves as the great equalizer in terms of access to our cultural heritage.

The piece goes on to discuss the decline of culturally enriching field trips over the past decade or two. There are a variety of factors beyond the obvious financial ones, including a focus on increased time needed to prep students for standardized test, as well as a shift from "enrichment" to "reward" field trips.

EducationNext highlighted the challenge of making the case for this particular type of enrichment activity because of a lack of "rigorous evidence about how field trips affect students". They then presented research from " the first large-scale randomized-control trial" to examine what students learn from visiting, in this case, an art museum.*

Reflections of a Museum Educator

Rachel Trinkley has worked as a museum educator for over a decade in the Midwest and DC. She is currently Director of Education for Explore! Children’s Museum of Washington, DC, a start-up children’s museum in the district with plans to open in the Fort Totten neighborhood in the coming years.

I recently spent some time with colleagues preparing for an upcoming educators’ conference at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where I was struck by a painting titled Braceros, by Domingo Ulloa.

Later I stood by myself in front of the work for I don’t know how long - writing down what I saw, thought, and wondered. This experience - in the midst of my day-to-day work of trying to help establish a children’s museum in the district - was a much-needed reminder about the power of art.