Museums as Institutions for Personal Learning

It has long been recognized, but rarely publicly acknowledged, that most people learn much if not most of what they know outside of the formal education system. As Patricia Albjerg Graham recently wrote in Daedalus, "Scholars ranging from the late James S. Coleman and Lawrence A. Cremin to Christopher Jencks have quite properly reminded us of the limited role that schools play in children's education." A vast educational infrastructure exists to support public learning, both inside and outside the workplace. Leisure opportunities for learning are particularly rich. Museums, along with print and broadcast media, community-based organizations, trade book publishing, and (more recently) the Internet, play a vital role in facilitating public learning. Despite years of public educational efforts, the important role museums in particular play in helping the public learn has never been fully understood nor appreciated. The reasons for this are many. However, at the risk of oversimplification, I would suggest that the root of the problem lies in the museum community's historic inability to document the educational impact it has on its visitors.