Three Years Later: Museum Education Remains Vulnerable
In the fall of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Kera Collective did a small pro bono study for the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association, and the results were published in the Journal of Museum Education the following year. The study was initiated as layoffs were occurring across the museum field. We suspected that more museum educator jobs were being cut or reduced than other positions in museums, so we sent out a survey to educators to gather data. Our suspicions were confirmed. You can read the full results in our article but suffice it to say the data indicated:
“Education is not truly prioritized in museums. The job losses and budget cuts contradict where many of us believed education sat in the power hierarchy of museums and are concerning to say the least. The fact that education was more negatively affected than almost all other departments suggests a return to the “uncertain profession .”
One reason we did the study was to capture a moment in time and to provide evidence (as opposed to anecdote) of what we were all witnessing. In the article, we considered the implications of the layoffs and cutbacks, citing these three: 1) burnout, 2) brain drain, 3) and loss of audiences.
1. Burnout
Burnout is a natural result of decreasing the number of staff while maintaining the same amount of work. There are fewer people to do the same amount of (or more) work. When this becomes a permanent state, educators experience frustration with their role in their museum, feel they are not adequately respected for their contributions, and realize the lack of influence they have. This is what has happened in many museum education departments in the last few years. Sierra Van Ryck deGroot, Deputy Director of Museum Hue, talks about outdated museum hiring practices in this podcast episode of We the Museum. And Mike Murawski, consultant and change leader, writes about the state of museum education today on his substack, Agents of Change. He shared this on LinkedIn recently:
“I'm seeing extreme burnout across the field, and so many incredible folks in education continue to leave museums for other jobs. No one is listening to them when they talk about their overwork and the urgent need to slow things down. And many are afraid to even mention their burnout for fear of being fired, looked upon as a failure, or even passed by when a rare promotion opportunity comes along.”
2. Brain Drain
Brain drain is a natural result of burnout. When people feel burnt out and disrespected, they will search for employment elsewhere. I can easily name 10 senior-level museum educators who, in the last three years, are no longer working in museums (some through layoffs and others by choice). Many of them are now independent consultants. My experience with all of them is that they are dynamic, talented, passionate people who would like to make change in museums from the outside but also realize that their expertise has value beyond museums. The departure of these educators’ voices and experience destroys gains they may have made in leadership within their museum and, more broadly, is a huge setback for the professionalization of museum education.
3. Loss of Audiences
I have seen a steep uptick in the number of museums actively trying to diversify their audiences and serve their local communities since 2020; however I’m not sure how effective these efforts are. Audience development is relationship building. And museum educators’ work is inherently relational. They are the ones most likely to interact with community members and new audiences through public and educational programming. With so many educators feeling burnt out and fleeing the field due to burnout, museums’ relationships to communities become tenuous.
Our 2020 study has not been replicated, but our article has recently been re-shared and liked by multiple folks on LinkedIn. Unfortunately, this comeback is not to celebrate how far we have come since 2020, but rather to lament that things have not improved. There is a general sense that burnout and brain drain are coming to fruition, which could then lead to loss of audiences.
Though things may not have improved in significant ways, one notable difference from 2020 until now is that the conversation about inequities in the museum profession has become commonplace and explicit. For example, labor strikes like the one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was led by a museum educator, have led to improvements and made their way to national attention. I hope that unrelenting attention and solidarity continues to gain momentum. It is bound to lead to change, however incremental it may be.
