Where are the objects? Why is this a museum? What allows us to claim special educational status for these charming play spaces?

As a museum educator who has spent two decades thinking about object-based education, I found the shift to children’s museums challenging. Where are the objects? Why is this a museum? What allows us to claim special educational status for these charming play spaces? To find answers, I turned to the literature.

Sometimes I write things that appear somewhere other than Museum Questions! To learn more about why children’s museums are the way they are, I looked through the Curator archives, which turned into this virtual issue. Take a look, not only at my article, but at the articles from the archives, many of which are really wonderful. Happy reading!