Teaching Social Justice: About Museums, Culture, and Justice to Explore in Your Classroom

Are you a teacher, student or educator who advocates for museums as a tool for learning? Do you see yourself in museums? Therese Quinn discusses her new volume, School: Questions About Museums, Culture, and Justice to Explore in Your Classroom (Teachers College Press/2020). Quinn will be in conversation with local museum educators who are pushing the boundaries of learning, authority, pedagogy and representation. Speakers include teachers, museum educators and activists: Nancy Villafranca, Director of Education, Chicago History Museum and Michael Ramirez, Education Manager, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.

About the Book: Museums are public resources that can offer rich extensions to classroom educational experiences from tours through botanical gardens to searching for family records in the archives of a local historical society. Quinn presents ideas and examples of ways that teachers can use museums to support student exploration while also teaching for social justice. Topics include: disability and welcoming all bodies, celebrating queer people’s lives and histories, settler colonialism and decolonization, fair workplaces, Indigenous knowledge, and much more. This practical resource invites classroom teachers to rethink how and why they are bringing students to museums and suggests projects for creating rich museum-based learning opportunities across an array of subject areas. Books will be available for purchase from Seminary Co-op Bookstore.

About the Author: Therese Quinn is Associate Professor and Director of Museum and Exhibition Studies, and an elected representative for her union, UIC United Faculty, at the University of Illinois at Chicago.