Are you fond of the historic stuff, from old books to history maps and a lot more, then you could be a museum educator. Not a common job but something exciting to do actually. Get to know the nature of the work of a museum educator and may be you can be one in the future.
What is Museum Educator?
Museum Educator teaches in a museums, art exhibit and cultural sites. They make sure that tourists, students and spectators learn from the places where they are visiting. They help children and tourists by giving those activities to help them learn and understand about the exhibits. They also deliver talks and demonstration and often works with a group of other educators. Most of the time they focus on school aged children.
Duties of a Museum Educator
Museum Educator performs the following and not only limited to these:
- Teaches children and visitors about information regarding the museum including its programs, exhibits and other learning opportunities.
- Performs outreach community services.
- Develops and look for other opportunities for schools.
- Facilitates school programs both for students and families.
- Coordinates with other speakers.
- Creates new educational program.
- Engages students to participate in museum collection.
- Writes curriculum both for school program and museum too.
- Conducts research and other outreach activity for museum audience.
- Presents both to large and small groups.
- Develops the content for the museum’s website.
Work Condition of a Museum Educator
Museum Educators works usually inside the museum. They spend their time studying the art crafts and other exhibits to form an educational program. They too work outdoors if the class or exhibits need to be done that way. They should be comfortable dealing with large and small group of people whatever their ages. They need to handle tourists, visitors and children and teach them regarding the exhibits and other stuff inside the museum. They too should be comfortable working with other people with different languages and cultures. Museum Educators can even work evenings or weekends particularly for some classes that take place in the evening. They too sometimes work on weekend to conduct research and other activities to help them be prepared on their next lesson or program.
Educational Requirements of a Museum Educator
Museum Educator that has both bachelor and master’s degree can be helpful. They need to have special courses regarding education, history and science. It is quite advantageous that Museum Educators have a through knowledge on museum including history and science, theory and other principles. Most of the time having a master’s degree in museum studies is often required in this field to be employed. There are some schools also that offer specialization in museum education. Students will conduct their internship in the museums to help them get the desired position.
Occupation and Progress of a Museum Educator
The employment on Museum Educators is quite fair because of the limited number of museum available in the locality. Sometimes there is great competition among the institutions having a lot of job applicants. To be qualified for the position one mush finish a graduate museum programs, conducts internships and offers volunteer work. Sometimes small museums only hire seasonal work during school year or summer classes. Museum Educators can be promoted from a small museum work to a larger one. There are educators also that focus only on specific area in the museum. Others also can further their studies to education in arts and pursue a fulltime teaching career.
Being a Museum Educator is not a common job but this offers prestige also because of the limited number of museum and competition happening. You can be like this one if you love to study arts, history and science.