According to the author, social institutions, museums included, must evolve with society. Museums must transform in order to to remain relevant in modern society. The author lays out numerous claims about how to wholly reinvent museums so as to allow students and citizens of all ages to better engage with the materials in museums. Rather than “causing a fundamental shift in the role of museums in today’s world,” I would argue that museums can easily reach a wider audience, capitalizing on the contents they already have because we live in an increasingly globalized, informationalized, digital world.
This books reads as a manual on how to overhaul the traditional system, which I find ironic because I always viewed museums as great because of the diversity they celebrate. There are museums that deal with everything from the racist groups to the Holocaust, from the local company that defined the town to radical social groups, the list goes on and on. Historical museums must display substantive history that explains the rich, diverse history of the people, the community, the nation, and the world. Wholesale change in substance is not needed: individual museums have the right to display what they so choose. What museums really need to work on is displaying that information in a better way. To this end, the author has much to say.
In regards to creating a Constructivist Museum, museums must certainly cater to all types of people; however, to state that one specific type of museum is by nature better than every other types seems a bit ridiculous. The author argues that Howard Gardner “had the constructivist museum in mind when he used the museum as a model for education;” however, Howard Gardner would have most certainly seen the benefits in a discovery based museum as well. Moreover, Howard Gardner would advocate for a museum that reaches all of the multiple intelligences. Society is full of many different people that think, learn, engage, and react in different ways; as such, museums must cater to all of those people, traditional learners as well. Only a museum that engages all visitors in new ways while also maintaining historically significant contents will survive in the modern era. Similarly, educators can work to reform museums all they want and incorporate community based initiatives, but the information must be presented in a way that will resonate with all types of learners in order for true learning to ever occur.