Children's Museums

I ran across this article about children's museums today in Huffington Post:
First the Children

Excerpt from the article (bold emphasis mine):

"More and more Children's museums are focusing on ways to provide the new thinking skills and the pathways to thinking creatively which the 21st century workplace demands . . . The idea of collaborating to engage the larger community in rethinking about the importance of arts and culture to foster creativity and innovation is best found in an organization called Thriving Minds (formerly called The Dallas Arts Learning Initiative) in Dallas, Texas. Now more than ever,' their website proclaims, 'creativity and imagination are an important part of helping children learn to think critically, solve problems and express themselves -- all necessary to compete in today's global community.'"

(Note: photo above is Jake at the children's museum I'm about to talk about, in 2010.)

Being in a college art class has me thinking a lot about the role of art in our lives and our world - art not being narrowly defined here as a painting or photograph, but creative interaction and experiences. Children's museums provide a space and opportunity to be creative in ways that most children don't usually have access to.

Murfreesboro (in Rutherford County, southeast of Nashville) has a great children's museum - The Discovery Center - that we really enjoy. Jake went to a summer day-camp there last year, and is signed up for one in July as well. We have attended birthday parties at The Discovery Center, as well as visited with his 1st grade class.

I don't think I've stopped before to think about how rare it is to have such an amazing space for children just a few miles from our house. The Discovery Center is a privately funded non-profit institution, which to me means there are lots of people in my area that place a high priority on art and discovery in children's lives! (Yay, Rutherford County!)

(The pictures in the scrapbook page are from a birthday party in 2007.)