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The World is Better Because of Museums

Category: Influence of Museums
Two young children smile out from within a dinosaur sculpture.

Museum professionals from across the globe share personal stories about how museums play a vital role in society and can have a powerful, positive impact in the lives of the individuals and greater communities they serve.

Transcript

Laura Lott: We believe that museums make the world better and that AAM makes museums better.

Sarah Sutton: I believe they can change the world, and that every person who engages with a museum can find the way that they can change the world.

Cecile Shellman: Museums are for lifelong learning and there is something in a museum for everyone.

Andrés Roldán: The great discovery of museums for me, was this idea that you learn by choice, and not by obligation.

Simone Segal: And strictly because I was able to go with school trips to museums, I grew my entire interest around history.

Anthony Pennay: So, as a teacher, I always really looked hard for ways to integrate museum learning and out of the classroom learning with my students.

Rebecca Richter: So when I told them, “Okay, you should come. Grab my hand, come inside with me.” They were … they had this look, like amazement. This is so huge, this is so wonderful and I told them, “We can go inside the rooms, and we can see art and we can see paintings.”

Penny Jennings: We have a responsibility and obligation to our communities to not just be the keeper of their objects, but also, to lift up the stories, from our communities.

Kaleigh Bryant-Greenwell: Museums serve as a space where community histories are preserved, where community histories are living, today.

Esther Chipashu: They take care of our heritages so I think museums are really important because if we do not have museums, there’s no heritage, there’s no history to talk about.

Cynthia Torp: The public trusts us, to tell the truth. We’ve got a real responsibility to the public, to help educate, to help provide information, to help provide a safe place to talk about the issues of our culture.

Johnnetta Betsch Cole: But it’s in that museum, that I found solace, that I found comfort.

Anthony Pennay: Whether it’s a museum of technology, a museum of natural history, a museum of American history, or something like that, you step out of the bubble that you have kind of created around yourself and thrust yourself into a world that has existed, or that might exist in the future. It just awakens your soul, and awakens your mind in ways that you don’t find, anywhere else.

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