very nice post

Our obsessive fear of germs has threatend to reduce free exploration. The reality is that while childrens' brains are growing they are also gaining important immune growth while in that sea of germs. I remember being a kid and climbing through the giant nostrils of a sculpted nose at Impressions 5 children's museum. It was a glorious portrayl of germy fun:)

Great point, and how cool to climb inside a nose! Sort of like a Roal Dahl narrative. You got me to look up the museum - is it the one in Lansing? Thanks for your kind words.

I am one of the fortunate “lab technicians” at Boston Children’s Museum, and let me tell you first of all that if you make it a daily practice to visit us, ideally over the course of many years, your immune system will also be virtually invincible. I highly recommend it.
I want to thank you for articulating the serious stuff behind the apparent chaos and seemingly-random fun happening at children’s museums! It is really gratifying to hear the reflections of someone who squeezed through our doors, also sporting X-Ray Vision (or would that be MRI?) into the minds of the crawlers and climbers zipping around our exhibits. Although most parents are grateful just to get their kids out of the house, many are oblivious to the work and expertise that goes into engineering accessible, enjoyable experiences that are durable enough to withstand the hands and feet (and mouths – we do a lot of cleaning) of thousands while engaging enough to switch kids’ gears from full-body workouts to fine motor exploration, listening, and sharing. Some adults are at first confused by the open-ended nature of many of the experiences we create – they feel as though they’ve “paid for” more structure, and we are somehow withholding services when an educator cheerfully responds to their child’s inquiry with, “what do YOU think it is?” What they don’t know is that we, the designers of the environments and activities offered, actually sit in meetings (albeit sometimes wacky ones - and we very rarely wear lab coats), researching, observing, prototyping and tweaking all aspects of “the visitor experience” in order to engineer situations with maximal brain-cell growth, minimal opportunity for “doing it wrong” (the fear of which, I believe, actually destroys brain cells, or at least increases the chances of a child growing up to be a robot). What we try to offer as supplement to formal education is comparable to art versus craft. Increasingly, schools are pushed towards creating a world of binary and sub-divided information through which a child must follow directions, memorize mental manipulations, and regurgitate information in order to come up with the Right product (for example, a passing score on the MCAS). Children’s museums offer a space more attuned to the inner landscape of the child, where one’s inclinations are clearly the right answer for whatever their brains are piecing together at the moment. I wish every parent would spend the day observing their children with wide eyed wonder, as they witness the miraculous phenomenon of their child’s unique development, through play.
I guess not everyone has to “get” what is going on in the frontal lobes of their toddler as they squeeze “ooblek” through their fingers – happy kids make for happy grown-ups, playing is fun, and the house has not been destroyed. Yay, children’s museums! But it sure is nice to hear appreciation for the fact that there are even more benefits to what we provide than what meets the eye.

I'd give about anything to be at one of those meetings where you think about what you make! You, and others in the business, do a terrific job, and I am happy to toot that horn anytime it helps. Keep up the good work and thanks