The Museum
as a
Classroom

Penn GSE alumni use their
passion for education to teach
learners of all ages through exhibits,
outreach, and special collections.

By Lini S. Kadaba

hile at a flea market more than three decades ago, Randy Hayward, GRD’11, came upon a Black ragdoll. It was handmade, thought to be from the ’30s or ’40s.

Randy Hayward, GRD’11, sharing a boxing robe signed by Muhammed Ali

Randy Hayward, GRD’11, sharing a boxing robe signed by Muhammad Ali from his collection of more than 2,000 artifacts in the Traveling Black History Museum

“I thought, ‘Wow,’” he recalled, still with a hint of excitement. “Back then, not a lot of toys represented Black children.”

Fascinated, he bought it. And so began his dedicated pursuit of Black Americana. Two thousand artifacts later, the Detroit native is curator of the Traveling Black History Museum he founded in 2019 when he left the Detroit-based Marvin L. Winans Academy of Performing Arts, where he was superintendent and lead principal. But his passion for education is never far. Hayward spends his time researching historical pieces and sharing his discoveries with schoolchildren, college students, and others.

“I bring in these artifacts, and for the first time you’re holding a piece of history,” he said—with “proper gloves, of course,” he added. “You’re transported to that place, and then I get to tell a story that’s inviting to hear.”

The collection, spanning the antebellum era to the present, includes shackles that once bound enslaved people; a rare medallion from the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association; a boxing robe signed by Muhammad Ali; and signed tennis rackets from Serena and Venus Williams. His trove also pays homage to Black motorcycle racers and Hayward’s own enthusiasm for the sport—he has a bevy of antique bikes. “My artifacts,” he said, “really speak to the American experience.”

Like Hayward, other Penn GSE alumni who work in a variety of roles at museums are bringing a range of knowledge to people of all ages—teaching not in traditional classrooms but through exhibits, outreach, and special programs.

One such alum works at the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) in Nashville, Tennessee, sharing the marginalized histories spotlighted at the museum to garner support among potential donors. Another, the founder of the National Museum of American Illustration (NMAI) in Newport, Rhode Island, is on a mission to enlighten the public about the artistic talent of once-overlooked illustrators. At Baltimore’s Port Discovery Children’s Museum, an alum spearheads imaginative programs that teach parents the importance of play, while a museum educator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is building bridges between the past and present.

THE SOUNDS OF LEGACY

"Night Mare" / "Hound Dog" vinyl floating above column

“Night Mare” / “Hound Dog” Published by Peacock Records, Inc., Recorded by Big Mama Thornton, American, 1926–1984
Photo credit: Courtesy of National Museum of African American History and Culture

“Museums are learning institutions,” said Dexter D. Evans, GED’18, NMAAM’s director of development. “We preserve documents and artifacts and legacies for the education of the public.”

The three-year-old, 56,000-square-foot music museum celebrates African American contributions to the American soundtrack. Touch panels in the Rivers of Rhythms Pathway, the museum’s backbone, immerse its 250,000 annual visitors in the sounds of spirituals and blues, contemporary R&B, and hip-hop, while tying historical events to “iconic music moments,” as its website says. In other exhibits, guests can dance with Beyoncé and Michael Jackson, produce their own songs, and explore artifacts from music legends.

“The purpose of NMAAM is to educate the world on undiscovered and often hidden talents and treasures within the African American music community,” Evans said. “More than 50 genres of music are related to and influenced by African Americans. We’re really uncovering that and highlighting so many artists, even artists historically misrepresented in the ’40s and ’50s.” One exhibit, he said, illustrates the history of Elvis Presley’s hit “Hound Dog,” rightfully placing original recording artist Big Mama Thornton at its center.

At Penn, Evans pursued a certificate in Africana studies with a focus on ethnomusicology in addition to his master’s in higher education, never expecting to land at an African American music museum. Initially, he returned to administration at Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas, and then joined a magnet school, where he focused on philanthropy, before landing at NMAAM in 2022. His first year, Evans raised $2 million, he said, before assuming his current role, where he is overseeing a $12-million campaign.

Dexter D. Evans, GED’18
Photo credit: Karen L. Richard

Even though not in academics, Evans sees himself as an educator first, using his GSE-developed skills to communicate the museum’s mission—and why it’s a worthy cause to support—and helping colleagues “convey messages in a compelling way.” He’s also involved with the museum’s Black music industry certification program, an eight-week virtual exploration of the music industry that exposes college students to industry leaders and the music business.

“I was a learner at Penn GSE, but I also was gaining knowledge to be a teacher among my peers and community,” said Evans, who is also currently pursuing a doctorate in philanthropic leadership at Indiana University. “I spend a lot of time getting people right.”

ILLUSTRATING KNOWLEDGE

NMAI’s founder and executive director Judy (Alpert) Goffman Cutler, CW’63, GED’64, also focuses on education, teaching visitors about the artists who used their illustrations to sell products in the late-19th through the mid-20th centuries—the “Golden Age of Illustration.”

“It was considered commercial,” said Goffman Cutler, “so it was dismissed by the art establishment. I turned that around by showing the underlying artwork first, teaching everybody about the original painting. It is a completely different experience to look at paintings in their original form, as opposed to their printed form—like tasting a meal instead of looking at a picture of it.”

The National Museum of American Illustration, currently closed for renovation but open by appointment, houses about 2,000 pieces by Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle (“the father of American illustration”), J.C Leyendecker, James Montgomery Flagg (creator of the iconic Uncle Sam poster, “I Want You!”), N.C. Wyeth, John Falter, Jessie Willcox Smith, Violet Oakley, and more than 150 others in a Gilded Age mansion. Works by these artists were originally commissioned for magazines, newspapers, books, posters, advertisements, greeting cards, or calendars, Goffman Cutler explained.

“At the end of the day,” she quipped, “the only difference between a fine artist and an illustrator is that an illustrator can pay for his lunch and the artist is usually starving.”

Judy Goffman Cutler, CW’63, GED’64, smiling in front of a J.C. Leyendecker illustration

Judy (Alpert) Goffman Cutler, CW’63, GED’64, in front of a J.C. Leyendecker illustration
Photo credit: © 2010 by the National Museum of American Illustration

After earning an undergraduate degree in American studies, with a minor in art, and then a master’s in education, Goffman Cutler became a high school teacher—she didn’t care for the other two career options, nurse or secretary, available to women at the time, she said. Unable to buy the paintings of popular modern artists on a teacher’s wage, the art aficionado purchased more affordable illustrations. When she managed to sell her Louis Icart works for several thousand dollars, her personal collection turned into a business. So began her career as an art dealer in the original works by American illustrators.

In 2000, Goffman Cutler opened the NMAI. The collection, she said, records the history of America and “American values, who we were, what we came from, and how we evolved.” She also has authored numerous books and catalogues, primarily on Rockwell, Leyendecker, and Parrish, and the museum has developed several traveling shows, including the recent Rockwell/Wyeth: Icons of Americana at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, and Under Cover: J.C. Leyendecker and American Masculinity at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library.

All along, Goffman Cutler said, she has most enjoyed learning about the illustrators and, ever the teacher, then sharing that knowledge. “The museum gave me the opportunity,” she said. “Learning should be fun, not a chore, and so too is the teaching.”

PLAY WITH A PURPOSE

Certainly, Rachel Demma, GRD’18, would agree. As vice president of learning, visitor experience, and community engagement at Baltimore’s Port Discovery Children’s Museum since 2021, her mantra is: “Play is always learning, and learning—particularly for young children—is always best activated through play.”

Rachel Demma smiling next to dinosaur statue made of wood

Rachel Demma, GRD’18, on-site at Port Discovery Children’s Museum

Port Discovery offers a multitude of experiences that foster exactly that, what the website calls “purposeful play.” The museum’s four-story winding slide, the SkyClimber, builds confidence and motor skills. At a pretend convenience store, children act as cashiers, shoppers, and stockers, fostering imagination while also learning about food groups and how to take turns. Other play areas include a recreation of an archeological excavation of ancient Egypt, complete with artifacts; a two-story, life-size cargo ship that explores the Port of Baltimore and its many jobs; and Wonders of Water, where visitors can create fountains and learn about cause and effect.

“Part of our work,” she said, “is to build the understanding that play is developmentally essential. It’s how we learn about ourselves and our peers and other people—and about the world around us.”

Over nearly two decades, Demma has gone from carrying out big-picture education policy at the federal and state government levels to developing early childhood parent education on the frontlines. The Parents at Play program, for one, brings together caregivers for workshops that culminate in a play session at the museum. One pride point is the Children’s Library of Things, a partnership with the local library system that loans out backpacks stuffed with books, activities, and toys to support key milestones. Demma also is designing the newly launched At Play Early Learning Institute to strengthen the pipeline of high-quality early childhood educators.

Her doctorate in educational and organizational leadership, she said, has given context to her work and fostered a strong professional network that she often taps. “I use what I learned in the GSE program every day in my professional life,” Demma said. “For me, there was a throughline from understanding policy and early childhood systems to the role children’s museums play in communities.” Her dissertation on the origins of socioeconomic diversity in early childhood programs and the benefits to children resulted in a 2022 Journal of Early Childhood Research publication.

Camden Copeland, C’16, GED’21
Photo credit: Paul D. Best

HANDS-ON HISTORY

For older students, learning through exposure to museums takes more complex forms, of course, but still involves captivating hands-on interactions—at least that’s the philosophy of Camden Copeland, C’16, GED’21. The senior museum educator, who joined the Penn Museum in 2022 after leaving the classroom, manages the museum’s teen programming.

Unpacking the Past, a Penn Museum program begun in 2014, brings the ancient world to life for 6,000 sixth and seventh graders each year who are studying those cultures by providing interactions with archaeological artifacts and hands-on activities at all Title I Philadelphia schools. The program also organizes no-cost field trips to the museum. As the students tour the collection, they are challenged to think critically about commonalities between past and present communities.

“One of the goals is to expand and help students have increased empathy for other cultures and for other people who may be different,” Copeland said. In one activity, students look for a present-day artifact—say, tweezers—also used in ancient times. (Romans had tweezers.) Students “can start to make connections between ancient people and themselves.”

Copeland also runs Hands-on History, which targets high schoolers with Saturday workshops focused on museum studies and archaeological science through experiential activities such as papermaking, botanical dying, and ancient bread-making.

The urban studies major returned to Penn for her teaching certificate in secondary education through GSE’s Urban Teaching Residency program after working at a boarding school in South Africa. The post-pandemic classroom environment at the Philadelphia public school where she taught English, however, pushed her to look for another way to work with youth. The self-described “museum nerd” jumped at the chance to join the Penn Museum, where she had taken classes as an undergraduate.

Philadelphia middle schoolers looking at clay vases at the Penn Museum

Philadelphia middle schoolers on a field trip to the Penn Museum as part of the Unpacking the Past program
Photo credit: Courtesy of Penn Museum

Now, Copeland’s playing a role in creating the next generation of, well, museum nerds.

“Museums can feel inaccessible,” she said. “Unpacking the Past gets kids out of the classroom, experiencing a new place. It’s not just stuff in a textbook. It’s real.”

EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCES

Back in Detroit, Hayward talks about Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) theory—a topic he delved into as part of his dissertation in Penn GSE’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational and Organizational Leadership. ZPD posits that people develop, for better or worse, based on their environment.

“I’m practicing the theory every day,” Hayward said, adding that exposing children to new experiences helps them “see beyond what I call the ‘five-block radius.’”

And isn’t that the goal of any educator, to open students up to the vastness of the world?

To that end, Hayward fills well-worn steamer trunks with his goods and goes around the country, presenting programs on Jim Crow, Black music, and “Souls on Wheels,” among others, even as he continues to build his collection.

“We have to stop limiting Black history solely to the trials and tribulations,” he said of his intentional inclusion of memorabilia that celebrates African American accomplishments in sports, music, politics, and even motorcycling. “This history is so rich in so many different ways.

“You can go down the rabbit hole of discovery. It’s invigorating, daunting, enlightening, sometimes shocking, but rarely boring.”

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