In Through the Out Door: How Microschools and Museums Can Co-Create the Future of Learning

When Led Zeppelin released their album In Through the Out Door, they did something unusual: they released six different album covers, each showing the same barroom scene, but from a different character's point of view. It was a clever design move, allowing fans to choose their own perspective and subtly reinforcing the idea that no single vantage point tells the full story.

This post takes the same approach, examining a shared moment in education, but from two sides of the room. Whether you’re a leader at a cultural institution or a founder of a microschool, charter school, or homeschool collective, you’re part of a bigger story about the future of learning.

Setting the Stage (For Everyone)

In recent years, the U.S. education landscape has experienced a significant shift. The school choice movement, originally focused on charter schools and vouchers, has expanded to include new schooling models like microschools, learning pods, and hybrid homeschool collectives. Especially post-2020, families have increasingly opted for more flexible, interest-driven approaches to education. The number of homeschoolers has surged, and microschools, which were once a fringe concept, are beginning to scale. These new models are nimble, hyper-local, and often unconstrained by the bureaucracies of traditional systems. Whatever your personal view may be on school choice, one thing is certain: the movement has tremendous momentum and is the most significant modern reform movement.

This flexibility presents both a challenge and an opportunity: how can we build rich, standards-aligned, real-world learning experiences without reinventing the wheel in every neighborhood? The answer may already exist in local parks, museums, zoos, aquariums, cultural centers, and performing arts spaces.

Scene One: Cultural Institutions

If you lead a cultural institution, now is the time to think differently about your role in the local education ecosystem. Museums, aquariums, zoos, and theaters already engage with schools through field trips and outreach programs, but what if that’s just the beginning?

Imagine a citywide consortium of cultural institutions co-creating a year-long curriculum tailored for microschools, charter schools, and homeschool students. Each organization contributes content, space, and expertise. This isn’t about becoming schools. It’s about recognizing that your spaces already support powerful learning, and that with a little expert coordination, they can become an integral part of a city’s educational infrastructure.

Research shows that children who visit museums and other cultural institutions tend to have stronger academic outcomes, increased civic engagement, and a greater interest in lifelong learning. These benefits are especially pronounced for students from historically marginalized communities. Cultural institutions are not just enrichment; they're essential educational venues.

Consider the potential: In a large city like Chicago, with over 100 cultural institutions, hundreds of interdisciplinary programs could be created. Medium-sized cities like Kansas City (also with over 100 such institutions) and Pittsburgh (with over 500!), could support an array of themed units across grade levels. Even a smaller city like Asheville, NC, has more than enough local cultural institutions to design meaningful place-based learning experiences aligned with state standards. Museums in these cities and all cities across the country should view this moment as an opportunity not to compete, but to collaborate. If a student explores one of your spaces and has a positive experience, they are likely to explore others. Everyone wins.

Most cultural institutions have quiet weekday hours, times when exhibitions are open but underutilized. What if those hours became moments of peak engagement, where students participate in deep inquiry tied directly to your exhibits and programming?

HB3 can guide this work. With extensive experience in both curriculum development and cultural programming, I help translate your mission into educational experiences that align with state standards and support student-driven inquiry. I’m not asking you to become classroom teachers. I’m inviting you to become partners.

Launching a project like this involves identifying shared learning goals, understanding instructional pacing, developing flexible lesson structures, curricular and instructional planning across various entities, and training facilitators to support student learning in nontraditional environments. The long-term benefits? Increased visibility, loyal partnerships, student focus groups to pilot new ideas, and a meaningful impact on the educational fabric of your city.

Scene Two: Microschools, Charter Schools, and Homeschool Collectives

As a microschool, charter school, or homeschool leader, you already understand the power of flexibility, small group learning, and individualized pacing. But even the most creative educator can hit a wall trying to develop new content week after week. What if your curriculum could expand without adding to your workload?

Cultural institutions are untapped treasure troves for project-based learning. The science museum becomes your biology classroom. The art museum, your studio. The local park, a site for geology, ecology, or creative writing. A performing arts center offers access to storytelling, movement, and community collaboration.

And the benefits are real: Research shows that museum visits are linked to improved critical thinking, empathy, and academic retention. These experiences aren’t diversions; they deepen understanding, offering multisensory ways for students to explore core subjects. A unit on ecosystems can culminate in a hands-on biodiversity study in a botanical garden. A social studies unit on civil rights can come alive through curated exhibitions and oral histories at a local history museum.

Rather than disrupting learning, visits to cultural institutions become the catalyst for meaningful application and exploration. These environments allow students to apply earlier content in context-rich settings, stretch their thinking, and generate new questions and insights.

When institutions collaborate with educators, the result is not a series of one-off trips but a structured, meaningful learning arc. Imagine students studying ancient civilizations through an archaeology exhibit, then crafting historical fiction stories, and finally presenting their work at a community showcase held inside the museum itself.

HB3 can help turn these possibilities into realities. I work with microschools and homeschool leaders to map out curriculum arcs that take full advantage of local resources, while still meeting content standards. I build performance assessments that make learning visible, and I help educators navigate the logistics of using public spaces as classrooms.

This work involves co-designing pacing guides, aligning experiences to state frameworks, planning formative assessments, and training facilitators to manage instruction outside of the classroom. The long-term benefit? A deeper, richer educational experience that helps students see learning as something dynamic and alive.

Final Verse: A Shared Vision

This moment calls for innovative partnerships. Cultural institutions and microschools, charter schools, and homeschool communities are natural allies. One offers the space and content; the other brings the learners and a hunger for connection. Together, they can build a model of place-based education that scales across communities.

The potential is enormous. Cultural institutions gain loyal, repeat audiences. Microschools gain depth and diversity in their curriculum. Students benefit from hands-on, memorable experiences that foster a lifelong love of learning. Institutions can even pilot new exhibits or programs with student input. And both parties can pursue grants or sponsorships to sustain and expand the collaboration (imagine the funders who would be interested in supporting an innovative project such as this).

HB3 can be the key partner to guide this work from idea to implementation. I know how to speak both languages, curriculum and culture, and I specialize in helping teams translate vision into action.

So whether you're coming in through the museum door or the microschool door, I invite you to join me in the center of the room. Let’s co-create something worth playing on repeat.

Ready to get started? Let’s turn the volume up on this collaboration. Contact me today and let’s form the partnerships needed to bring this vision to life!

(Illustrations created with the assistance of ChatGPT's image generation tools.)