A Dream Come TrueA Story of a Quest to Make a Dream Come True

Dreams DO Come True

As we drove by the imposing brick building at 13th and K, I was instantly enchanted and I asked the taxi driver to go around the block so I could look at that big old school again. I rolled down the window to snap photos. What a perfect home for a national museum about education! The MOTAL board of directors had already agreed that Washington DC was the best city, for our nation’s capital would draw people already inclined to visit museums. I’d been on the lookout ever since and this was it!


This aging building needed some serious facelifting, but it had beautiful bones. Placed high above the second-floor entrance the words “Franklin School” were carved in stone. The broad structure took up a city block at a central location, just a short walk from The National Mall. Its five stories were topped by towers and minarets that wore decorative caps that looked like the metal covers on a lavish buffet table. Sidewalks and streets in that area were usually filled with traffic and passersby, no matter what the time of day or night. It would be a draw! I had to find out more.


So began six months of living on the opposite side of our nation from my permanent residence in Southern California, enjoying life in a brownstone neighborhood with walk-out-the-door adventures in DC. Museums and national headquarters of key organizations were easily accessible by foot or by bus. I probed records, made human and scholarly connections, and read and heard stories about that magnificent Franklin School. Everything I learned made the Franklin site more appealing for our dream museum.


During a cluster of years around 1870 an architect of international prominence, Adolf Cluss, designed and oversaw the construction of imposing “modern Renaissance” buildings for the DC schools. Two were very similar in design; Cluss knew that they were to be equal in function and capability. However, their clientele would be different; Franklin School was intended to serve white students and just a few blocks north was Sumner School that was to serve Black students.


My enthusiasm grew as I learned that Sumner was already a museum! It was beautifully refurbished and housed the archives, artifacts, and exhibitions of the DC Public Schools. I made many visits to that site, learning about the history of the two companion buildings and becoming friends with the director, a friendly and highly accomplished woman. The Sumner archives provided photos and materials for a small exhibit that revealed details of the building I had fallen for. This school marked a transition to classes set up by individual grades with age-based curriculum in classrooms that were entered through their individual cloakrooms.


The calendar flipped to January and 2016 turned out to be a bonus year for my outreach. Both the American Educational Research Association and the American Alliance of Museums had their national conferences in DC, drawing people from across the nation and abroad. Thanks to those conferences and memberships in three DC organizations, I had the opportunity to gather several focus groups of people to hear me spin ideas about a national museum that would share education’s practices, hot topics, and struggles (the good, the bad, and the ugly). Attendees included an array of educators, museum professionals, architects, business people, and lawyers who were intrigued and positive.


I was ready to visit Mayor Bowser’s office, armed with ideas: twenty-six key concepts and a score of exhibition descriptions that would be interactive, informative, and fun. I had proposals for collaborations of key people and organizations that could work with the city to make this dream come true. So one chilly day I went off to an appointment with two men who were charged with the city’s hunt for a project that would finally take over the Franklin site. Other ideas had been spun and one had even been accepted, only to be shunned when the new mayor came along. I stressed the importance of using the school for a purpose related to its original function, but it in a new, creative fashion. They listened and nodded their heads in agreement with my education pitch. They said they would be in touch.


Weeks rolled by and I realized that my good ideas and zeal may not have been enough to overshadow the fact that my pockets were shallow—very shallow—in a world where philanthropists contribute much more than mere thousands of dollars. The new scuttlebutt around town reached me: a multi-millionaire had come to town with an idea that was gaining traction. It took a while to ask around and finally learn that Ann Friedman, daughter of multi-billionaire Matthew Bucksbaum and wife of Tom Friedman, author and New York Times columnist, had an idea with “a robust balance sheet” and she was also clearly well-connected. The final award of the project to her idea was made official a year later and now, three years after that, a wonderfully interactive and creative museum has opened its doors to small groups of masked visitors while the effects of Covid-19 continue to dampen other attendance dreams.


The new museum, “Planet Word,” is, indeed, schoolteacher Friedman’s dream come true. Although I have not been part of her team, I am on her side. Planet Word has filled Franklin School’s 50,000 square feet with opportunities to experience the thrill of words in all kinds of formats, both high-and low-tech, lively and quiet. It does my heart good to know that Planet Word addresses part of my original hopes. Franklin School has become a fine museum that is a tribute to learning. It isn’t exactly a museum about education, but it glorifies some of education’s most delightful and important content--Reading.


So my dream kinda-sorta came true for dear old Franklin School, and I will continue to educate people about education with a devoted band of friends and colleagues from our headquarters in California. In the meantime, the new leader (the secretary) of the Smithsonian is now Lonnie Bunch, the person who led the effort to make a museum about African-American history come true. Under Bunch, the Smithsonian hasn’t closed the door on new ideas after all. It took 100 years for the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAACH) to be realized, so I may die trying, but I haven’t given up the notion that one day there will be a national museum about education. Stay tuned for more about my obsession.


Learn about Planet Word!
Planet Word, Washington Post
Ann Friedman, Washington Post
Franklin School, Wikipedia


Submitted by Greta Nagel, MOTAL Founding President and CEO