The Question of Children's Museums

Check out this article, published last week in the NY Times: Museum Review - Brooklyn Children's Museum Re-Opening. It's an interesting and thought-provoking piece. Here are some of the questions that it raised with me:

• What is the difference between children's museums and aquariums, zoos, etc.?
• Why are all museums, as the article points out, now children's museums?
• How much learning goes on when play is the focus? Is it the enjoyable means to an educational end or merely fun?
• "Many museums, serving far less troubled neighborhoods than this one does (Crown Heights) are coming to think of themselves as community centers and alternative schools." NEMA's 2008 conference theme is "sustaining community," I wonder how this might be related?

Not sure I have any of the answers to these questions yet, but I'm happy to be pondering them.