I first began to notice the importance of old worksheets on the day that I moved.

Cardboard boxes were stacked on top of each other in some herculean feat of compartmentalizing a life long lived in an apartment long loved. I had to decide what to pack and what to throw away, and all I could think about was the small doodles on my kindergarten sheets, golden in the autumn sun. It was ridiculous; a new life was inevitably going to cost me my old one, and yet I simply couldn’t let it go. 

So I didn’t. To this day, my old worksheets sit squirreled away in the back of my new closet. I only just recognized them when I began my packing for college—a distant relic of a past that made me question: why couldn’t I let go?

I’ve pored over books and looked at life to try to understand what it is that keeps pulling me back. Whether it’s to my closet or to the history of a beach I visit every so often, there’s always something that tells me to stay and observe, if only for a moment. 

My closet is just another amalgamation of relics from the past; or, in other words, just another museum. There’s something to remember in everything, and I’ve learned that there is nothing worse we can do than stop visiting the scenes of the old, stop opening the doors to museums. In her book Messenger, Lois Lowry contemplates this forgetting. She writes, “That’s why we have the Museum, Matty, to remind us of how we came, and why: to start fresh, and begin a new place from what we had learned and carried from the old.” 

So if we hold onto memory so much, why do we allow the past to become so blurry? The average American home contains 300,000 items, a clear reflection on our tendency to hold on to our past. And yet, a 2018 study by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that only 1 in 3 Americans could actually pass the U.S. citizenship test, which asks basic questions about our history and how our system of government works. The current presidential administration has cut federal funding for nearly every Bay Area museum. We are stuck in a strange dichotomy of sentimentality and the erasure of history, neglecting one larger past for another without realizing both go hand-in-hand.

To better understand why our draw to preserve matters, I sat down with Daniel Weiss, the former CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2015-2023, and current professor and author of Why The Museum Matters for more answers about why he believes, truly, the museum matters—and in turn, our history. 

You address this in your book, but at its core—why does the museum truly matter today?

“I think museums are among the only institutions that have the exclusive responsibility for preserving and studying and presenting our cultural history. Well actually it’s beyond culture—it’s our history. Art museums preserve art but other kinds of museums preserve other kinds of materials. So they allow us to connect in material ways with human legacy. And that’s fundamental. To understand who you are is to understand where you came from, and how your experience in the world is informed by that of previous generations going back a long time.”

That’s so interesting. How have your experiences working with museums and studying art history shaped your understanding of the field, and how you perceive history?

“Well, I was first drawn to art history because I was really drawn to the idea of using works of art as a way to connect with cultures and civilizations from the past. I really was intrigued by the idea that we can learn something about the ancient world by looking at works of art that they had made. And one of the things that I think is especially interesting about that is when we think about cultural transmission—say music or theater—those things are always interpreted. If you’re interested in Beethoven’s music, you’re going to go experience that at the New York Philharmonic or Carnegie Hall or wherever you go. But it isn’t Beethoven you’re listening to. Works of art are unmediated by anyone else. So when you see works of art, as they were made by the people who created them, and in that sense, I was drawn to the idea that when I look at an ancient work of art, I’m staring right into ancient history, in a direct and immediate way.”

Yes, exactly. It’s so interesting to be able to look at something and realize that somebody all those years ago was looking at it the same way that you are.

“Exactly. When you walk through a place like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all of these works of art lived and existed in countless places and times that are really important and interesting. And you have a chance to connect with them directly the same way Julius Caesar did or Alexander the Great or Beethoven. It’s an amazing thing to do that.”

I was walking through the MET the other day, and I saw this bust of Julius Caesar. It was so amazing to think that the sculptor actually stood before and was studying Caesar, and now we’re seeing the art that the sculptor created, which is so mind-blowing to me.

“It is. It is also possible that Julius Caesar saw that same image. A lot of those things were seen and experienced by the people they’re about.”

That’s so wild to me. It’s why I love museums and history—it’s the one connector that connects all of us throughout time. It’s so human, which is so interesting.

“Well said. By the way, your passion and your view on this is very compelling.”

Thank you. What would you say to someone who questions the importance of preserving the past?

“Well, I think, as many historians have said over the years, if we ignore history, we’re doomed to repeat it. And it is an act of profound disrespect to ignore the many generations of human beings that have made your life possible. The way we live now is the resulting consequence of the efforts of people going back a long time. And to be indifferent to that, as I say, is ignorant and disrespectful. We think about the march of civilization that ideally—in the way it should work—every generation experiences better kinds of lives than the generations in the past. We live longer, we’re healthier, we know more, we have access to more resources—that’s the idea. If we think about that, we’re living on the effort of our predecessors. Otherwise we’d all be living in caves and eating grass off the ground. So it’s useful to be respectful and it’s a moral obligation to be respectful of the history that created your life.”

Thank you.

—

I think I now know why I couldn’t let go. Our past is hand-in-hand with our present; it isn’t so much a bygone notion as it is the context of our every moment. My worksheets, as silly as they may seem, represent a part of me that reminds me that art exists in every corner of life. It is easy to forget that as we grow. 

No matter how little or big as they may be, museums exist to teach us to take a step back and reflect. And though there is the future knocking on our door every moment the clock knocks on by, I argue this: hold onto that worksheet. Walk through a museum door. Allow yourself a few minutes every day to remember all that came before us, to contextualize everything that surrounds us today. 

The world is spinning by us. And yet, there is the simple marvel of recognizing a doodle a Mesopotamian child once created as something your younger self mindlessly scribbled too, preserved behind a glass window to the past, for us to view and remember that there has been good here and will be good here still. There is a world before us that we have a duty not to forget, and what a world it is.

“It’s a moral obligation to be respectful of the history that created your life,” said Daniel Weiss, the former CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2015-2023, and current professor and author of Why The Museum Matters.